First off congratulations to Batley.
A first class performance from start to finish, good luck in the final.

Lets be honest here, take a breath and think back 12 months ago or even better think back to around September time.
We have been the most improved team of the season and have played some fantastic RL, Perhaps punching above our weight.
A NR final would have been great and yes we could've be classed as favourites last night but it wasn't to be, throw in Batley always having been our bogey side when it matters and things just didn't pan out.

If I thought our players had chucked in the towel or had massively underperformed I'd be annoyed, they however gave it there all but in the end got beaten by a better side on the night.
The calls for Millaward to go or Robbie Paul not upto it etc, etc are somewhat over the top.

If you'd have said after the Whitehaven home game last season that we'd be in the top half of the league and would be in a semi final of the Northern Rail cup i'd have snapped your hand off.

I'll be happy if we make the playoff's building on from last season, and if we do anything is possible as this team has already proved it can beat anyone on the day (with that all important bit of luck).
These are decent times to be a Leyther and sometimes we concentrate on looking too far forward with the glass half empty glasses on.
Things arn't all that bad thus far and I'm sure they'll be a few more up & downs this season, I'm equally sure Ian Millward and his squad will be taking us in the right direction.

Pretty much how I see things both with the match last night and the season as a whole Jenky

Just watching the match again and on the 55 th minute we have just done our 1 st offload of the night , this is where I feel we have been struggling recently as the offload has been a big part of our early success this season , something that has always been a favourite of Basil's teams

However Batleys very aggressive defence didn't give us the go forward to allow us to get the momentum needed , many times this year Duffs has got us through gaps from the PTB , and he was sorely missed last night


Ian has his work cut out to pick up a short on confidence squad at the moment if we are to be a contender for a GF place , I'm sure he will come up with the neccessary

Rugby League is a simple game and it comes down to confidence. We have none - the players had none in themselves or each other. Batley came into the game on the back of beating us and were full of confidence and it showed in the way they played.

We made a break in the second half and earlier in the season the player would have had two players either side of him ready to take a pass and score on Thursday there was no-one. Batley just wanted it more and had a faster energy about them that we couldn't match.

July is a tough month. We need everyone at full fitness and it was clear again on Thursday that half of those players making a return weren't fit in such a way that it would affect our performance.

Not happy but will still be there next game, supported Leigh too long and seen it all before.
Trying to be constructive I think the pack got hit pretty bad, how many cut heads were there, this couldn't have helped. I think there was plenty of effort just a bit mis directed. We need the dummy runners back and to pass to the left (where Nanyn is normally and he generally scores).

Looking forward to the next game, still plenty of games left and IM will sort it out.