Quote: Cookridge Cougars "What has happened to our disipline in the last matches.Both York and Workington are calling us a load of thugs.Ihave not been so can someone please enlighten me.'"
It's not just been the last few matches really, it's been a constant all season. At Doncaster we were penalised 15 times which I think was one more than against York. During the York game I think things were being said in and around the tackle and the ruck which were intended to rile up our players and it certainly worked. Even Buster - so unlike him - tried to stick the nut on one of their lads; I don't think he actually connected but the upshot was his one match ban for the Workington match. Josh Tonks looked particularly worked up and his offence was a late head shot just after one of the York lads had put a kick through. He had to walk for that, no doubt about it. When Brad Nicholson came on he was nearly fighting the first time he carried the ball into contact - no idea what got him so worked up. We then weren't helped though by the York coach's tale-telling to the RFL after the event which resulted in more suspensions in relation to incidents which hadn't resulted in any action on the field at the time.
Up at Whitehaven things improved except for a period in the second half when we gave away a string of penalties, mostly for high tackles, which resulted in us conceding points as usual.
At Workington we started off with the high tackles again, although we weren't penalised for them that much. Their speedy full-back Tee Ritson was on the receiving end of a few. Rawlo got binned after he reacted to having the ball thrown at his head by a Town player after he had got up from the tackle. He turned round and clouted the Town player, the result of which was his yellow card, a penalty to Town and then the inevitable concession of 6 points. Had Bren just laughed at the lad, the penalty may have been ours and we would have been away down their end instead, putting pressure on their line. I was following the ball for the Nicho incident so didn't see how it kicked off but there was a flurry of punches and Brad ended up having to walk. We were attacking their line at this point as well and ended up conceding the penalty instead so they got the ball back and attacked us. Having said all this, I think the ultimate penalty count in this match was quite close - perhaps Town had one more than us.
Our discipline issues are incredibly frustrating - if we could only keep the head and play with a bit of brains, much more would go our way. All we do is put ourselves at a massive disadvantage with sin-binnings, sendings-off, suspensions, metres given away and most importantly points conceded. We all know that once we get about 0-20 behind we just end up playing catch-up and often end up losing. We got out of jail on Sunday really.
