Quote: Exeter Rhino "Newman did not fail his HIA, he needs stitches in a badly cut lip.
Holroyd did not play because of heavy bruising sustained when a Saints player pushed him into the advertising signs.
Gannon is out long-term - they are taking it slowly because of the concussions. I doubt he's ready yet.
I agree Leeds should have had an antidote to being pegged back for so long in the first half. We should also credit the outstanding defence a bit more too. I agree it will need to be better against Warrington.
I can see a pattern developing with the Smith haters that we only win when the opposition are poor. At what point do you give the guy some credit for those four wins? Okay, we have better players this season, does Smith not get credit for identifying them and signing them, or is it GH? But I thought everyone agrees that GH has lost the plot when it comes to recruitment... People have been moaning about Olpherts, the guy is moved on, and who gets the credit? This time last season we weren't winning as much, and the mantra was all about getting results - so what has changed now we're getting a few?'"
Good post.
I can totally see where the RS criticism comes from - some of it is to do with how we play and a perceived lack of "structure". I think there is a kind of structure but it's not as regimented. Whether it works or not time will tell. Much of the rest of the criticism is just bias because people don't like the bloke's personality as far as I can see.
Don't get me wrong, he doesn't have excuses this season for poor table position or too many poor results, unless we have another injury tsunami. I'm not completely sold on how he's asking the team to play yet myself: although I would say the conditions have been crappy and levelling so far this year.
I can't argue with any of his post-match summary - we have played well in large patches this year. We haven't done it for long enough periods but when we are on form we look very good actually. I am concerned with how easily we're getting rolled down field and how hard work we make of gaining territory when we have the ball. However here we are at 4-2 with a decent sequence coming up ahead. If we beat Wire we're suddenly looking half competitive at least in terms of table.
