thought it was a good game to watch. our defence will improve im sure . well it can hardly get any worse. but enjoyed it all the same

grat news that feka and piggy are both looking fitter and healthier and very positive that we have the fight in us to come back and play to the final hooter we need to start at leigh how we finished at wakey and im sure madge and wane will put things right in training this week well done lads good run out

Some players get made to look sillier than others at fullback. Richie Mathers being a prime example. If it was a one off thing then we wouldn't have a problem, but it is becoming re-occurrence. I appreciate he has needed time to settle at fullback, but with plenty of game time last season and a full pre-season under his belt I would hope for a much greater improvement. It was only one game so who knows maybe we might see it, but on the evidence of today it doesn't look good.

There are fullbacks who are far greater in defence than Phelps and still possess the attacking flair - Clint Greenshields, Brett Hodgson and Brent Webb being prime examples. The standard of fullbacks in Super League is generally poor though.

How do you know his defense will improve week in week out? I hope it does, but I don't know how you could predict such a thing.

Well I can't describe 40-38 as "awful". I suppose your right it was awful in terms of defence and bad handling and such like. But I'd rather it was what we got than a freezing windy weathered friendly that say a low score. I suppose I was just pleased not to be bored witless. Most friendlies are normally boring, this wasn't!

Didnt go to the game was working but its obvious from the score we need to work on defence. Dont see Goulding mentioned anywhere but he scored two trys, how did he go on?

Also anyone notice who was the captain?

O'Loughlin was the captain. I thought Goulding did very well, didn't put a foot wrong and I was actually surprised how well he took his two tries in the corner, both were not easy to say the least.

Goulding started where he left off last season, he's really improved since his loan to Salford. I believe O'Loughlin was captain, we may have 5 captains now but we still go silent after conceeding a try.

I think the ref hampered the game in parts by checking his pea was still in the whistle

Defence was questionable in parts but with two more pre-seasons lined up, I think that's perhaps something that will be targeted against Leyth and Wire.

And Richie Mathers is still actually a decent player, who's now doing a lot better and settling in more in his new enivornment. Phelps has, as far as i'm aware played 21 games at fullback last season and the odd one or 2 in Australia. As a youth he was a stand-off as has been said. I personally don't think circa 23 games over his entire career is enough to sufficiently assess. Tell me how many mistakes did he make last season that resulted in a try, and i'm talking genuine mistakes - where he was solely at fault (not a freak bounce, and not a situation where most fullbacks would have been beaten)? I'd be very suprised if it's many.

Clint Greenshields, Brett Hodgson and Brent Webb have all been playing full back for far far far longer than 23 games, they have years (10 years in hodgson's case in first grade alone) on Phelps in this position so it's not really an apples for apples comparison. Cam was a utility back for the club, who's played at centre, stand-off, wing (check out Clint's career and you'll see he wasn't always a fullback either) and oddly hooker that we've slotted into fullback 10 games into last season. So 10 games into the season the guy has played at fullback for one of the few times in his career, and he's gone on and performed well by most of our standards and actually shown a dimension to fullback play that we were solely lacking when both Richards and Roberts had played there. To be perfectly honest i'm pretty amazed he's done as well has he has given the situation and lack of experience, do you not think so?

How could I predict his defence will get better week in week out? Well tackling and catching technique can be worked on and developed, creative spark, and the other big quality for a fullback - bravery (and lets be fair he's got it in spades) can't really be, you've either got them or you haven't. I've gone over Bilko's match reports (to try and use some views that didn't have my own bias) and I can't really find a situation last year where defensive lapses by Phelps cost us a game. Now considering I think it's fair to expect Cam to improve in this position, my own conclusion is what exactly is there to be worried about?

The common theme over and over again, from my own views, from my friends and family (some of which are fans of other clubs), from match reports both on Bilko's site and in Newspapers, and from normally trying to watch a game at least twice if it was televised, is that poor kicking options and silly mistakes (multiple times per match by more than 1 player) by pretty much the entire team over the course of the season are what cost us games. Now what was the 1 position where we did make a signing this off season? Scrum Half in Paul Deacon, who's got a good kicking game. The club and coaches would seem to agree that we're not doing too badly at fullback either.

And that's why I'm not worried. At the end of this season both Cam's and multiple other players contracts are up and can be either renewed or released and replaced with another player. If Cam continues to develop at fullback then fantastic, if he doesn't then we look for a replacement at the end of this season. I think we're in a really good position.

Seriously who in Superleague is actually currently better at fullback overall? My view is:

Clint Greenshields
Brett Hodgson
Brent Webb

So that's 3 players and teams out of 14? Not too shabby really considering we're playing a guy who's had less than 30 games in that position. And out of those teams which actually had more success than us in Superleague last year? 1 - Brent Webb at Leeds Rhinos, who we'll all admit are on average better than us in a few areas (yet surprisingly we've still got a very good record against). Let's just see how Cam goes on this season, but if he's only as good as last season (and you'd honestly expect him to settle even more with more games at fullback) then we'll not be doing too badly in this position. I'd like to think we'll start to make some cheeky enquiries about Gareth Widdop long term

That's really great to see Goulding having a good game, hopefully he'll continue to improve and get some consistency.

btw Cadoo, i'm not having a go, merely expressing a view

I was a bit worried by the amount of penalties we gave away. Too much silly wrestling stuff. At the time i felt each tackle was lasting a second longer than it should have done and didn't really feel hard done to for any of the penalties that were given against us. Discipline is so so important. Every time Wakey got a penalty, they scored, every time we got a penalty, we scored - simple as.

I realise that some wrestling is important but only at sensible times. For example we have a penatly away for lying on on the first tackle after a decent long kick. Wakefield were struggling to get back and our line was set and therefore we would have gained from a quick ptb. I think the players perhaps need to think on their feet a bit more rather than being bloody robots.

Nice run out in attack tho - Mossop looked dangerous and Feka was excellent. Thought Ainscough looked dangerous when he had the ball. Still expect more from Gleeson and Fielden, and Sam needs to get some longer studs in his boots the amount he slips over.