Quote: bellycouldtackle "Pop Tart, I have moaned about the club not having a Rugby committee to advise the board re players, as a result we have had our legs lifted. Webster was allowed to sign a bunch of useless soft forwards, only Simon has looked the part. Other than Simon and Anakin I do not remember any aggression from a single Wakey forward all season. And as for Anderson Dreadnought , wow he really bossed that Salford pack yesterday. Him and Scruton really smashed in and got us going forward. I moaned about Ian Kirke as its a disgrace that he has had the time off that he has had.This is not me being clever after the event, I was posting about it six weeks into his 16 week holiday for a slight groin pull. The time off the players have been given, the lack of fitness. The signing of known poor players , Anderson in amsterdam the week before the Salford game. The total lack of respect shown to Anakin, and the final nail in the coffin the ridiculous swap of MacShane , a real quality player, with Scot Moore, a real poor player just beggared belief. So Pop Tart I suppose you are correct there is little to like on the Rugby front. That said I understand that there was effort on Sunday and that has to be admired, the pity is that we have allowed the standard of player to drop so far that effort alone will not get us a result against Bradford and Leigh as both those teams now have superior players to us in almost every position.'"
The different point of view is that I saw the same game but see good points too. I think you see them but focus on the poor aspects
The first half was frustrating but the forwards in my opinion did smahsh it around with the Salford pack. It was nip and tuck and we really tackled them hard. There were some shuddering tackles going in.
The problem was that Smith's last tackle play was just not working and although the forwards were working hard, the Salford forwards were gradually starting from further up the field.
Their tries came from field position gained by penalties which is probably from them getting the better in the tackle but we got nothing from their laying on so is hardly a criticism of our forwards.
There was one tackle from Anderson and Scruton where the whole crowd went "oof" because they smash the guy so hard.
A couple of times Scruton was the only one chasing kicks so did a lot of work that wasn't even his to do.
I have to say Molloy was particularly good yesterday and hit the line really hard and made good yards (I haven't seen the stats to back that up yet)
Now saying all that, I thought we would drop off when the props rotated but actually, for all they look like little and large, Mulally and Walker were very effective. Both have a good step and always get their heads through to make a dominent play the ball.
Was very impressed with all our props.
I thought early on that Moore was doing well as he put some big hits in too, but he gradually started making bad decisions that cost us. Sio coming on made a big difference.
Even Scruton's dropped ball was down to Moore in a lot of ways.
Scruton had just got in to position and was ready to take the ball. Moore decided to go on his own when there was really nothing on but left us with no hooker and Scruton having to rush back to cover. He then fumbled in his haste to pass it.
In the backs for all he is getting criticism from his chase back on Chase, Lyne made a lot of yards for us and worked the ball away from the line every time.
Owen made a mistake with a high ball which was poor but then, when they went back to his wing and he had a two on one with Thorneley and Jones Bishop who both were standing 10 feet tall, he picked the right option and drove BJB in to touch to win us the ball back. That's a massive improvement for him and should be recognised.
Tim Smith was poor early on with his dropped ball and poor kicks but again managed to turn it around with some absolutely perfect passing to put the guys in for tries.
In all those cases we have turned our attitude as a team around 100%. For some people to imply there was no effort is frankly insulting to those players. The fact that nearly every person who was at the game stayed behind to clap them off the field speaks volumes.
So I agree there was a lot we could improve on but they in my opinion were single issues rather than total team performance.
Hopefully we will sort out Smith's long kicking game, and our decision making at hooker but I reckon other teams have much bigger issues than us so I am still quite positive if still a little disappointed we didn't close the game out.
