23 replies to this topic

[Furryenzo]

Very disappointing. Didnt rate hunslet what so ever and we just couldnt put them away. Il give credit to hunslet's defense though, very solid.

For some reason we dont seem to be firing on all cylinders, we know what we can do, were just not doing it. The talent and ability is there but the pieces arnt being put together.

Darren Hawkyard my MOM yet again, makes 10 yards every time and always good in defense. Mort had a very solid game along with Higson, Smith and Watson. IMO a couple of individual errors by the wingers cost us the game, however I think had we been playing to our ability we would have won the game easily.

Referee made some strange calls however I dont think he was too bad.

We need to find our mojo

[lions4eva]

Very disappointing. Didnt rate hunslet what so ever and we just couldnt put them away. Il give credit to hunslet's defense though, very solid.

For some reason we dont seem to be firing on all cylinders, we know what we can do, were just not doing it. The talent and ability is there but the pieces arnt being put together.

Darren Hawkyard my MOM yet again, makes 10 yards every time and always good in defense. Mort had a very solid game along with Higson, Smith and Watson. IMO a couple of individual errors by the wingers cost us the game, however I think had we been playing to our ability we would have won the game easily.

Referee made some strange calls however I dont think he was too bad.

We need to find our mojo

We posted our views at the same time, but the posts are virtually a mirror image.

Spot on.

[marshy1]

I agree it was disappointing to loose our opening game in the NRC but let's not forget that due to the weather and unlike Hunslet we haven't had the benefit of meaningful competative matches.I also thought Hunslet defended and tackled us really well and for me we lost due to us not doing similar, I lost count of the number of off loads they made.

For me Smithy and Ainscough had good games along with Mort.We do look lightweight in the forwards, missing the power of Mr Joseph and I was surprised to see Ashall taken off after a short run out.

Above all though the most disappointing aspect was the crowd...really poor considering there was no local football matches to blame.!!

York it is then on Thursday.

[Bryce]

Yeah, both right there lads. We needed to capitalise on the possesion we had in the first half. Poor discipline as well in the first half but that improved in the second. Hunslet just defended better I think. I'm still annoyed that we don't go for the 2 points more often, I know we were 6-10 down, but we had three back-to-back pens.

Darren Hawkyard has constantly improved since he arrived from the amateur ranks, another awesome game and my MOM. Higson was very impressive again, but has a lot of bad luck, he's constantly got problems with his teeth! Let's hope he's alright for York on Thursday. Ainscough looked good as well, another player that looks to have improved from last season. Morty was brilliant, his kicking was flawless!!!

Disappointed to lose but it was a good game, and yes, very sad that only 475 made it down to the LSV, we need more than that!

[Sniper Dennison]

STUPID, STUPID, cheap penalties!

[duffymoon]

Desperately dissapointed to lose a game we should have won.Poor discipline in the first half gifed Hunlset field position and credit to our visitors they managed to convert their possession into points when they got near our line.We desperately need reinforcements in the forwards! Mills for one certainly doesnt seem to run his size.If only Dana and Phil Joseph had been in our pack today.As ever Darren Hawkyard was immense!.The pitiful attendance of 475 illustrates how imperative it is that Agecroft happens! and sooner rather than later.

[mark richardson]

Really enjoyable game despite all that i have to say..
We have loads of pace but our threequarters lacked decent service. We lack a fast forward(Foxen?) and we lacked zip and urgency.
We didnt play to our strengths(Higson,Armstrong,Penny)apart from once when Armstrong scored. Why did we send Dodd chasing that kick from the scrum when we have Penny?
One good forward and that no33 from warrington would do us nicely.
Rubbish crowd.

[Blue Monkey]

The pitiful attendance of 475 illustrates how imperative it is that Agecroft happens! and sooner rather than later.

I think we'll ALL agree with this observational comment.

ROLL ON AGECROFT!!!

[PhillH]

A game that was there for the taking, but instead a very frustrating loss. Hunslet played with a pace slightly above Championship One level at times, not for the full 80 minutes though, and are nothing too special. The Lions shot themselves in the foot today.

Field position for every Hunslet try bar the last one came from a penalty or two off the Lions. 95% of which were clear and correct calls from the referee. Almost all the penalties came from needless and pretty pointless messing about in the tackle. Nearly all the forwards wanted to have a go at ball stealing for some reason. Even when the referee made it clear he was on top of this, some of the players just carried on doing it.

The turning point came when 4 points up deep into the second half and Karl Ashall broke play up nicely with an inventive little chip ahead, forced a knock on and secured prime position - right in front of the Hunslet posts, 10 yards out. This should've been the cue to pull 10 points clear and secure the win. Instead what followed was a lot of lateral movement of the ball but nobody took it in at anything above half pace. Over complicated, unstructured and a guilt edged chance gone - Hunslet off the hook! With two big powerful centres in a situation like that the focus should straight away go on isolating their opposite numbers near the line and setting them the task of stopping Armstrong or Higson from 5 yards - most times it will be try time.

Poor performances from the backrowers other than Darren Hawkyard today. Lee Wingfield never had much impact, I expect a lot more from him. Dale Cunniffe gave away more than his fair share of penalties and several times lacked composure and vision with ball in hand, none more so than when Watson put him clean through in the first half and he just didn't know what to do and made a total mess of it; no way is he a pucca loose forward. I'd agree with Mark Richardson - its time to give Rob Foxen a go in that second row or else a new recruit is needed.

Bad error of judgement from Kevin Penny to move in field and get stranded under a high ball, but it is a known issue with him that has held his career back, he did OK other than that - but he ought to be capable of doing much better than OK! Ian Watson's tactical kicking was pretty one dimensional in the main today.

Adam Higson was excellent throughout and a clear man-of-the-match to these eyes. Darren Hawkyard and Ian Mort close behind, Mort was again spot on with the goal kicking, took quite a few awkward high balls in, kept firing the team up and getting people to focus with verbal vollies. Karl Ashall was not the happiest bunny in LSV when taken off and I could understand why - he played very well and gave a nice cutting edge in the middle when he was on the pitch, but why such a short spell?

I guess when playing at the Willows everyone commented that there had been an uplift in gates of about 200 - the attendance today was back to Sedgely Park levels in a ground 10 times the size and the lack of atmosphere was tangible. The club was clearly expecting a low turnout given only half the length of the West Stand was open which I was surprised at, but if we had been even more spread out it would arguably have been worse and no doubt more expensive.

Wins needed at York and Barrow now or its back to the old "concentrate on the league" scenario.

[Furryenzo]

Dont forget weve got gorski who is a fast forward. But agreed that if there isnt a place on the wing for Foxen then a second row place should be experimented with. Something that I forgot to mention actually as phil rightly pointed out that Watsons kicking is suspect and has been in all games this year!!!

[marshy1]

Dont forget weve got gorski who is a fast forward. But agreed that if there isnt a place on the wing for Foxen then a second row place should be experimented with. Something that I forgot to mention actually as phil rightly pointed out that Watsons kicking is suspect and has been in all games this year!!!

Furryenzo..that's a bit of a harsh statement considering that we have only played three friendlies and one NRC game and Watto was out for at least one of those games. I agree his kicking wasn't A1 today but how many times has that lad let us down.?

[PaulT]

I felt sorry for Kevin Penny a bit today as he hardly saw the ball as it seemed to keep going to the other wing. He's arguably the fastest player outside Super League and we need to utilise this more!

You have to credit Hunslet for their defending on their line, but if we still had Phil Joseph, then we would have penatrated that defence. We're really light upfront and I don't feel we have adequate replacements for Phil or Dana's strength.

At the other end of the pitch, I thought our defending on the line was pretty poor, I think they went over everytime we were defending on the line.

I thought Martin Ainscough was brilliant today and he'll do himself justice in the Championship and Higson looked good.

I'll echo the comments that we need 2 or 3 more faces before we play Sheffield otherwise I can see it being a long season. Even though it was our first competitive run out, there are a lot stronger teams that Hunslet in this league.

Edited by PaulT, 19 February 2012 - 09:08 PM.
Grammar Error

[Furryenzo]

Just read that back, yeah I didnt mean it quite like it sounded, dont get me wrong im not slating Ian Watson by any means I just meant this year our kicking hasnt been particulary brilliant, although it did slip my mind that he missed a game. Perhaps I should have worded it a bit better

Edited by Furryenzo, 19 February 2012 - 09:08 PM.

[Bryce]

His kicks to the corners were brilliant, don't forget, Kev Penny was unlucky when he knocked on with the line begging. But Watto's positional kicks weren't brilliant, although Ashall made one which put Hunslet right back in their 20.

[GLENNGARY]

Marshy after what i am going to say you can have a go at me. We desperatley need a fast creative scrum half who can bring the ball away fast from the scrum and bring the threequaters into play. We have fast backs who are not seeing the ball, the answer being that the ball is not moving fast enough across the line.Every move is so pedestrian,I lost count of the number of times Watson ran towards the backs only to turn the ball back in side to a forward coming on it at half pace.The only time the pace picked up was when Ashall came on the field.I believe Watsons been great for Swinton but all good things come to an end and i believe he would serve Swinton better in his role of coaching and allowing us to bring in a young scrum half who could inject the extra pace needed to get the backs going. Its no use having loads of pace on the wings if they never see the ball.Hunslet will be one of the weaker teams in our division but the moved the ball a lot faster than we did,if we don't raise our speed levels to at least the level of Hunslets we are going to be in for a sticky season.

[marshy1]

Marshy after what i am going to say you can have a go at me. We desperatley need a fast creative scrum half who can bring the ball away fast from the scrum and bring the threequaters into play. We have fast backs who are not seeing the ball, the answer being that the ball is not moving fast enough across the line.Every move is so pedestrian,I lost count of the number of times Watson ran towards the backs only to turn the ball back in side to a forward coming on it at half pace.The only time the pace picked up was when Ashall came on the field.I believe Watsons been great for Swinton but all good things come to an end and i believe he would serve Swinton better in his role of coaching and allowing us to bring in a young scrum half who could inject the extra pace needed to get the backs going. Its no use having loads of pace on the wings if they never see the ball.Hunslet will be one of the weaker teams in our division but the moved the ball a lot faster than we did,if we don't raise our speed levels to at least the level of Hunslets we are going to be in for a sticky season.

Glenngary as a matter of fact I would agree that we do need someone younger to do what Watto has done for us in the past, my earlier comment related to a badly worded descrition of his kicking as now acknowledged.
Having not asked Watto the question it would be interesting to here what his thoughts were.

Of course the problem is finding one, I did think today a better option would have been to bring Watto off and leave Ashall on who i thought did as you say liven things up a bit.

[mark richardson]

Glenngary as a matter of fact I would agree that we do need someone younger to do what Watto has done for us in the past, my earlier comment related to a badly worded descrition of his kicking as now acknowledged.
Having not asked Watto the question it would be interesting to here what his thoughts were.

Of course the problem is finding one, I did think today a better option would have been to bring Watto off and leave Ashall on who i thought did as you say liven things up a bit.

Ashall was playing hooker though?
I dont think how we play is watsons fault. He makes us play. I think without him we wouldnt have been in the match. Yes we need a replacement in due course. I dont know what went wrong yesterday,but it wasnt Watson .

[Sniper Dennison]

A game that was there for the taking, but instead a very frustrating loss. Hunslet played with a pace slightly above Championship One level at times, not for the full 80 minutes though, and are nothing too special. The Lions shot themselves in the foot today.

Field position for every Hunslet try bar the last one came from a penalty or two off the Lions. 95% of which were clear and correct calls from the referee. Almost all the penalties came from needless and pretty pointless messing about in the tackle. Nearly all the forwards wanted to have a go at ball stealing for some reason. Even when the referee made it clear he was on top of this, some of the players just carried on doing it.

The turning point came when 4 points up deep into the second half and Karl Ashall broke play up nicely with an inventive little chip ahead, forced a knock on and secured prime position - right in front of the Hunslet posts, 10 yards out. This should've been the cue to pull 10 points clear and secure the win. Instead what followed was a lot of lateral movement of the ball but nobody took it in at anything above half pace. Over complicated, unstructured and a guilt edged chance gone - Hunslet off the hook! With two big powerful centres in a situation like that the focus should straight away go on isolating their opposite numbers near the line and setting them the task of stopping Armstrong or Higson from 5 yards - most times it will be try time.

Poor performances from the backrowers other than Darren Hawkyard today. Lee Wingfield never had much impact, I expect a lot more from him. Dale Cunniffe gave away more than his fair share of penalties and several times lacked composure and vision with ball in hand, none more so than when Watson put him clean through in the first half and he just didn't know what to do and made a total mess of it; no way is he a pucca loose forward. I'd agree with Mark Richardson - its time to give Rob Foxen a go in that second row or else a new recruit is needed.

Bad error of judgement from Kevin Penny to move in field and get stranded under a high ball, but it is a known issue with him that has held his career back, he did OK other than that - but he ought to be capable of doing much better than OK! Ian Watson's tactical kicking was pretty one dimensional in the main today.

Adam Higson was excellent throughout and a clear man-of-the-match to these eyes. Darren Hawkyard and Ian Mort close behind, Mort was again spot on with the goal kicking, took quite a few awkward high balls in, kept firing the team up and getting people to focus with verbal vollies. Karl Ashall was not the happiest bunny in LSV when taken off and I could understand why - he played very well and gave a nice cutting edge in the middle when he was on the pitch, but why such a short spell?

I guess when playing at the Willows everyone commented that there had been an uplift in gates of about 200 - the attendance today was back to Sedgely Park levels in a ground 10 times the size and the lack of atmosphere was tangible. The club was clearly expecting a low turnout given only half the length of the West Stand was open which I was surprised at, but if we had been even more spread out it would arguably have been worse and no doubt more expensive.

Wins needed at York and Barrow now or its back to the old "concentrate on the league" scenario.

[Sniper Dennison]

Absolutely spot on Phil.
Disappointing and flat. A lot of effort with little result. Dreadful discipline. Thought we played better against Halifax & Salford early 2011. The difference? Phil Joseph & Dana Wilson!
I miss The Willows!!!!! A proper RL 'feel' and atmosphere.
COME ON AGECROFT.

[Sniper Dennison]

Marshy after what i am going to say you can have a go at me. We desperatley need a fast creative scrum half who can bring the ball away fast from the scrum and bring the threequaters into play. We have fast backs who are not seeing the ball, the answer being that the ball is not moving fast enough across the line.Every move is so pedestrian,I lost count of the number of times Watson ran towards the backs only to turn the ball back in side to a forward coming on it at half pace.The only time the pace picked up was when Ashall came on the field.I believe Watsons been great for Swinton but all good things come to an end and i believe he would serve Swinton better in his role of coaching and allowing us to bring in a young scrum half who could inject the extra pace needed to get the backs going. Its no use having loads of pace on the wings if they never see the ball.Hunslet will be one of the weaker teams in our division but the moved the ball a lot faster than we did,if we don't raise our speed levels to at least the level of Hunslets we are going to be in for a sticky season.