A Sunday afternoon of my life I won't get back. Hang over from a tough Easter programme? A ref who allowed the opposition to niggle & disrupt play? or a bunch of young players who are not as good as they think they are? To me a bit of all that. I noticed that every time we got a penalty or scrum Lunt was having to explain what was going to happen, that should be sorted at training. Or did they get that frustrated at being unable to get fast play the ball or take quick penalties (the ref always stopped them taking quick kicks) that some just lost their cool? What ever Tim Sheens must get an experienced couple of old heads into that squad quick.

ellis isn't very good. Never has been and never will be. championship is his level. I'd imagine sheens has another half in mind for the middle 8's

As a team we need to be smarter, Rochdale are a horrible niggly bunch who's strength is stopping the ball been played with any type of urgency. They lay on, obstruct and generally disrupt the flow of the game. AND WE LET THEM
We were dumb, the minute you see Mickymouseears is named as ref you know what the game will be like and should have been prepared for the forthcoming penalty feast.

I agree with Beverly Red with regard to Lunty, at the restart following his try, he was shouting at players where to stand and what to do with the return.Surely something from the training ground.

I think against opposition like Rochdale we need an old head to lead the younger players and stop the likes of Greenwood been suckered into his yellow card.
Dare I say, we really missed Scruton

Hang on, no one has mentioned the fact that Rockdale played pretty well, thought they played their own game and tried as much to disrupt us. For me they were one of the best teams to play us at home this season. Again their number 7 out shone Ellis, this has happened a few times this year against "lesser teams".

Yes we did miss Scruton I think he's been one of our best signings

I agree with most player assessments discussed so far.

The only players to emerge with any credit from yesterday's performance for me were Blair, Heffernan, Kavanagh, Lunt and Mulhern. The real stinkers were Ellis, Greenwood and Lawler (3 stupid handling mistakes at the tackle/ptb spoilt his strong running and sublime offload to Lunt).

Gary Middlehurst and John Davies of Fev are real niggly in your face types. Ablett and Wilkin similar at Leeds and Saints. We need a couple of these type of players in our squad methinks.

The rest just plain average.

I was heartened that we took the two.

Sounded bad on Humberside, and apart from Kavanagh, Heffernan and a couple of others Sheens mentioned, you could tell he wasn't impressed.

Still it's a win, and we've got a lot of injuries currently. The squad is big, but a lot are still in the early stages of their development as pros.

Some of the doziness is a worry, and I do think that for a small number of players there may be an element of complacency creeping in, in some games.

I agree they came to spoil and niggle, and did a good job of it, they were well drilled played some good set moves rugby as per first try if rovers had scored it they would still be shouting about it.
Give credits where it is due,we won once again, I agree played some dum rugby at times but could have scored at least 2 more tries, the Lunt break, Greenwood dropping it going over line another 12 points.
The wind was horrendous for both sides.
Start supporting instead if criticism I know you will say "I pay my money I can say what I think" all well and good but at the moment we have quite a few injuries, and are having to play the kids.
They don't need a load of crap being thrown at them

I don't think anyone is throwing crap, certainly not at the young players , some of which look very promising, the championship is slightly better than I and others anticipated and we are not as good, for me its the halves. we must sign a quality half if available for the important end of the season

You hit the nail on the head. The halves have been poor for most of the season. The kick option is always a short grubber or a bomb because they are unable to put cross field kick in. On Sunday we had 2 wingers on the pitch and we only got 'good ball' out to one of them once and scored off it!!!!! One dimensional rugby winning down the middle makes it very unpretty on the eyes, however it is still a win.

We had young Oakes on the wing, he toiled and worked hard without receiving the ball in open play. We had Shaw on the other wing with much the same result, these boys have pace to burn but must be getting frustrated with the lack of opportunities, create and use it. Wardill is impressing on his return, think Cator still has some way to go.

Abdull needs to go back to the other side for me and Ellis needs to sharpen up, maybe he would do this with another more creative half in the team!!!!

Agree with most of that. Constantly driving the ball up close to the ruck play after play only works if we actually break the line. If we had two or three monster props who could do it all day then OK to tire out the centre get a roll on but that is not happening. As you say the first & only time the ball went wide Shaw walked in. Experience is what is needed out on the park, it is no use having a group meeting at every stoppage as happened Sunday. One other thing why do we persist with a left footed kicker on the left side of the field (Abdul) & a right footer on the right? if it is because they can't play on the other flank then they are not good enough for pro rugby.

The opinion of Abdul i find is truly staggering ( it's an opinion everyone's entitled to it )

He has been one of our most consistent performers for a number of weeks now, and brings more to the game the Ellis by a country mile. He is improving week by week and his game management is coming on ten fold - See the Leigh game as an example. He is proving to be a quality player and i feel ellis is going backward a little bit.

I don't think our tactics are helping our halves either, we seem determined to tire teams out and play through the middle. The impact of not having quinlan as a 3rd pivot is also clear to our play as we struggle to incorporate BC as a fullback in an attacking sense. Matty Marsh i imagine will be playing FB soon once he is fit.

I think if Abdul was on loan from Wigan he wouldn't have half the negative comments he has I've lost count of the times Ellis has been outplayed by the opposition scrum half

its no so much having a go at Abdul who has played reasonably well since he has been with us but adull+ellis= no zip we need more than this for promotion,

He's young and needs support from experienced players but ZDC should replace Ellis for a game or two to remind Ellis he has to work for his place. Both halves, especially Ellis, where up for the Leigh game but at best were not motivated for Sunday's game.

Rochdale did a grand job winding up the whole team (esp Greenwood) in the first half. Once that calmed down and we actually played rugby, there was only ever going to be one winner.

Teams like Rochdale are strong and wiley enough to try this 1st half approach as this is the only hope they have to win. Wind us up, keep it close and try to steal it at the end.