MZH

The biggest frustration for me in recent weeks (and I'm sure for Cartwright too) has been the unforced error count. We knew when Asiata went down that our attack would be adversely affected, and you can see we have lost that attacking shape and speed with him not being there. But we are not giving ourselves a chance with the amount of ball we are putting down. We have got to get back to completing sets and getting good kicks in and slowly building pressure. I'm really happy with what we are doing defensively, and the effort everyone is giving can't be faulted. It's night and day from previous seasons. We know we are a work in progress and that it's going to take at least another 2 recruitment cycles for us to really be a force. But we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. A playoff place is very much attainable this year and that would be a big boost to everyone after the garbage served up over the last 3 or 4 seasons.

Well surely we will beat Salford Wakefield is a 50/50 imo. Huddersfield we should beat, although they are improving and we've struggled against them twice already this year. The Leigh game is winnable if we've got Asiata and Pryce back by then, which hopefully we will have.

4 of our next 5 are at home. Wakefield, Huddersfield, Salford, Leigh. So you would like to think our home losing run won't last too much longer at least.

Panned out pretty much as I expected it. Bags of heart, bags of effort, very little quality with ball in hand.

Just too scruffy. We've got a chance here but we just can't get our execution right.

He looked out before he hit the ground there. Hopefully not as bad as it looked.

That was stolen. If we hadn't wasted the captains challenge we would have won that one.

When a player purposely walks 3 or 4 yards off his mark to play it, it really should be a penalty. You shouldn't be allowed to just go back to mark.

We've got a sniff. We need that try to be a big momentum shifter though. We are struggling badly to make ground.

Great work from Sezer and a great effort from Litten to get up and support. He needed that after a couple of poor errors this half.

What on earth are they looking at now? Absolutely tedious.

That's a shocker. For one thing the defender clearly was in contact when the ball carrying arm goes down. But also, the ref shouts held. If Barron thinks he isn't held then maybe he tries to get back in field a bit, but he doesn't. He stops because of the refs shout.

Oh well that's the match.

Really bad error from Litten, but surely Saints were all offside at that scrum? And now Saints make another error. 3 knock ons in less than 2 minutes.

Say what you want about Hardaker the man (and by all accounts he's a totally different character these days) but Hardaker the player is a hell of a competitor. You never see him give any less than his best. He's been very good for us this year.

We didn't really get a look in all half barring a couple of half chances towards the end of it. For a while I thought it was only a matter of time before the damn broke and Saints ran away with it, so all things considered I'm happy to only be 8 down. We really lack for cutting edge without Asiata and Pryce. We just need to respect possession more, play in better areas, and try to get Litten and Barron competing for some high kicks because I reckon that's our best hope of breaking them down.

Good defence from Saints but Martin was never going to be able to score on the edge like that. Would have been better off staying off the touchline and trying to drive Robertson over the line with him.

Someone tell the Saints players that there are body parts below the neck that you are allowed to tackle.

We have basically defended for half an hour, but there's just a sense of a momentum change now.

It was only a matter of time. Can't keep soaking up pressure like that. We've just got to shake it off and get into the arm wrestle.

Hardaker is playing full back for Hull. Rapana at centre. Cartwright makes his return but they are easing him in off the bench. Ashworth and Chamberlain are the starting second rows.

If Saints win we are starting to see a gap open up and I reckon it will leave us with a straight 3 way fight for 6th between Hull, Wakefield and Warrington. A Hull win on the other hand puts all sorts of outcomes back on the table.

I'm certainly not writing them off for the Grand Final. But the LLS is all but done imo.

It depends what you enjoy watching. American Football has virtually no contested possessions. Theres the odd fight for a loose ball after a fumble and the occasional interception and that's about it. Aussie Rules Football on the other hand is essentially one long battle for possession that often see both teams scrabbling about for the ball with no one gaining clean possession for prolonged periods of time. Both sports are exceptionally popular in their own countries, with massive followings, sponsorships, tv deals etc. I really don't think it's a problem.

I don't think the ref influenced the result. Salford didn't get the rub of green with a few things, but there was nothing game changing and I think Warrington would have had enough regardless. However, your assertion that because Salford kicked a few penalties the ref was on their side is a strange one. If you keep hitting people in the head in your own 20 you shouldn't be surprised when you concede a few kickable penalties.