Sainthamish

It is only mandatory for the home team doctor to be at PT championship games. So doubt that the Swinton doc was there.

I think that's the point. There wasn't a facility to enable that to happen at Sheffield given that the lad was on a stretcher. Barring loading him onto the team bus.

I think it would have been the Sheffield club doctor and I presume he was still strapped to a stretcher.

I heard that the ambulance didn't turn up and they gave up waiting after 4 hours and carried him onto the coach. If they'd have stuck with waiting for the ambulance it could have been way longer. I've read that ambulances are often stuck queued up outside A&E because there are no beds for the patients they're carrying. If this was the case then I can totally understand why they didn't go to the hospital in Sheffield. I was also told that there was only basic pain relief at the ground that did little to address his pain. Didn't even have gas and air. It's right that Will should be angry and should be highlighting this. Imagine the anger from saints fans if say, James Roby had the same injury at an away match at Leeds and was still on a stretcher waiting to go to the hospital, with basic pain relief, hours after everyone has left the game and gone home. Or the same situation for any superleague player. Why should player welfare be a lower priority in the Championship?

I appreciate the importance to the club and it's fans of getting back to Sheffield. But, I think they should have stuck with playing at Wakefield until OLP was up to scratch. The OLP experience reminds me of when my son played at under 12's and I think it may have been at Shevington where they played on a school field and went back to the local pub for after match butties. Not really the set up you'd expect in the Championship. To be honest, the set up at most amateur grounds is better than at Sheffield in my opinion.

Just to pick up on the points regarding players wages for fringe players. There's some inflated figures knocking about in the comments (£15k). These young players at the lower end of the first team squad could be earning as little as £5k to £6k. It's an issue because a significant percentage of lads turn down the opportunity to be a professional player and get a job instead because the rugby money is so low.

It was also great to see that the bulk of award winners were 21 or younger. Hope we’re looking to keep these lads at the club as they’ll get better with age. Although, I guess that ship has sailed with regards Deon and his move to Barrow. It’s a shame as I recon he’s really improved throughout the season since joining as an amateur to plug the gap left by Trigger.

We played well up the hill in the first half but, shot ourselves in the foot in the second half with the number of errors we made. When we could complete a set, we were making huge yards down the hill that showed with the 2 comeback tries.

Just announced that Danny Yates has signed for Batley and I noticed that Deon Cross has signed for Barrow. With the rumours of there being a few off to Crusaders, will we have anyone left from this team next year anyway?

The thing that killed us yesterday was our lack of possession. We either gave away penalties, knocked on, or was just desperately unlucky. All that effort in defence just burnt us out. We're also lacking some forwards. I guess George King wasn't available, Dave Allen is injured, Gaz Mid is injured, Gavin Bennion got called back to Salford, Matty Hadden going back to Ireland and Toby Adamson was injured. I'm sure that all these lads would have made a difference if they were either fit or still with the club. I'm sure just having one extra forward on the bench coming on with fresh legs would have helped (we only had 2 to rotate). Having said that, our effort in defence was outstanding. No one can say that the lads who played yesterday weren't trying.

What a great performance by the lads. I think the real difference between ourselves and the likes of Leigh isn't so much the gulf in talent but, certainly the gulf in money. Especially, the fact that the money is there for Leigh to keep a full time team. If our lads were able to train full time I recon we would be a hell of lot closer to the top of the championship with the same team.

It was a great win and personally I thought we well deserved that win. We were the better team overall I thought, certainly in defense. Even at the start, our defense was superb keeping them in their 40m only for them to get them 40/20s.....twice!! I bet Killer was pulling his hair out at that point 😉

We went through long spells yesterday where we just couldn't complete a set of six, or we were tackled in goal and had to drop out and all that extra effort in defence killed us. Credit to the lads though for the effort in defence they put in but, I think we need our half backs to control the game better. Our kicking game was poor and we just seem to move the ball from side to side when we get on their line. It must be easy to read for the Barrow defence. It's like we get frustrated that we haven't scored and start to push it when we just need to keep in the arm wrestle. Our completion rate drops and so does our energy.

I guess the backs often do the exciting stuff in a game and win the plaudits for doing so. But, I thought some of our forwards today really dug in and did a tremendous job in the heat. I think Mitch and Toby Adamson did 80 mins, Hatton and Moran did long minutes in the front row too. I think if we had better composure in that second half we could have put a score on Swinton.

I thought we did really well, especially given the heat and the fact we only had 3 props. We started well going up that hill with good movement and interplay in the middle between Allan and Hatton and I think we kept on the front foot in attack from then on. Plus, I recon that's the best game I've seen Mitch play for us. He was breaking or half breaking through their line with almost every carry he took. Batley's number 7 (I think it was the 7) caused us problems in defence. Without him, I don't think they would have beaten us. In addition to the forward passes, I think it was their first try came from a blatant obstruction that wasn't given. I wish we would put a grubber kick in goal more often rather than the cross field kick to Rob though. It would have killed Batley if we'd have repeatedly forced drop outs rather than give the possession away.