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I think this is right. we switched off, got some dubious referee decisions and lost the plot. we need to be smarter, not sure about the kids comments, thought Oscar played well - but we did need an older head to calm things down. Richie Mathers seemed wound up about something and that didnt help. First 40/50 minutes was nigh on perfect, clinical finishing, no mistakes and strong defence - sheffield will be interesting

I thought he was excellent, apart from Nasso in the first half he was stand out.

Look, our friend in the tasmin said it a couple of months ago. We must be beating our opposition and then after that beat them into submission, ruthlessness! Where is that? We need to be beating teams like this by 30, we need to stake our mark in the ground. Leigh and bradford have now looked at that and are now thinking its between them. We need to take a look at our defeats last year and dish out some payback. I am not in anyway happy about this, regardless of whether we were 50-0 up or not, drill those s into submission and more and more!!!!

I'm sorry but let's get this right, he was awful. Awful in the first half, worse in the second - but it didn't matter so much in the first half as we were battering them. For example he'd have chalked off our second try had the Touchie not stuck to his guns. The messing around at the ruck was particularly badly policed - not saying worse for either side btw - but Donnie certainly pushed this to the limit in the second half, especially as our composure went. To be honest I thought the ref got caught up with the excitement of a Donnie comeback in the second haf and just stopped giving a series too obvious calls (the second effort on Mathers when he was already up and playing the ball, not being given for example. He just made the get up and play it motion and the next tackle it was reefed out and a knock on given!).

There's no question we lost our way badly, really badly but a couple of relieving penalities would surely have quelled the Doncater spirit I'm sure and they should have come our way, no excuses. We are however going to have to get wise to the tricks of some of the part-time sides to slow things up, and perhaps most worrying was that we certainly didn't look fitter than them in the last 20 minutes. We need to finish games off better in this league and accept that the standard of refereeing, while p*** poor in SL, is many times worse in this league - we'll need to be better at Rugby basically and yesterday should be a spur to us getting wise sooner rather than later.

Whats happened to Liam Foran? Was he given a run in any of the pre-season game? I'm sure the majority of Salford fans shared their thoughts on his signing when it was announced. A very odd one given the quality you had signed previously and since.

PS - he really is that bad.

Quote: John Gilbert Reds "Whats happened to Liam Foran? Was he given a run in any of the pre-season game? I'm sure the majority of Salford fans shared their thoughts on his signing when it was announced. A very odd one given the quality you had signed previously and since. PS - he really is that bad.'" I haven't seen him so you may get a better reply from someone who has. All that I know is that he did play last weekend when we were tonked by Dewsbury and that those who saw the game weren't impressed by him. www.londonbroncosrl.com/fixtures ... ms-010115/ There's been no mention of him being injured so he must have been dropped.

Quote: John Gilbert Reds "Whats happened to Liam Foran? Was he given a run in any of the pre-season game? I'm sure the majority of Salford fans shared their thoughts on his signing when it was announced. A very odd one given the quality you had signed previously and since. PS - he really is that bad.'" I haven't seen him so you may get a better reply from someone who has. All that I know is that he did play last weekend when we were tonked by Dewsbury and that those who saw the game weren't impressed by him. www.londonbroncosrl.com/fixtures ... ms-010115/ There's been no mention of him being injured so he must have been dropped.

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I was at the Catalan game, and felt he was poor. Added nothing in attack and a very poor kicking game. My understanding was he didnt play great at Dewsbury.

But he is a big unit and maybe worth a go. Thought Oscar played well, though missed a tackle for one of the Doncaster tries. Keyes seemed very quiet, though up against a very experienced opponent

The ref was just poor generally. I also think that, à la Ganson, he always favoured the dominant team, which in the second half was Donny.
Positives for me were:
1. Plenty more people marshalling the defensive line, at least in the first half anyway. One guy can't do this on his own, and leadership across the park is one of the things that has been lacking over the years
2. We put together some really good plays (in the first half)
3. Perhaps counter intuitive, but I think it might be a good thing they shipped points in the second half. If they'd won too easily it might let the complacency back in. Joey can now hammer home the fact that they can't afford to switch off at this level. Of course it's only a 'positive' if it gives them the kick up the a**e that they need and they learn from it.

Perry, totally agree about point 3. mentioned it on another thread.

Do you know if the tries/highlights will be posted anywhere?

Scratch that, found them

If you are gonna ref bash get it right, the touchy does not make the decision on the try only the ref can do that. The only way a touchy can deny a try is if he puts his flag up for foot or ball in touch, if he goes to back line all he is saying is he saw nothing and saw a good grounding ref then makes the call.
As for the incident you talked about with mathers, if anything matters should have been pinged he went back down as tho he had been shot in the legs trying to milk a penalty, ref did the right thing.
As for ripped or dropped ball, we are 60 70 mtrs awsy ref was 10 or 15.
Fact is lads went to sleep and thought game was won

2 points in the bag, lessons learnt (hopefully) and a decent turn out for the first game of the season. As an aside, the highlights being on the website is a nice touch, but somebody have a word about the background music as it is truly woeful.

Lowest crowd of the week in the league I've just read.

Lots of positives to build on though

Agreed. Not just two kids but two stand-offs. We badly missed a first receiver who wanted the ball in his hands. And Barthau is 3 months away, I believe.

I thought OT was a bit soft in defence too. No surprises that all Doncaster's tries were down our left-hand side. I haven't seen any highlights from the Dewsbury game but expect that side of our defence was exposed up there too. Thomas and Farrar next to each other won't hold up against a better oppo.

Still, biggest issue for me was lack of rugby intelligence. We badly needed to change the rhythm of the game but we were a mix of stupid (loose carries) and whiny (decisions go against you, you get on with it). After a couple of turnovers, we needed to get to the end of a set and it made sense to me to kick early in the tackle count and get Doncaster to earn the yards rather than be given them - they were never going to score a try from a set starting in their own half.

1-5 and 8-13 looked very good. Off the bench, Dwyer was our best player IMO but needs more game time. Grima shouldn't have used Wicks and Everett if he didn't trust them - which he obviously didn't. If Dollapi is fit, he should have played as he is streets ahead of Everett at this stage.

976 was impressive. More home fans at this game (850+?) than the average last year.