Unless Ben has considerably improved his defensive frailties he'll have one hell of a torrid time.

Take out last 20 v salford. Combined with being 1st 2 games.
We had last year and seems again a good scramble defence which is something we work hard with I think. Not too much to read into imo. Also played 2 teams with some real threat. Badly let ourselves down last 20 v salford. If had kept it tight they'd of been on about 10 points same as cats. Combined with 80 points forward I'm pretty happy. Missed tackles don't mean too much if they aren't becoming points against which in the most part they're not

it really was mate - hence we put the cue on the rack. Our last try came after 62 minutes, we were throwing it all over after that but could've had 60 if we knuckled down. We were dominant all over the field though.

With regards to Crooks, thus far he has been absolutely fine in defence - we have only conceded 4 tries in our 2 matches, our defence in general has been pretty solid.

As someone mentioned, two sides here capabale of scoring from anywhere on the field so hopefully it should live up to the hype.

Hard to see where teams are exactly at just yet but it appears we both have our eyes set on similar positions this year (4th, to be precise).

we have both had solid starts - yours being somewhat more emphatic than ours

what about him shooting out the line for rovers last try ? cost you guys the game

Jack Logan also needs to work on his defence and his decision making, it will be interesting to see how he goes compared to Crooks, as very similar at there respective ages.

I actually think Logan is better in attack and makes less mistakes with the ball in hand than Crooks use too, think Logan is a bit more grounded and that was one of the things Radford didn't like about Crooks.

Logan really needs to work closely with Yeaman on his defence, and his reading of the game I think. Yeaman's debut saw him turned inside and out by Newlove, but after that his defence was and still is outstanding - I recall an article with Jamie Lyon when he was over here and he stated that Yeaman was the best defending centre he played against over here as he never got a sniff.

That's a good call. Yeaman gets a lot of criticism on here but defensively he is excellent. Logan seems to have bulked up in the close season but Crooks on the other hand looks the same as when he was here.

Just watched the first half of the Cas v wakey game. Was quite surprised that crooks and Monaghan weren't use more in offense. Cas seemed to favour attacking through the left edge with Gale, Webster and Solomona and Dorn filling in too. Whether that was because Wakey had Lyne and Gibson defending on the right, or whether its where Cas will score most of their tries this year, I'm not sure. Will watch the second half later and see if its swaps over.

Should be a good game. Moors looked a handful.

Where did you watch the match? Or are you just talking about highlights?

In a fortunate position to have access to some of the games through a friend of mine. Not sure whether Cas do a similar thing to fc live?

Nah we don't, why I was asking! Would like to see the match again but don't wanna buy a DVD.

Ah I see, didn't realise you were a Cas fan ha.

Second half wasn't much different. Cas's left edge looked pretty good and I can see them targetting Michaels and Logan. Monaghan made one great break with some nice footwork, but even that came off the back of a quick play the ball from Webster. Couple of kicks towards Cas's right side who forced drop outs. Crooks did nowt! Can't even remember him touching the ball in the second half. Will probs score a hattrick next week though now I've said that

Any word on any injuries from the Cats game?

Hopefully with a free weekend, we'll be all fit and ready to go again next Thursday, all guns blazing.

making the trip up and taking mater, i took her to last seasons cup game against them which was very entertaining. Hoping for same result.

Our defence and concentration needs to go up a notch though or Cas could well do a number on us.

though the 'Brasil' soccer philosophy of just outscoring the opposition works in terms of winning it is bloody nerve-wracking