Changes took place I agree, but personel wise the interchanges
rovers made were stronger

If your basing our season on 40 minutes of rugby maybe we should give up


Hopefully next week we will see a full 80 minute game with less interchanges but I doubt we will

Are you saying Rovers had more strength in depth? As you know we had possibly our two starting props missing.

I didn't go today but my assessment of our squad is that we're weak at hooker and prop and our 3/4's are too slow. pryce and sneyd are a definite improvement on what we've had but not as good as the halfs at most of the other clubs we're likely to be fighting with for the 8.

9th or 10th IMO and the only doubt is when pearson will pull the trigger and sack radford

Looking at your sub bench didn't notice many u21st apart from your full back and Esselment? So probably did

I think it's understandable that you'd do well in the first half as Rovers probably wouldn't have been up to speed, due to the lack of game time and the fact some of our players haven't been training with the squad that long either. It's good to see that we hung in though.

Do we have to field under 21's on the bench?

Rovers used 19 players, we used 23. It's not good for continuity.

I think all it comes down to is that we were the physically dominant side, but Rovers had a bit more flair (mostly through Kelly) and took their chances better. On another day we would have won without really doing anything differently. Imo had we prevented Whelam's try we would have gone on to win by 20+, but that just seemed to spark Rovers up. They had a big 10 minutes which we couldn't respond to and they won. Sometimes you can play decent rugby and lose. It is what it is.

Of course in a game that matters we have to find a response when a team gets on a roll. But to simply say it's a continuation of last season is ignoring all of the very positive things we saw today.

I'll wait until I see a few proper games before I make a proper judgement. But I am genuinely enthused by a lot of what I saw today.

Kelly's a right player. Will get homesick before the season's out. Watch this space.

Always wanted to say that.

Funnily enough our starting front row (Watts, Houghton and Paea) were probably our best players today alongside Minichiello. The props were the biggest plus point for me.

Didn't half of your squad play last week, just the overseas players didn't

I wouldn read too much into the York game, even if some did on here as it was merely a training session

Those are the only 3 though. Beyond that our hooking and prop options aren't great. feka gives some impact but we suffer defensively when he's on and green and bowden need to improve a lot

No didn't say you had too. As someome pointed out you used 19 players, less than us


Looking on the positive side. The team that loses the Derby friendly tends to fare better that season lol

If Micheals plays in the backline, we will have enough pace in the backs IMO.

Yeaman and Talanoas place are under threat IMO, also like the look of Naughton who could play on the wing and add pace to the backline.

Our biggest (still) is discipline.

Cunningham looked fine today and all the props turned up. The pack really weren't the issue today. In fact it's hard to put your finger on what was the issue. I think it really is as simple as we switched off for 10 minutes during which time Rovers played all their best stuff.

Last week goulding,mantellato,sio,blair,kelly,weyman,mcCarthy,allgood and campese didnt play at all ,larroyer played a short time and walker,bailey and cockayne were out injured,which would be most of our 1st choice team.