The Cas pack isn't lightweight at all. Sure they had Massey & Lynch missing but then we can point to our own absentees. I have been, and continue to be a critic of Chester but credit where its due, we matched a decent team today and showed a significant improvement in attitude to defend. Lets have a night off from our worries and pick it up again next Sunday after a typical away day surrender over in Cheshire.

A full strength Cas against us without Campo and Lunt. If we'd cut out a couple of individual mistakes and we may have won. All in all a fair result against a side who has finished in top 6 for last couple of seasons.

Agree with all this.

Our performance exceeded collectively doomy expectations today and we were a match for a Cas side that played significantly better than us last year.

One major positive is that the result will do wonders for our team confidence going forward and raise optimism that we can achieve something at Warrington next week marginally less painful than the predicted dry bumming.

We didn't play against a full strength Cas side though did we.

Cas had their first choice spine playing today. As Stan pointed out in the previous post, they were missing Lynch and Massey in the pack.

By contrast, we were missing 5 of our top 13. We had Charlie at FB, Lawler starting at hooker in SL for the first time and Greenwood at LF for just 7 minutes.

We should have been in the clear by half time, but we weren't because our completion rate was about thirty seven per cent

Most of the first half was played in Cas's half but we endeavoured to wang the ball into touch or just drop it.

Playing in wind and rain, the golden rule is to control the football and compete your sets, we did neither.

Cas were pretty poor over the eighty, but were distinctly better in contact.

Cockayne is not the answer at Fullback I don't know who is, he still does not understand or know how to take a high ball under no pressure, you turn your body to the side, and if you don't catch it cleanly it goes behind you. What you absolutely do not do is front up to it like a hooker showing off her tits. He did do well for Mantomato's second try.

I thought Lawler went really well, made a great break,in the second half but does need to be able to up his speed of distribution at this level.

Donaldson was a deserved mom, puts 100% into everything he does. Decent larker.

Minns was badly at fault and schooled for both of Webster's tries, although, I have to ask where was Horne for the second, it's his job to take Minns under his wing, I don't think he did that today.

Mantomato's conversion was probably the best I have ever seen given the conditions and context of the match.

It wasn't great and too many individual errors but the fact they beat us at home last season and not being at full strength yet this season, today was slight progress.

But did your shirt arrive in time

At a second look it was Kelly who missed Webster twice. From the scrum Minns took Dorn on the overlap leaving Kelly to deal with Webster. I thought Minns defended ok.

With five players out, including two vital players from our 'spine', in what would be Rovers strongest line up and Greenwood's injury playing havoc regards substitutions and a game played in a gale errors were inevitable, as they were in the Wigan game played in similar conditions. BC knockers conveniently forget he also put JM in for both his tries and saved a try with a very good tackle on the Rovers line.

Progress made, more needed. Draw a fair result IMO.

Fair summary, we should have been well up at half time but did the usual Rovers trait of not being patient enough and tried to push the pass instead of building pressure.
Once Cas got a foothold I thought there was only one winner but they certainly tired late in the game and the kick from Mantellato deserved to win the game, I personally thought it was unkickable in those conditions.

Donno was clear MoM, Lawler went well and controversially I thought Tilse had a very good last stint defensively.

The allgood yellow was a joke, he got a punch to the top of the head when he was trying to get up and play the ball, this was totally ignored by the officials and then he stupidly reacted, how that was a Cas penalty is beyond me.

I agree! How was he in the running for MOM? Great point and finish tho, felt like a win

It was a full-on eighty minutes from Rovers and TBH it is exactly what we want to see every week.

A marked improvement in intensity and aggression and a good platform to work from although it is still messy aroun the PTB.

Execution was overall lacking with the wrong player delivering what ought to have been two walk in tries but that is Ben - never a FB which refelcted in his overall performance. Cas must be kicking themselves for not capitalising on his poor positional play and his error rate.

Three major pluses for me were the front row, Blair & Donaldson. I thought the front row stood its ground with Green once again the stand out player and we got a glimpse of Allgood returning to form. Blair kept the team ticking over in the wet and windy conditions and had to deal with some very poor passing from PTB, but as first receiver he looked very comfortable. Donaldson had a cracking game in both defence and attack, and showed what a good aquisition he is. thoroughly deserved the try and we need to see more of this from now on.

The main negative was seeing too many players on the ground at the PTB (Horne being the main culprit) which for me is bordering on criminal, but thankfully Cas didn't exploit it. If it happens next week Clark will destroy Rovers down the middle.

Overall it gets a 5/10 from me. Mantomato should have got MOM, never understood why it is announced with five minutes to go, as we saw lots can happen in five minutes.

We fronted up well overall, esp considering we lost Greenwood early on. The clearing work done from the backs in the last 20 mins or so was excellent. Time and again they managed to punch holes and gain ground. To which something Cas in opposite circumstances struggled to do without our assistance, be it discipline or bad errors.

You can argue about the merits of the draw but Cas literally had so many opportunities to go for a drop goal, you get what you deserve through incompetence/arrogance by not doing so.

Our attacking play by in large was a poor standard. I'm not going to get at Cockayne for a part of the game he doesn't have. Had he possessed a passing game, I'm sure he would've moved to the halves rather than the wing. So it's no surprise when in difficult conditions he was found lacking. That been said, Albert Kelly was far from anything other than average. He wasn't helped by the slow service his way (how many times was tackled whilst kicking?). I'm sure if Marsh was playing, the pitchforks would've been out. Also thought Kelly looked a little heavy ...

Mantellato's finishes were of the highest order and I almost doubt I'll ever see a better kick @ CP again than that effort. I think it's a game to look back on for the positives. To continue to the end and scrape a draw, certainly should give everyone a big lift. It was almost like the legacy of the Wembley dissapointment and other general negative tones lifted at that moment and the team/crowd were back as one. Here's hoping ...