Sometimes the mere presence of someone being on the pitch can make a big difference to what happens in the game. With Roberts in the side players are always aware of the threat that he poses and so having Roberts as part of an attacking move can be the difference between scoring a try or not.

The same effect goes for Feka too. He's always a difficult man to bring down and just having him in the side can create tries where there may not have been the opportunity had they not been playing. The hat trick try by Tomkins against Sheffield was caused by Prescott using the presence of Feka to draw in defenders and creating lots of space for Sam to run in after the cut out pass.

I think when Roberts returns we will find our players may have a bit more space to work in, especially if Roberts plays fullback (as he should if all are fit) and we should pose a bit more of a threat. There's also the benefit of Amos being able to create something out of nothing, which can turn a lacklustre performance into a convincing win, just like the Castleford game.

I assume you mean our next two in SL as I for one would not be too happy if we lost to a Widnes team with more injuries than we have and go out of the cup.

True. Coley was a big miss IMO. We have missed Hansen in defence but have coped due to the other players enthusiasm to defence. Deacon would have been better in the halves than Lockers.

Correct. Challenge cup should be a massive aim this year! We are more than capable of winning a couple of knock-out games to get to the final after we beat widnes. Hopefully the draw will favour us into the semi.

I hear madge was in an absolute rage after the game and was going round the dressing room tearing things off the walls.......... can't blame him really, even with 7 first teamers we were still good enough to put 24 points on them in the first half, there is absolutely no excuse for the second half performance. We were sh@ upon, big style

Well that is one thing I like about Madge so far. He doesn't seem to take performances like that lightly.

To be fair to the players in the last two ordinary performances I think the fact the forwards did not dominate like they have been doing has not allowed any of the ball playing backs any room to move when attacking.
I would suggest that even Roberts would have struggled not having any room being created by the forwards getting a roll on as they had done previously.This could be attributed to injury or maybe too many changes in the pack so the forwards havent gelled as a unit yet.

Roberts has scored some good tries this season on the back of the good field position the big men have created by getting a roll on and putting Amos in his element by running free in broken play.Looking at the stats over the last couple of weeks i was stunned to see that amos has only scored 4 tries when playing FB and 8 as a winger.

If we are to beat Hudds this week the forwards definately need to muscle up so the backs can get creative, it seems like Sam and Co get frustrated and try some silly things when they get jammed up with no space to play their natural game ie sam not passing wide and stepping back inside.

Injury has definately played a part with the team of late, this not an excuse its a fact, look at the back line and forward pack combinations over the last 3-4 weeks and its been different each week, this leads to a decrease in cohesion and the general understanding 1 player has with the man beside him in both defense and attack. this then relates to alot of indecisive movements in defense and silly mistakes when attacking.

MM needs to stick with the one line up when possible even if we cop a loss as continually changing the side will not help at all.

Heres hoping for a big confidence building win

Rant Over

TBH we had some good field position against Quins, the problem was we kept throwing the ball to Quins players instead of our own!
Coley was a big miss though, he has been a beast this season.

We looked jaded against Quins and Sheffield. Really off colour. Prior to this season the truth is that this group of players year have never been able to put in consistant performances, nevemind the high intensity that Maguire expects week in week out.

In reality the high level intensity Maguire wants from the players is not sustainable week in week out even for the fittest and best squad. This is not a wake up call, this is not the end of the honeymoon period this is rugby league. Its a tough sport and its a long season.

Huddersfield are very good side. We could go up to Edinburgh this Sunday and play well but still lose the match.

"A positive response" as the OP suggests would be very nice but if we do not see it, it is not the end of the world. We have a long way to go this season and I would rather see us hit a bad patch now rather than in September.

From fullback he's been involved in a lot more tries though. in the Castleford game alone, he set up 3 tries and scored 3.

Let's not forget Leeds lost to basement teams for the last few years, and still ended up Grand Final winners.

One bad day I can live with!

for those of us who love nothing better than staying at the top of the table to wind up our fellow colleagues though, the MM fixtures don't read well. KR will get boshed by the looks of things as will catalans, meaning the two teams closest to us in the league will more than likely even up the top of the table and better their defence against point. a few qeeks back i was looking at this past months fixtures as a "breather". not anymore.

What concerns me is that this (losing a big lead from the first half) has now happened twice, after the Bradford defeat many (including me !) thought with MM in charge we would use the 'collapse' as a warning about complacency or drop in performance when a game appeared to be won, mental 'toughness' is vital if we have any hopes of going on to win anything, its no coincidence that 'champion' teams like Man Utd and Chelsea in football and recently Saints and Leeds in our game win matches in the last few minutes with a try or goal. This is not meant to take anything away from Bradford or Quins who both deserved to win the games on the night, but we had put ourselves in a position to take the points and then appeared to lose concentration and let the opposition put pressure on us and 'get a roll on', and sadly, we then appeared to have no answers to the problems that creates. I'm sure MM is more than aware of this and is working on it now, its a trait we have to get out of our game, happening in a league game is one thing, you can make the points up in other matches, but it would be disastrous in a cup tie.

It's important we have at least 3 players back. Those are Gleeson, Tommy/Deacon along with Coley. We played Locky at 6 with Mossop at 13 who will never be a 13, he's a 2nd rower/prop. That for me changes the shape completely for attacking options when that shape has gone, Locky has been superb this year and is playing out of position currently, having Sam back at 6 with either Tommy/Deacon will allow to put Locky back at 13 and the shape comes back of what we had. Bailey doesn't have the pace to cope in centre and is a 2nd rower.

Quins on Friday hammered our right hand side with Bailey there and IMO was to slow for them. I think it's going to be a close game, providing we will have those 3 back. I'd feel sorry for Liam Farrell though if he lost his place as he was 1 of the only positives from Fridays game.

Farrell will be playing no doubt about it. If we get enough players back then Mossop might miss out. Hes really dipped in form lately.