Match Thread - Swinton Lions Round 2

[Dog forever]

On 10/02/2023 at 10:55, phildog said:

34-16, Swinton aren't the mugs folk take 'em for, they'll be in it for an hour, couple of late scores will get us over the line.

Hope they have changed their spoiling tactics ( dropping down injured every 2 minutes)

[Blind side johnny]

2 hours ago, Dog forever said:

Hope they have changed their spoiling tactics ( dropping down injured every 2 minutes)

This is what the green card is for.

[Dog forever]

1 hour ago, Blind side johnny said:

This is what the green card is for.

That's if refs decide to use it bsj. Anyway you coming up to watch a good game of rugby.

[il cattivo]

Pretty toothless performance today.

Swinton used the momentum and took advantage of some stupid and woeful discipline from players who I think are a bit in love with themselves from last year.....some looked decidedly,and unexpectedly, poor after we'd gone behind.

Unfortunately Lingard isn't in a position to drop them if they carry on making the same dozy mistakes.

I had a bad feeling about this game all week.

Need a reaction for Sheffield away next week after their win up at Barrow.

[phildog]

Well, as much as they deserved all the plaudits last week, they have to take every brick thrown at them today. Lacking in organisation, no second phase play at all bar Buchanan's try, the times Meadows broke the line and tried to be the hero, Woods wasn't to be seen, starting props barely effective, ineffective tackling 2nd half, no pace. Last week promised a decent go at tge season, today left it looking like a slog.

 

[il cattivo]

2 minutes ago, phildog said:

Well, as much as they deserved all the plaudits last week, they have to take every brick thrown at them today. Lacking in organisation, no second phase play at all bar Buchanan's try, the times Meadows broke the line and tried to be the hero, Woods wasn't to be seen, starting props barely effective, ineffective tackling 2nd half, no pace. Last week promised a decent go at tge season, today left it looking like a slog.

 

To be fair it is always going to be a slog...

Other teams have really spent and strengthened,and we know we can't do as well on that front as we'd like,but we should be winning games like this.

I fear if we lose the next couple of games it's going to be struggle all year.

[RogerT]

After the Lord Mayors Parade that was a shoddy effort, all Kevin's effort at attracting people in as just been blown to bits.

It's criminal not reaching touch with two penalty kicks. 

[il cattivo]

2 minutes ago, RogerT said:

After the Lord Mayors Parade that was a shoddy effort, all Kevin's effort at attracting people in as just been blown to bits.

It's criminal not reaching touch with two penalty kicks. 

Yep.

Grim indeed.

[Dog forever]

New faces that put a tenner into the club probably won't be doing it again. When Meadows kept breaking the line all he had to do was pass it to jc and we would have been out of reach. Long time since I have seen us so un interested. Who'd have thought we were in the million pound game last season. Carry on playing like that and we are going to get some tonkings. 

[Northern Eel]

22 minutes ago, RogerT said:

After the Lord Mayors Parade that was a shoddy effort, all Kevin's effort at attracting people in as just been blown to bits.

It's criminal not reaching touch with two penalty kicks. 

The game and atmosphere was sufficiently good not to put off any newcomers, I am sure, but you're right, it could have been so much better.

The game itself; whilst there were a number of reasons we didn't win that game, the biggest to me was that we were distinctly second best around the ruck. Time after time up the hill, Swinton used 3 or 4 scoots per set and we never reacted to that. Then, downhill, they got quick PTBs and to concede two tries from dummy half with three players in the tackle was really poor.

I am hoping that was a bad day at the office, but Swinton played out their game-plan perfectly and we looked flat and one-dimensional. 

An indifferent pre-season may well also lead to an indifferent season. Let's see if we have the guile and manpower to bounce back quickly.

[RIGGY]

Could have sworn there were two teams playing in this game. The Lions executed their game plan to perfection 

Good luck for the rest of the season

[RogerT]

Yes and Batley never really got going.

[phildog]

Agree Il Cattivo, consequence of poor or should I say numerical recruitment we're not blessed with numbers, but we have to make use of the ones we have. Let's be honest and say that we could find ourselves without Campbell, Johnson, Gledhill, Hirst, Kaye, Blake even Brown next season, all must wondering about Father Time. Where are their replacements If players like Milthorpe, Richardson and Kibula are being held until a 'suitable game' then they'll never play, wasn't today expected to be a 'suitable game'? If not, which? Had they played they couldn't have been any worse. Fans of clubs where Kibula has been don't seem to have a good word but we're struggling to find out about him for ourselves. Every man has his place as they say, we've had a few, this coulld be Sammy's. There needs to be a reaction of sorrs on Friday and if that means shaking the bag up then on with it.

 

[toffeedog]

Someone tell me is johnson getting paid with pies as he looks like he as been over weight and so slow was terrible viewing 

[phildog]

Would have persuaded Whiteley to stay instead PLUS we have a young lad waiting anyway with pace. ALSO Kieran Rush at Huddersfuekd available on loan their bumf says....as I've said elsewhere how many might retire this time?

[bromleybulldog]

Seemed to be a complacent attitude today, expecting to win without putting the effort in. Some very poor aspects, in particular the failure to find touch from penalties twice, dropping off far too many tackles when we had the man stopped but not put down,and a worrying lack of pace all round. Swinton had a plan, played it to perfection. Hope we can bounce back next Friday.

[Northern Eel]

Anyone know the crowd figure? Looked marginally better than for similar games. 

[distantdog]

Very grim yesterday. I don't mind the aging pack so much as the complete lack of pace we have in the backs. This was very obvious against Dewsbury on Boxing Day, and was exposed again yesterday. We seemed to lack any coherent plan, and took way too long to get going in the first half. 

I think that we need to get that full-back position sorted as JM struggled there yesterday, and it also meant he couldn't influence the game when he comes on as a replacement. 

Anyway, let's hope that we can turn it around for Friday, though Sheffield look to be quite a force this season.

On the crowd, it was a decent turnout for a game against Swinton, and hopefully, despite the result they will come back and give us another go!

Well done Swinton, played well and got a well deserved win. 

Aren't Monday's are horrible when we lose?

[toffeedog]

We might just be foundout this year we got good fowards but didn't impose them selfs on swinton thought Riley was brillant when he came on ward was decent couldn't bust them keegan was ok . Woods was woeful and meadows kept doing show and go with ooother options don't understand why we didn't get message to him to stop it. There trainers on every 2 minutes were missing a trick here not following suit

[nineoil]

Swinton deserved their win but was that TRIPE that our team served up yesterday ??

• Some Players had no idea how to catch a ball .
• There was no pace which was highlighted by the fact that Swinton had at least 4 players faster than anyone we had on the field . Pace is a real killer in this game and we had none on display yesterday .
• Worryingly, we had no creativity - the only tactic seemed to be  to put up "bombs" which Swinton kept catching (easily ) because at every occasion there wasn't a Batley player within 10 metres of the receiver applying any pressure ! Maybe after 5 or 6  wasted efforts the creative players should have had a rethink ( or maybe the coaching staff should have intervened ) !! 
• Several Players missed one on one tackles which resulted in two tries ! Last season , "defence" was our strength but yesterday it went to pot !!
• Lack of discipline from certain players was our final undoing.

The first half was mediocre at best as we clearly failed to take advantage of the slope . The first 15 minutes of the second half was much better and more like that Batley of last year ! However , at 16 - 6 it seemed as though we put our collective Cues in the Rack as if it was "job done". This enable Swinton to creep back into the game without being over threatening .

In my opinion the game  turned on an act of pure lunacy when their kicker who having got his kick away was clobbered thus giving a penalty downfield near to our line . Needless to say they scored from the restart and never looked back ! This penalty was unforgiveable as it was totally and utterly unnecessary and clearly opened the door for Swinton ! Up to that point we were fairly comfortable in containing them !

This Division is too tight to put in performances like we saw yesterday so I hope it is a wake up call to players and coaching staff ! Most startling of all was that once Swinton got in front we went down with barely a murmur and at the end we looked to be a bit of a ragbag ! The team must realise that there will be no easy games this season. Maybe if we carry on performing like we did yesterday then we may be considered to be the easy game in our Division .

This performance was against a background of Kevin and the Board striving to get more people through the gate . It must have felt like a kick in the guts watching their team dish up that "dog's breakfast" of a performance. Having watched Batley for many years I can tell you that the Batley public are very fickle and new people will soon drift away after that performance !

Fortunately , we are only two games into the season so there is plenty of time to get back on even keel !  Perhaps yesterday was just a bad day at the office ! Even more fortunate for Batley is that we have a decent Coaching team but they must learn from that dreadful performance !

Moan over !

[phildog]

DD....don't forget that Jimmy was only stopgap fb yesterday with McGowan and Kear injured. Both reckon to be fit for Friday so McGowan would return, Morton on the wing and Kear at centre letting Walshaw get backto the pack and bolster the middles' tackling. We'll be more balanced then, Jimmy can get back to what he does best. Word on Woods; he's taken flak, folk saying his kicking's poor and he's not involved. Buchanan and Manning might say different, tries from Josh's bombs, watch back London highlights, his passes brought tries, was involved in Walshaw's try today. Remember we've been spoiled for 2 seasons by Tom Gilmour and Luke Hooley. We now have players in with different atttibutes and we're having to get used to it. THAT SAID, we're always told that it's a squad game, regardless of who's injured rgere should be players of equal calibre to come in. Yesterday it wasn't the replacements that let us down....

[distantdog]

3 minutes ago, phildog said:

DD....don't forget that Jimmy was only stopgap fb yesterday with McGowan and Kear injured. Both reckon to be fit for Friday so McGowan would return, Morton on the wing and Kear at centre letting Walshaw get backto the pack and bolster the middles' tackling. We'll be more balanced then, Jimmy can get back to what he does best. Word on Woods; he's taken flak, folk saying his kicking's poor and he's not involved. Buchanan and Manning might say different, tries from Josh's bombs, watch back London highlights, his passes brought tries, was involved in Walshaw's try today. Remember we've been spoiled for 2 seasons by Tom Gilmour and Luke Hooley. We now have players in with different atttibutes and we're having to get used to it. THAT SAID, we're always told that it's a squad game, regardless of who's injured rgere should be players of equal calibre to come in. Yesterday it wasn't the replacements that let us down....

I don't disagree with any of that Phil. I also think the loss of Josh Hodson is a crucial one. remember last season we lost 2 or 3 games near the back end of the season when he was out. Woods will be fine, he just needs time to settle in. Saying that, we do lack speed in the backs and it needs sorting soon.

[phildog]

AND for those criticising Meadows, he did the same things at Fev in the semi, got Josh Hodson and himself over for tries, same last week and got Flinny in. This will be Jimmy's season I reckon.

[The scrim reaper]

I think we need to remember that despite having no gilmore and Hooley this year, two players we will really miss, the majority of this team got us to the grand final last year! Yes some of them are getting close to there retiring ages but they don't become bad players overnight, yesterday's game was poor from our boys, we looked flat and lacking energy maybe a hang over from London? We are known for our tough defense and our stubborn fighting  attitude of never going away! but it just wasn't there yesterday! we allowed far too many off loads, and missed far too many tackles some leading to tries! There was plenty of effort yesterday from certain individuals, but no real execution of plays and no leader on the pitch!  Woods needs to up his game and get more involved if he's going to win the fans over, you could see Meadows was trying to be our main play maker yesterday, a little too much at times, you can see he wants to be more  involved which is hard to do from fullback! Hopefully this was  just one of those early season blips! Otherwise if we carry on playing like we did yesterday, it's going to be a long hard season for Batley fans! 

Edited February 13, 2023 by The scrim reaper

[Crown Flatter]

16 hours ago, phildog said:

Would have persuaded Whiteley to stay instead PLUS we have a young lad waiting anyway with pace. ALSO Kieran Rush at Huddersfuekd available on loan their bumf says....as I've said elsewhere how many might retire this time?

According to League Express he had “a shining 40 minute display” against Dewsbury yesterday, but there again, it wasn’t hard for him in a strong Giants team agin us.