I went on Friday and of all the players we had playing, Mathers would have been well down my list of suspects for a 6 page thread!
The 3rd Lomax try he was weak but we will offset that for his one on one stop of Francis Meli, something Foxy failed to do all night.
I thought Wilkes and Aiton went well, Fox, Mariano, Wood and Sykes were below par. The rest ok'ish.
At the end of the day, we went to Saints with what some would say are our 5 best players, including 4 of the starting front 5 and our most influential half missing, what were we expecting??

Manu and Meli offloaded as and when they wanted, and Lomax pretty much did whatever he wanted and was playing at a completely different level to anyone else on the park. Also impressed with the lad Walmsley who I thought showed up well for them.

i would personally leave mathers at fullback but think cockayne could be dangerous there and offer more defensively

I would have Murphy back in a heartbeat. In his last few seasons he had little opportunity to shine in attack, and unfortunately his defensive capabilities were over used. When he played fullback he looked more than capable.

Mathers one on one as everyone can see is awful, but his attacking abilities at least counter a portion of that. As others have said if his defence was as good as his attack he wouldn't be at the club.

A certain full back at Saints is not much more than a plodder, he's done alright for himself over the years.


Just saying.

Don't kid yourself Mathers's far better

<<financialtimes mode>>

I did not go but it does not suprise me he's made "hot topic" again.

Correct and sums Friday night up.People have got their veiws on Mathers and others and wont be changed,getting boring and sad now

Better a club groupie than a myopic dinosaur.
All those stats are sooo made up
You go back to your memories of yesteryear and relive the black & white 70's when the game was played in 6inches of mud and water and the ball kicked off a cup of sand
I'll stay and watch the modern game where the fullback has moved on a little since Clive Churchill

From what I have seen of pitches over the last couple of weeks there is a real issue over the state of them, the ground has become so waterlogged of the last 10 months the surfaces are just breaking up in to mud baths even after an emerging 8's game, and reading a few comments about the cas pitch yesterday where they had already cancelled the U19's game due to the state of the pitch, it sounded like it was ruined by a bunch of line dancers