A very pleasing 2 points that IMO we deserved.

A huge defensive effort with every player impressing me in shutting down the Cas attack. I thought Williamson was outstanding in both attack and defence.

Our attack was a little poor but hopefully this will improve with time. Dorn was invisible for the majority of the game but did well with his 2 scores and Orr's kicking game was generally poor. We were playing very simple tactics today with the forwards dominating I reckon so this isn't a huge concern yet.

Castleford were very poor indeed and only Shenton stood out for me. Special mention for Rangi Chase who had one of the worst games I have seen in ages



Leahy had a shocking game and the penalty count against us was huge (although at times somewhat justified as discipline was poor at times). I will be worried if he is in control of any of our matches in future.

Wells: Solid match, no mistakes, carried the ball well and swept up superbly behind the posts.

Melling: Back to his old form perhaps? A superb game. One of the only players on the field to make a break and didn't make a single mistake under the high ball.

Gafa: Didn't see a lot of ball, OK.

Howell: Caught out a couple of times in defence but carried the ball well.

Sharp: Quiet game.

Dorn: Pounced well for the interception try and looked decent in support. Didn't offer much apart from a dummy or a switch. Tackled well.

Orr: Reasonable, as mentioned earlier, kicked poorly.

Temata/Ward: Solid, workmanlike performances.

Randall: Very quiet, play the ball was too slow and few opportunities. Defended well.

Williamson: Superb.

Robinson: Didn't really notice him much.

Purdham: The usual, although the team seem to rely on him too much when it comes to the 3rd and 4th tackle, when Dorn and Orr should step up IMO.

LMS/Haggerty: Solid.

Kaye/Clubb: Solid.

Overall, pleased, but a lot of work to be done.

Simple rugby for the conditions is what I expected. Heavy grounds and few big scores in any games over the weekend tells its own story. Hopefully the attack will improve as the grounds get harder.

Orr's kicking - Im disappointed with BM that he is allowing him to do it. It will cost us dearly in some games.



Good to hear Williamson has something to offer in attack as well. This will increase our attacking options.

A messy slog by the sound of it but 2 valuable points.

Would agree with most of that assessment, especially view of referee!

Dorn - a tad churlish, did we have anyone last year who would have scored either of those tries? Especially the second one?

Orr - it was hios kick that Dorn chased down.......................

Very hard on Dorny, a heavy pitch and tight marking. He was denied a hat-trick for an off-side call, which I couldn't see. Kaye also had a try chalked off, not a bad result but we need more attacking options. Defence was awesome and Cas are no mugs, but I can't imagine why they let Dorn go.
£18 quid to stand on open terraces in a ground more reminiscent of the 1930s!

Dorny was 25-1 for top try scorer, not bad odds.

Commentary by Rammo and his sidekick was pretty good then. Conveyed quite a lot of what we get from Lister's summary. Thanks for that.




It sounded that Cas were sure Melling was going to be a weak link and kept kicking to him for almost all of the first half. Good that he proved them wrong.

I'll be a bit churlish Dorn-wise with a question. When he was here previously, his one on one defence was a weakness. Lister says he tackled well so has that been sorted? I would have expected Matterson to have players running at him if he thought there was a weakness.

Dorn was certainally targetted IMO and stepped up each time.

I'm not getting excited about Dorn's performance like some people were yesterday. As pointed out, it was a tough slog and it'll be on there harder pitches where he steps up and is hopefully useful. 2 isolated incidents over 80 minutes don't make for a superb game. We will see.

With regards to the disallowed try for Dorn, I think it would be impossible for us to tell standing on the terrace and not side on, and he did seem to pounce rather quickly...

The Kaye disallowed try was baffling though.

Commentators thought it was judged to be a forward pass.

Not sure how they came to that conclusion given that:

a) it was given as offside
b) a penalty was given
c) it never went forwards

The only thing I could think of was that Howell was off side at the kick that I think he knocked back

The ref gave off side thats for sure

Indeed.

I'd be amazed if Dorn was offside when he was halted by the whistle. I might have been behind the goal, but it was a fairly long pass and didn't go a long way backwards. I just thought it was a sloppy pass and Dorn read it to perfection. Normally if something's dodgy I half-expect it to be pulled up, but it didn't even occur to me there could have been anything wrong with it. The ref seemed to call it without any assistance from the touch judge.

It seemed the ref was happy to give the Kaye try until the touch judge signalled to him.

You're right now that I think about it. There was a penalty given. I'll shut up in future if I'm not sure.

Doesn't usually stop me

I imagine Melling was moved out to the wing after dodgy performances under high kicks at FB last season. Sure enough, Cas punted his way. He caught them all.

If Melling regains his form I would prefer him at FB, Welsi is very solid but Melling is not a winger! We have also Garner as a wing option. This was the only question mark about the performance on Sun for me. Kaye slotted in well at hooker, I think he may be rookie of the year. He knows where the try line is.

Pleased to hear that. Too much reliance on Dorn to score all the tries is a recipe for disaster. We need a good spread of people heading for the line if we are to be successful.