Yeah tough one that such a weird game. We cut out the silly handling mistakes and penalties from the CC final and completed well but were so flat.

Our middle defence was awful and even though felt Dufty should have done better in the one on one with MacDonald the other two were 2 on 1 overlaps and he didn't make it look good but was unlikely to stop either.

Our attack was awful, and I thought putting Tai on the wing was a terrible tactical decision he got outstripped for pace and always still defended as a centre Wrench should have been on the wing.
You could see Salfords plan big kick from Sneyd to Dufty getting him to run back in and he wasn't involved as much in the attack as well as offload and get wide. I couldn't tell you what our gameplan was.
I thought we woukd win the forward battle and have kicks in more advance positions but we didnt, id have started Harrison as he look the only prop last night that did anything.
I think a bit of a hangover but now is the test for Sam B its performance almost as much as result next time out to send a message, hopefully a positive one.

Don't understand the slagging of Tai, he actually produced points unlike the majority of the team, and looked genuinely annoyed with how the night had gone.

Why are we STILL persisting with Dufty on tackle 4? Gleeson has been getting a lot of raps - surely has more than one idea??

I take it you mean tackle 5, its cos he can get a quick ptb for the kick

No, it's ALWAYS tackle 4. Even the brain's trust that is the BBC commentary team notice it.

I was a bit confused with the goal kicking options last night with the degree of difficulty. We have a right footed kicker from the right touchline & vice versa. Strange.

I think that Ratchford picked up a strain. Also noticed him carrying some sort of injury to his side during the first half.

'No country for old men'

A problem many of the Wire teams I've watched over three and a half decades, including some talented ones, is an underlying mental fragility. Once momentum starts going against us we find it very hard to break and we get mired into long losing runs.

When Cullen was coach I remember on several occasions after a defeat he'd bring up an earlier defeat as the reason, like "that Cup defeat against St Helens absolutely knocked the stuffing out of us". It's the kind of thing I couldn't imagine a Saints or Leeds coach ever saying - admitting that one bad loss would affect us weeks down the track.

It was a big part of the Steve Price era too. You knew if we had one or two bad losses that was it, we'd win about 2 of the next 10 games. No ability to turn it round.

But when you look at teams like Brian McDermott's Leeds or Shaun Wane's Wigan, usually they'd have a bad month or so of form mid season and their forums would be full of posts from their fans saying McDermott out/Wane out. But you knew that by the time August came round they would be starting off on an ominous winning run.

Now is Sam Burgess's Wire like the softer Cullen and Price teams of the past?
Or are we like McDermott's Leeds and Wane's Wigan?

I'm sure Burgess himself would regard the idea of players going into a funk and feeling sorry for themselves because of previous defeats as being ridiculous.

He finished both chances, fair enough. But aside from that there wasn’t much to report on. Didn’t carry the ball anywhere near often enough, or strongly enough. For comparison, Ashton mad 120+ more meters. Of the 4 wingers, he was 100 meters short of each at least. Got beat on the outside ball watching for the try in the first half, and came up and in again for their try in the second half, but I’ll caveat that with a bit of nervousness given the earlier no-try, I think he’s trying to protect Wrench/Ratchford more than a bad read.

Tough night for him. Decent player, yes, but he was the worst winger on the field, and I would pick every centre bar Wrench above him last night. Put it this way, if that was Greg Minikin last night, this board would be in meltdown.

Back in the centre next week, get back to basics and rebuild into the form of a few weeks ago.

Tai is a Poundland Ryan Atkins. He has no game smarts. When or how to pass, where to position himself or what lines to run. I really hope we don't offer him another contract. I'd rather develop Lindop and Wrench. While on Wrench, I raiser earlier in the season that I was worried I was seeing zero progress in him knowing how to position himself in defence and it's costing us tries. I still have this opinion.

Wrench just needs to play. He needs a loan move and play 80 minutes in the same position every week. For various reasons, he’s been in and out of the team. But he needs to learn the game. Every match is like he’s been plucked from the stands and thrown in at the deep end. There’s a rough diamond in there, but he needs to get a grip of his role.

Well said Bunkaib

`You could see Salfords plan big kick from Sneyd to Dufty getting him to run back in and he wasn't involved as much in the attack as well as offload and get wide`

Great coaching from Rowley.

Speaking of centres, why hasn't that Bruines been given a run yet?

He has had hamstring injury, and consequently hasn`t played a game yet for our Reserve team.

I saw him at yesterday`s Reserve game and he was walking OK, but not sure where his recovery is up to