]

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.

Given Foran's size and greater experience i would wither start with him or have him on bench for Sheffield, he could play a number of positions and would, hopefully, strengthen the defence.

In fairness to Farrar, who i have been critical off, he played quite well and made some decent tackles - but i agree Oscar and him together give to big a target for the opposition

In the first we controlled the ball and all Donny could do was defend. Learn that lesson and we will be fine!

Is that really a surprise given where we were at the end of last season?
After the last two seasons and relegation we were hardly likely to have the hordes flooding through the gate.

What's more instructive is that following relegation and a rubbish season where our average gate was just shy of 1300, we got 976 in, which is better than I expected. If we win a few more there should be something to market to new / returning supporters. (I live in hope)

How did Keyes look?

Keyes, did OK, but nothing spectacular - wasnt particularly prominent

Forget the attendance, it's irrelevant. Trying to compare 1300 average when a large chunk is away support wont tell you anything, what matters is how many home fans come and whether they enjoyed it enough to encourage others to come as well.

So the real question to ask is how did the home support stand up compared to last year.