Crown Flatter

Are we going to play Toulouse or ToWin? I feel optimistic about this fixture-no not that optimistic where we win, but that we give a better performance than of late. Dewsbury 12-20 Toulouse FTS: Turnet MoM: Hookem Att: 556

I admire Dale for realising it wasn’t going the way he had hoped and allowing the club to appoint someone else, with the hope of improving our situation.

That’ll do for me!

The game went more or less as I predicted; we were lucky it wasn’t a bigger score against us. Our attack is still poor with slow or predictable passing and if someone makes the odd break, there no backing up. Once again our defence was terrible; three players hanging on to an opponent and he either gets the ball away, or scores himself. Supporters behind me were shouting their frustrations at the referee with his decisions, but rightly or wrongly, we were still useless and wouldn’t have won. I would though, like to see if he and his TJ were correct in bringing back the interception.

That’s good, but how do you know if the rest of us don’t?

We nearly won at Barrow, Doncaster walloped them, we took a thrashing last week and I expect we will be bashed even harder at Donny. I reckon our defence will be ripped apart and any attack we might have thought we had will quickly disappear. Doncaster 60-6 Dewsbury Try scorer: Restall MoM: Turner Att: 704

I very much doubt that the South Stand will be open; we shall have to sit and view his name from across (assuming his name is already in situ).

I think that’s a good summary and I can’t really add to that. Listening to DF’s report he suggested that we went away from what the team practised. I think I’ve heard that before, so like not playing the ball properly and allowing set restarts for the opposition, we don’t learn. Does it help if I say we won the penalty count? I thought not.

Returning to the topic, if we play for ALL of the game instead of half of it, I would say victory would be ours. Unfortunately I don’t think we can manage full throttle for 80 minutes and coupled with Swinton’s good performances so far, once again we will come away pointless. Swinton 28-16 Dewsbury FTS: Dixon MoM: Dawson Att: 676

If Lewis Carr’s touchdown was ruled out for a forward pass, shouldn’t their second try also been have disallowed?

This match turned out to be the proverbial game of two halves cliché. Barrow’s tactic for playing into the wind was excellent, winning the ball from both the kick off and the repeat after our early try following your brilliant start, coupled with our deplorable defence, in what I suggested on our forum, was a dross first half for Dewsbury. I thought that the long half time break would make things worse for us, but for some reason we seemed inspired, very similar to your first half. We ended the first half with a try being disallowed, which I thought might have been okay. Shaw was denied for you at the start of the second period, but I was unable to see why from my viewing position. From that point we were off. Did we play well, or did Barrow not play so good? A really good game to watch with very few penalties (3-2 to Barrow), fair refereeing and some enjoyable chats with some of your supporters afterwards and handshakes offered and accepted, before the long journey home.

It was certainly that old cliché today -a game of two halves! We were absolutely dross in the first period. We had to drop out in the first minute after Barrow collected from the kick off, then knocked on in the first tackle of our first set and they scored after 5 minutes We struck immediately with some good work by Sykes and Dawson almost put Greensmith over and then Hookem passed to Dawson who did score. That was our moment of glory, except for Carr going over, but a forward pass ruled out the score. The home side then went mad through good play, coupled with our shocking defence. Four tries in ten minutes smashed us, making it 26-4 at the break. An extended (45 minutes) HT break due to the club doctor having to deal with an off-field emergency made me wonder if that would go against us, but it was completely the opposite. After the Barrow winger had a try disallowed this got us on the front foot with Hookem scoring, followed by Restall going over near the corner and Sykes converting both. Suddenly it was 26-16 and we wondered if we could do it. Ten minutes elapsed before some quick passing put Greensmith in a gap to touchdown, but Sykes failed with the conversion. That was it for us and a drop goal at the end made the gap 7 points, but I do believe that if we’d had a little more time we could have got the points. I thought Harry Copley, on at full back, gave us an idea of his talent on his debut, with Davies and Hookem playing well, as did Billington. Came away quite pleased in the end, but we have to learn to play for 80 minutes, not forty.

Based on last week’s BIG disappointment, I reckon we shall see the Raiders gain their second win of the season. Barrow 30-10 Dewsbury FTS: Davies MoM: Copley (on his debut!) Att; 1553

If we play like we did against Batley, then you’ve no chance! If we play like we did against Widnes, it’ll be all yours! I think it will be the latter unfortunately.

Didn’t David Seeds play for ‘Haven?