Got bounced off about five times,fair play the lad was playing out of position as he hasn't been a centre for about five years and ultimately, that's Sandercock's call.

It's not difficult rugby league, Catalans did all of the basics right today and we didn't. Line speed, wrapping the ball, quick play the balls, dummy runners, having a game plan, we lacked all of that today.

It's early days but having identified the problems with our team over year ago I'd expect a coach to be well down the road to fixing them by now.

Horne played more in the centres last year than the backrow i think. He got himself into position to make the tackles but as you say he got bumped off far to easily. Shouldnt be happening to somebody his size.
The rest of your post is spot on.

Well hopefully today will have brought a little bit of realism into some of our supporters...

It went very much how i expected... we can butter up our signings as much as we like but we still have nowhere near the quality to try and challenge.... we reputedly have spent 1.2m on the cap(debt enforced)... and barring maybe 1 or two of recent signings we lack that strength in depth.. and sadly i do not envisage this changing soon..

I`m trying not too be too downbeat over the game today but it did show our vulnerabilities yet again.... It`s a long old season so hopefully we will improve a little when the grounds start to dry out a bit , we have always struggled against the big(size wise) teams barring the odd shock....so it deffo didn`t come as a shock today...

Hopefull of improvement.....

I was absolutely disgusted with the effort from the forwards(apart from Lovegrove), totaly spineless!they should be ashamed of their performance. What was it with Webb, is everybody scared of him? he laughed and taunted everyone yesterday.

I also dont get why Sandercock switched Hall to FB, the lad has trained and played at 6 all offseason, would have been easier to put Hodgson at FB and played Brown on the wing.

I never expected us to win the game but to put in such an inept performace was bad. The clown with whistle gave us nothing, not that he had anything to do with defence which I would describe as a shambles.

Rant over, roll on Saturday!!!

It was, but that doesn't make for a good rant.

Paea & Mika are not joined at the hip, it's entirely possible for one of them to play ok whilst the other has a stinker and goes off sulking after a game ending drop ball.

Mika didn't go off sulking, he was badly concussed and didn't know where he was.

I think you're right, he did, the question is, should he be playing in the centres?

For me, no.

Wonder what Heil, the man who has been waiting in the wings for 2 years, thinks about a second rower playing in left centre, badly, week after week.

if he did then he wont be playing next week then He in fact went off with damaged pride hes a 10 minute powder puff liability

IMO the tactics were completely wrong in the first half, Cats were making yards with ease and often going the full length of the field in their sets. On several occassions we hadnt had the ball at all and when we eventually got it back we kicked on tackles 3 and 4 which is no good for building any sort of pressure. I assume that was the gameplan from the off but if it's not working the coach or playmakers should have the sense to change it.... anyway

A few positives from the game...

Thought Omari Caro is doing well so far and showing real promise, the ball steal leading to the try was top notch. Just need to use his pace a bit more rather than kicking for Hodgson to chase.

I also thought Keal Carlile made a huge difference to our go forward when he eventually got brought on, looked sharp with ball in hand and made several good skoots from dummy half which put Cats on the back foot.

Hopefully we will start the game from the off against Wakey and come home with the 2 points.

Didn't Mika go off after the knocked the ball on with Carlile coming on in his place with Hodgson moving to second row? I thought Carlile had his best game for us yesterday

1st half - Lincoln Withers at dummy half giving hospital passes to our forwards and giving no creativity to the side.

2nd half - Lincoln Withers moved from dummy half and Carlisle takes over the roll. More expansive and creative game.

I don't blame Withers for this, he was played out of position, however, having a bad bad at the office combined with a position he should never have been in equals bad idea.

Let's not do that again please Mr Sandercock.

I was almost wishing for Murrell back at stand off during the first half!

Second half we may have performed a little better but that was also on the back of more penalties from Bentham and more mistakes from Catalan. I have struggled to find any positives from the performance on Sunday.

The stats show Mika was our second highest tackler behind Josh Hodgson on Sunday which validates his high work rate - especially when you consider he went off early in the second half.

They also show
[list
He made the least amount of metres of anyone in the team
Had the least amount of carries of anyone in the team
Equal second for total errors
Equal second for missed tackles
Equal first for penalties conceded.
[/list
Of course the stats can be twisted to suggest all sorts. His high total tackle count could imply he was targeted by Catalans. This resulted in him being knackered and why he only completed 3 carries and made two errors. This possibly being the case, the opposition should do this week in / week out. CS to avoid this should have spelled him earlier. His inability to play long minutes continue to be a pain.

If you want to be really harsh, we improved outta' sight when he went off. On the other hand, others suggest he was injured coming into the game.