Couldn't attend the game today but my phone hasn't stopped with calls and texts. Doesn't sound like all you cougar fans that made the trip had a great day. Out of interest how many fans did we take about.

Look forward too seeing all the opinions.

Not many Rob , 60 or 70 maybe.
Not been to such a bad Cougars game for years. Yes it is only
the first game but there wasn't one positive thing to gain from
the whole match . Woeful defence , lacklustre attack and outclassed
the whole match.
I really hope this is a 'blip' and we return with a win next week.

I dont normally bother with away games. As i work a lot of unsociable hours and like to spend Sunday with the family.
I dont think that will happen again. It really was a very poor performance today.

We were outclassed in every aspect of the game.

To be brutally honest i was shocked at how bad we were.

Positives i think were some good attacking kicks which forced batley to dropout from their posts at least once. However, defensively awful. Huge holes, no strength, and poor positioning. Attacking runs seemed largely slow and ineffective. Frustrating to watch at times.

There was nothing positive in the way we played today. The loyal fan base is dwindling, you only get fans/income when your team is winning. Really disappointing, some players dont know how to tackle.

The club needs to get back the "feel good factor" which IMO has been lost of late.
Poor pre-season performances, today's result, further cut backs at the club and no real marquee signings don't help.

Today might be a bit of a reality check for some. Your can't keep cutting finances at the club and expect progression. I understand the need to keep within budget, but on the flip side you have to speculate to a certain extent and that comes in many ways. I thought we looked a few players light within our squad early on, but when you compare what resources some of the other Championship clubs have due to link up it makes IMO our situation worse. I don't agree with the link up, but are the RFL going to back on it and loose face. I think not.

I agree with a few of the comments on here and to be honest I'm trying to restrain my opinions as I don't want to be accused of swinging an axe

I like most of our fans from what I am hearing and reading are a little worried about what lies ahead this season and I hate to keep going on about it but I have a feeling that after most of the progress that was made last season I have a feeling we might be stepping back to a few seasons ago. I will be very interested to see in the league express in the moring the line ups of some of the championship clubs that have played today after seeing some of the results. Workington and Whitehaven got off to good starts along with Hunslet. I have also just read that Carl Pryce has signed for Dewsburry. When you look at some of the other clubs even the ones that haven't linked up with SL clubs they have really strengthened their squads.

Listening to Marchy in his video we have a lot of our regulars out for a minimum of 4 weeks but he still doesn't seem worried and has mentioned again that we have a big enough squad to cope with it but as I have mentioned in another post I'm not sure some of the lads we have can handle this level of rugby just yet, it takes time buthey I'm no coach and not pretending to be so we have to trust in Marchy. I'm sure they will re-group this week and get ready for our first home game against Whitehaven but I have to say I'm not confident about a win in that game either. I think our best chance of win in these first fixtures is swinton (no disrespect).

Maybe we're all worrying over nothing and we see a different cougars next week. COME ON COUGARS

I've read and digested all the coments.

I attended the Batley game today and to say I was appauled is an understatement. It did show we are not good enough.

Paul March does need time. But may I state one statistic, so far.

I know we have played freindlies, but.

Points for 87 Points against 172 !!!!!!!

I'll aways be there, but come on I'll / we'll not endure easily many more games like that.

Very, very disappointing this afternoon. We were almost as poor in attack as we were in defence and that's saying something. Some woeful tackling from our lads, and they were wholly unable to cope with the way the Bulldogs were throwing the ball about - which is what I'd hoped I'd see the Cougars doing. But no, there were shades of some of last season's play with our lads just taking the ball and running into a load of Batley defenders. No invention, no trickery - it was all slow to the point of being telegraphed and the Dogs lapped it up all afternoon. Much work to be done. The video won't make enjoyable viewing.

I thought watching the game that Chandler was our Stand out player.
I also thought young Josh Lynum played better and tackled better than more experienced players.

Also the injuries include, Olly Pursglove, Killer, Craig Moss, Gav Duffy, Rawlins and also the new lad who broke his leg at Barrow after shining in his two games. Matt Daley.

By comparison JK had a problem of too many players to choose from today.

I think that even JD would have struggled to muster a win today with this many injuries impeding his selection.

Stand out on not good day at the office was the debut of josh Lynham who worked his backside off after coming on from the bench and gave a few of our more senior players a lesson in effort and enthusiasm

I wonder what the stats for the game looked like.

The amount of passes that went to ground from us.
The amount of missed tackles.

And the biggest worry for me. I wonder how many yards we made in the tackle compared to Batley. They seemed to be going forward in the tackle and we either went backwards of were stopped.

All across the field they made much more yardage than use.

One thing we can take from yesterday. Is watch a vid of the game and copy the way they controlled the tackle. They used the wrestle much better than we did thus slowing our play of the ball down.

I can only echo what has been previously said, yesterday was hands down one of the worst performances I have seen from a Cougar side.

The lack of enthusiasm in defence was alarming, refusal to track back, letting attackers waltz past to get onto kicks, prop forwards side stepping their way past our static defenders. It was shocking from start to finish.

Only positive for me was the new scrum half, Leatherbarrow, already showed more promise than Obst did in the whole of last season. Decent kickoffs which got us the ball back 3 times and always wanted the ball.

Does anyone know if Richard Jones is still on the books? First part of last season he was one of the stand out players.

Richard went to Gloucester I think.

The people who say this is the worst ever have obviously forgotten our 2010 visit to the Mount.

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