Am I the only one who thought Drinkwater was half decent tonight?

Yes

Anyone for Powell replacing Drinkwater in the halves and having Ratchford as interchange 9.

His kicking close to the line was good, I certainly don't think he was dreadful. The ball never really came out from the forwards tonight, which probably had more to do with the conditions than the halves shirking the ball.

As a senior player on a quota spot he should be demanding more ball though and wanting to be more involved.

That said I do think Hayes was better than him tonight and tried to get involved a lot more.

Fitzgibbon's charge up field with ball in hand was very much Waterhouse… great to see.. and the pass out wide..showed a calmness and awareness..

Our hooker made more effective kicks than this 'recognised' halfback. Says it all. And Hayes outshined him easily. Great hands on the boy, all I saw was Dishwater pass it to the floor. They say a good halfback could play in a dinner suit. This anonymous wage thief could've done so, because he did sod all.

EDIT: One good chase back doth not a good halfback make!

I like Walker and I thought Hayes was great but I didn’t think Drinkwater was terrible…might need to watch it again

Watched Drinkwater closely throughout that game, seemed to avoid the ball more than anything. Credit for the chasing down that intercept though. Still stealing a wage though

As a guilty Currie basher, the lad shut me up tonight. Solid lines, good D and came back on after a nasty gash to the eye. Played smart at times too. Credit where it's due, he showed he could be an asset tonight.

And having just fast forwarded through, I entirely agree that it wasn't a red card and for once, I shudder to type this, I thoroughly agree with Jon Wilkin's little rant at half time. I think Carney was pooping himself while he went off on one, but he was spot on. The game is a shambles and every week we're left talking about ridiculous laws and rules instead of the "greatest show on earth (TM)".

Powell was better than all three.

Dreadful game, but got the win. If it was a pre season friendly, you’d accept it as a decent hit out, so maybe that’s where we are in our readiness.

We need to find some consistency on the right side. Wrench is the only constant, after only 2 games, and he is struggling in defence, both this week and last. Hopefully we can settle with Thewlis and Williams and patch that side up.

The officiating is dreadful though. That’s absolutely not a red card. Genuine question, if he would have accidentally clashed heads with his own man, would he still have been sent off? The facts remain the same, direct and forceful contract to the head. We could be sleepwalking into players seeing reds for friendly fire.

Lots to work on, including turning that cabbage patch back into a pitch for next week!

It was interesting seeing the Gulf in levels of experience between our left edge (Fitzgibbon, Drink water, King and Ashton) compared with our right edge (Holroyd, Hayes, Wrench and Thewlis)
It looked to me like Wrench kept drifting inside to protect Hayes from being trampled all over and then was often leaving his outside exposed leaving Thewlis with a 2 on 1 situation.
Luckily Wrench is rapid so was able to cover but this is all about trust in the fella next to you to make the tackle.
That trust will come and I think last night will be a valuable lesson for all of them and they will all be better for it. It might have been a smart move from Burgess and Co to expose them all together for a bit rather than mixing in experienced players.

On the whole at times it looked like we were playing to a very prescriptive script. We work to position X and do Y and at times it was a bit clunky but I appreciate that we have to work on that in order to control games so that we can open up and play and we sort of saw some evidence of that.

I know Currie takes some stick but I thought he was very good last night and if I am right he started at 13 and moved to second row and played all game apart from his time off the pitch to get a few stitches.

I am not too sure having 2 hookers on the pitch works. Maybe that is just temporary whilst we are without Crowther and Nicholson.
Good to be able to give decent minutes to Wood and Holroyd and Hayes and come up with the 2 points.

Even allowing for the 'red card bingo' and heavy conditions, that was a pretty awful match. I felt I had paid £20 to watch a reserves game at Vicky Park - except I didn't get a seat. Were there any positives ? Well Dudson was rested, and there were no diversions / roadworks on the drive back home. That's about it.

I still can’t see how we got a penalty try. My reading of it was if the tackle was a bit lower it wasn’t a certainty that a try would be scored (I’m fairly sure that’s the test).