Well that was a strange game and a very disappointing result.

First half was a close affair with both teams seeming to struggle to adapt to the hot conditions. Some very ad-lib football and not much structure, compounded by plenty of errors.

Second half we just didn't turn up. Couldn't get any possession or momentum. We had some people in the team, who should've stepped up as leaders, who just didn't. Very frustrating.

I really didn't understand our squad selection and rotations today. Red hot weather meant we were always going to need an extra forward on the bench, but instead we name Horsman. Marcus then goes down early in the first half, leaving us a forward and interchange short. Oli then got hooked for Horsman for the last 10 minutes, whilst Rawalui stayed on, baffling.

On the plus side you’ve drawn them in the QF. If you remember to keep going in the second half you should have few difficulties. Then it’s one game from Wembley.

On the radio it sounded like we mounted no attacks at all second half. Can’t all be down to York doing better- sounds like we dropped down several levels which is worrying especially as we have TO up next and I think we can guess how that is likely to go. It’s all the more galling as they had quite a bit of disruption. To their squad whilst ours is very settled. 20+ points spanking in second half is not good from one of the few teams we could realistically hope to catch in the league.
Really short amount of minutes for Horsman as well. Beginning to look a little ominous for him.

Did the new signing play

He's not very good at this level, sorry.

No not named in the squad. Hopefully he comes in this week.

Adds new meaning to the club statement "immediately available". Perhaps "immediately available in due course" might have been better.

Other than the speculative Macani chip and chase, which of course we managed to knock on, I cant remember us having a spell down their end in the second half.

York didn't look anything special tbh, they just managed the conditions better and were able to get effective rotation of their forwards. Along with Butterworth and his hat-trick, I thought Ronan Michaels had a good game for them and really laid a platform with Ukuma Ta'ai off the bench. You make a good point on the disruption to their squad. They had two hookers playing in the halves, whilst we had an international representative half back, whose just played in a world cup. Guess which one of the three was anonymous.....

If Whare is available this week, then I think we need to consider giving the backline a bit of a re-shuffle. Stick Alex on a wing and have Jared at fullback. We need someone more reliable on that left wing, as its clearly an area teams are targeting each week. Toulouse game is a free hit anyway, so I don't really see what we lose in trying a few different things.

It’s a shame we don’t seem to be actively working with Skolars. He feels like a player who might benefit from game time with them as he’s missed quite a bit of the last few seasons and he might do them some good as well.

Our esteemed leader put a huge roadblock in us ever working with Skolars again while he or his kin are running the Broncos

Just seen the highlights of the match. Or to be exact, and in an homage to the team, I gave up after the first half. We scored two good tries but take a look at their first try. Boy does Macani do badly.

I get backlash for it, but keep saying it macanni is dismall in defence, that ball over his head when he is a good 15 mtrs out if position, have seen it so many times this season, its like he has no clue where to position himself as the winger. 3 tries purely down to his lack of awareness

I don't think any of us take joy in singling a player out and he's not the only one who has errors in his game, but I just don't think he has the ability to perform consistently well at this level. The most frustrating part is its basic skills that keep catching him out. Some of the stuff he came up with against York, you'd be frustrated watching U12s do it. He's a great athlete no doubt, but what good is that if you can't do the fundamentals of the game well?

I also don't think it helped having Emmanuel at centre on Sunday and I'm not keen on that particular experiment now it's had a couple of outings. At least Ethan seems that bit more reliable both sides of the ball and can get through a tonne of defensive work.

I'm trying not to hammer the bloke too much, as a player he no doubt wants to be at the highest level possible and we were willing to put a contract in front of him. It must be tough too, knowing you're going to get targeted every game. Ultimately though we need more from his wing slot and I guess that is part of the motivation for brining Whare in.

I guess it also doesn't help him having a coach who as far as we know, has little or no experience of helping a player develope. Danny showed a good coach can lead a fairly average side to good things.

To be fair to him, after a completely anonymous start to last season, and he was by no means the only one, he picked up and was one of the players who drove through that patch of last season that helped us stay up. This season- a mixed bag. I always think top draw winger is a real plus, but we are where we are. If we can’t get them to come to the club ....are any coming through the Academy?