Better second half but still too many areas of concern, Smith was well off form - hopefully he can find his feet again soon. We looked to get back to grindning down the opposition more in the second period which is what we should be doing as that is our game. Still too many unforced errors - although maybe the the conditions did have some bearing - can't be easy playing in that heat and humidity. Never seen so much holding and messing about in the tackle though - made for a poor game overall.

Will need to improve by a fair bit against Leigh especially in how we start the game - start like we did tonight and we could be in for a long nigh, their half backs will be more of a threat if we give them that much field position.

Never in doubt

Very pleased with the win - a defeat would have made the top 2 extremely tough.

Nervy and tense in the first half with terrible performances from both halves. We needed a moment of magic to change the momentum and Wardle provided it. Could have been 14-0 down and it gets us to 8-6 and from that point the intensity raised enough to pull away.

Thought Havard, Thompson, Nsemba and Keighran were pretty strong along with the X factor of Wardle and Field. Walters had a nice cameo.

Id stick with the Smith and Hampshire combo as we're probably best to try and get some continuity but they'll need to improve massively if we have a chance of winning either of the next two. Smith has been poor for the last few weeks and Hampshire just looked off the pace. He's had so little game time though I think he deserves some leeway.

But the win tonight means that even if we lose the next two (as I suspect we might) we'd still be in a good spot to get to the top 2 in the final 6 games.

Good win in the end. We looked short of confidence and energy for 45/50 mins but when we found both we looked more like ourselves. I still think we’ve a few tough weeks ahead but we’ll get through it and give making and winning the GF a good crack.

Going back on myself a little but the other option would be to play Keighran at 6 and move Eckersley back to centre. Keighran is a talented ball player - I'd be interested to see how that would go.

I was hoping for that change at half time but in fairness to Hampshire, he was much better after the break. Hopefully it gives him some confidence and momentum because he looked devoid of either first half (and has done every time he’s played). In fairness to him, it can’t be easy keep playing in fits and starts.

So will Hampshire play against Leigh, or Farrimond?

Agreed - its a shame we couldnt have got him out on loan somewhere. The crowd was starting to really get on his back so thankfully the try settled him down a little.

Personally would be surprised to see Farrimond again this year unless there are further injuries - hes still very young and has already played more games than I'm sure he would have expected. Needs more physical development but will really benefit from both his positive and negative experiences this year in the first team.

Barring injuries and suspensions, same team v Leigh.
Still think if we'd have scored in the first minute when Marshall should have passed to Wardle then we'd have put 50m past them.
After our first try they fell apart and we stepped up!

Our defence needs to improve dramatically, we need to get the opposition into an arm wrestle.

Said exactly the same to my mate at the game. If Marshall scores early we go on and win that by 50. After that the nerves built up and it took a while to get the confidence going.

As for Leigh, I'd go the same again if Thompson is fit. He picked up a knock and seemed to have a bit of a problem with his ankle/calf maybe.

I’m in the Kerighan to 6 camp with Eckersley in at centre.

Since French has been out our defence on that edge has been shocking and last night again Rocky missed a number of tackles that he really should be making.

Kerighan so far has been very good in defence for Wigan and would shore up that channel without issue till French returns.

He's young and he's learning on the job but Nsemba is struggling defensively on that side IMO. He comes up with some monstrous tackles, where he absolutely smothers the attacker and it looks hugely impressive (like the one on Sironen a couple of weeks ago) but he switches off too often when sliding across and there are gaps opening up because of it. He then doesn't have the time to recover as a break/half break is made. It's something I'm sure he'll work on and it's in no way to take away from the fabulous job he's done for us so far. It's easy to forget how young the kid is because he's built like a brick outhouse and I'm sure he'll get there. Having as strong a defender as possible at 6 and 3 would certainly help.

Rocky came flying out of the line a number of times last night and was miles off, we were lucky it wasn't taken advantage of.

I'm in two minds with him - he's hardly played in the 1st team for 2 years and when he does he has a game then is out again and i think that shows in an element of nerves. I'm tempted to give him a run of games and see how he goes, give him a chance to settle in. There's a pretty decent player there I think. Much will depend on how we go with Field/Leeming in terms of cover in the backs if needed and ability to spell Leeming. It looks like Faz standing in and one of Junior and Walters coming on. This does weaken our edge defence though which is already our weak point so I think it needs to be looked at. I'd rather rocky came on as interchange for leeming and we keep Faz in the 2nd row I think .

Leigh have a good shift attack and will really test our edge defence next week and we need to be better.


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