Quote: Wanderer "There have been comments after some previous games about lack of creativity (and as I missed todays game I am not in a position to pass judgement on todays performance) but todays line up included;
Craig Fawcett
Aaron Dobek
Scott Spaven
Paul Hughes
Kyle Kesik
Jack Ely
who have all played half back .... I'd be interested to know if the creativity improved for having all these ball-handlers in the 17?'"
The simple answer to this is no. Once again though i believe we lost the game through our poor defence. Too many missed tackles, not enough in your face tough tackling. We improved as the first half went on and at half time i thought we could kick on and actually win the game. Not sure what sort of team talk we had but we basically handed the game to Oldham in the first 15 mins of the 2nd half. We really needed to be solid during this period but were once again slow out of the blocks. Too many unforced errors, in fact i think we offloaded in the tackle 3 times straight to an Oldham player. I have to say i left feeling very dissapointed and despondant. After the previous defeats i have always felt there were a number of bright points, not yesterday though.
I know we are not going to be able to attract top players and still stay within budget but i do belive we have players who are more han good enough to compete at this level, and a few of them higher than our current level. What is really worrying me is we dont seem to be able to do the basic things consistently well. You dont need to have world beaters to make a competitive team if you have good coaching. I'm a little reluctant to throw this into the pot but is this where the problem lies? we are still leaving Kesik on the bench from the start and only bringing him on after 20 mins, by which time we are normally a few tries down. Once again he made a difference yesterday!. Yes he does have a fiery temper although yesterday really didn't look to be anything but handbacks and we were all shocked when both players were sent off.
Finally, how the heel are Oldham allowed to play in such a e hole. Whitehaven is a palace compared to that dump. I think it very unlikely i will travel there again. The spectators view is totally e and the porta loos stank. I understand they couldn't play at boundary Park but surely a minimum standard should be ensured for rugby at this semi pro level. Maybe i am being a bit of a ground snob as we have the Keepmoat, on second thoughts no i'm not its a total hole.
Anyway, we will see how we go against Wakefield. On todays performance i would suggets anything under a 50 point drubbing will be a good result.