Quote Bullseye="Bullseye"I thought that the amount of changes forced on us by injury played a big part in us looking so disjointed. The backline was almost completely different to the previous week. When we moved the ball wide it was far from slick and easy to defend against. Runners were heading sideways and it was no wonder Ulugia ended up in touch a few times as he got the ball with nowhere to go. It was poor that we kept doing that. I hope Purtell and Baille are back soon as I wasn't convinced at all by Henry and I thought Shaw is better at fullback.
On Siejka I thought he was pretty anonymous which isn't ideal for a half back. As FA said he defended ok but in attack he was poor. He doesn't seem to be able to move the ball quick enough. Many times yesterday he takes a pass and then pauses to feint to run then passes without fooling anyone and only serving to give slow ball to the men outside him. Our last tackle options were a bit rubbish yesterday too, some poor kicks. Gaskell was trying to have an influence and ended up at dummy half too often. We looked far less fluid than in previous weeks and were almost caught out.
In the forwards I thought that Olbison had a good game, he kept it simple and defended really well. O'Brien was well watched and our props didn't look as impressive as in recent weeks. I thought we were eclipsed in the 2nd half by the Batley forwards who executed a really simple but effective game plan. I was surprised Lauaki didn't get more minutes going downhill in the first half. Fleming looks a bit off the pace at the moment.
Williams took his try very well and Shaw's goalkicking was superb. Had Siejka been kicking we'd have lost for certain.
Moving on I can see us giving Siejka a few more games, if there's no improvement then I'd move Mullaney to halfback and Shaw to fullback.'"
Pretty much agree with all this post.
I genuinely don't know what anyone sees in Adam Henry. Seems to have no clue how a centre should play. Ulugia could have had a hat trick if Henry had any idea about getting reasonably close to the line before passing the ball. Instead he catches it, and immediately just passes it to his winger, leaving the oppositon defence with plenty of time to line up a tackle and push Ulugia into touch. Ulugia did his best in the circumstances, but he was given way too much to do by inept centre play. Adrian Purtell is 10 times better and I think we really missed him and his hard running yesterday. If Purtell, Baile or Blythe were fit, I can't see how Henry would get a shirt. I'd even be tempted to put Uaisele in the centres and leave Ulugia on the wing if none of the other centres are available next week. In fact, I'd pick Walshaw at centre before Henry.
Siejka I agree, Jimmy must have seen something that he's so far failed to show. Very very poor yesterday and although you need to give him time, how long do you give before you accept he's not performing and is a liability to the team? Hopefully he steps it up soon and starts to show why he was signed (other than him being the only one available after O'Brien pulled out).
I thought Batley's big blokes were superb. Keegan Hirst and Alex Rowe especially made our defence look like an amateur team at times. Considering our front row isn't short of size in the likes of Sidlow, Tahraoui, Fleming & Lauaki, they were completely dominated too often.
Echo the idea that we were very lucky. Batley deserved more than they got out of that match.
- and the Batley team did them credit. as did their fans. I suspected these sort of fixtures would transport me back to the old days, and they do. Fev was another. Happy days, and they seemed a long way off over the last few seasons.
