Sigh, its a little bit tricky getting up for matches at the moment.

Even my pun isn't funny unless you know of horse racing venues near Gatwick.

It's early in the week to know much about team and player availability but I think its fair to call this "must win" after recent times.

Going to this match on Saturday. Can anyone recommend any good bars please? Been a couple of times before and ended up at the Grand Cafe La Poste where all the away fans congregate but would like to try somewhere different.

Try La Source.

Thanks I'll look that one up

Squad:

Inu, Yaha, Walsh, Myler, Moa, Aiton, Casty, Anderson, Horo, Bousquet, Garcia, Bosc, Baitieri, Duport, Simon, Burgess, Thornley, Albert, Da Costa

Trin:

Allgood, Arona, Arundel, Ashurst, Batchelor, Fifita, Finn, Grix, Hadley, Hirst, Huby, Johnstone, Jones-Bishop, Kirmond, Miller, Tupou, Walker, Williams, Wood.

freeteams.com/EnglishDragons/new ... ory=159441 Preview

freeteams.com/EnglishDragons/new ... ory=159441 Preview

I was there. It is sometimes claimed that a wretched performance is due to the whole team,but I agree with our coach that certain players are not performing. Myler and Walsh were outstanding on Saturday.My marks out of 10 are Bosc 6 Thornley 5 Inu 5 Duport 2 Yaha 2 Myler 9 Walsh 8 Casty 4 Aiton 7 Moa 4 Horo 3 Anderson 4-though clearly injured- Garcia 4 -Interchange Bousquet 7 DaCosta 6 Baitieri 3 and Simon 5.It is no use havng half backs who are creating over laps when our centres just run straight at the opposition and never pass. The coaching staff have got to explain why Yaha thinks it is always his job to go straight for the opposing centre and thus give away 3 tries. After the third such try. Myler put Yaha right about this and the problem disappeared.As I have said before certain players have reached the end of the road-Casty and Duport especially-and cannot change.Others like Yaha need a lot of individual tuition.In the short term we must abandon our expansive game and try to grind out results. If we are so desperate that Duport has to play he must be put on the wing and told to stay there unless there is a very clear 2 to one against him.The score should have been a lot worse-their left wing dropped the ball 3 times with the line at his mercy.Seguier -sorry if the spelling is wrong -was very impressive in the match against Lezignan and should be given a chance.All in all this was the third worst performance since 2012 and the most depressing in the sense that it is hard to see how we will not be in the middle eights this year. Finally our basic fitness levels -with some exceptions- are too low.

You don't rate Duport? You should have mentioned that before

I would partly apologise to Yaha. With the resume I can see that for the 1st 2 tries on their right-and indeed for Johnstone's 3 knock-ons we did not have the numbers . This in itself raises questions.
Duport chased one of their breakouts for 70 metres and collapsed in an exhausted heap. He is not fit.He is not able to perform any of the range of roles needed by a centre except that of making a few metres and thereby destroying the impetus of the attack.It is quite clear when one is at the match that the half backs have no confidence in him.It is not just that he is hopeless he is also a positive liability at centre.If anyone can prove I am wrong about this I would be interested to hear .All the French fans around me on Saturday think that he is useless.Of course when williame is fit we can get rid of Duport.That will not cure the many other problems that we have ,but it will massively improve our three quarters play.
I have spoken to a number of English neutrals about my report. In general they think that A,that Walsh was not as good as I thought B that I was unfair to YahaC that Anderson was very bad-they had not realised that he was injured and D that in general we cannot cope with attacks that move the ball quickly.They think that an English club would have sacked our coach long ago.I will add that Wakefield will finish around 8th this year. Where does that leave us?Our so -called giant pack is powder puff and paradoxically we have a very strong spine and a very weak rib cage.

News and gossip from the French Site.
Gigot's appeal will be held today
Our coach has got 3 weeks to turn things round
Bird is expected back for the Salford game
Pala is suggested to come into our threequarters

I'd say points 2 and 4 would go a long way to resolving point 3.

I aint as doom and gloom as some.

We have 2/5ths of our spine on the sideline (gigot, bird) with bird being the best forward in the comp. Its a long season. Just need to pick up a couple of wins soon to keep in touch with top 4. All it needs is a couple of wins and youre back up there with the nature of the league and how close lots of teams are.

By spine I mean full back-Bosc or Wiliam-Gigot is better than neither- Half backs and Hooker -Aiton is playing well. Bird is good ,but he cannot do miracles.
Leigh are currently missing 8 of their 17 to injury and one to suspension.We have won4 of our last 22 matches-or something very close to that. Some of our players -as the coach correctly says-are not good enough.

Gigot is 100% better than Williame and Bosc at full back.

With how influential Bird is, I would count him in the spine.