Howell might not have been at fault defensively but he was bloody awful in attack - It is so rare that I see him have a good game these days. Dare I say he has been one of our least succesful signings? He never stands out. He certainly had an absolute shocker today.



Clubb improved on last week and gave O'Callaghan a bit more ball. JOC impressed me with his willingness to take the ball in; He wasn't given much in the way of opportunities but he tried his heart out. Burnett looked good again, made plenty of yards down the left and often needed three tacklers to stop him. I thought Dorn and Gale were also impressive - perhaps this will be Gale's year.



We should have been out of sight in this game, Sammut apart Crusaders were terrible and offered so little, yet time and time again with their line in sight we either coughed up possession or couldn't find a way through - better sides will punish us for this. Having said that, I thought we once again defended pretty well and looked a damn sight better organised than under the McDermott era.



And as for 1700 - that simply can't be right. There was 3,000 there - not that that is anything to shout about in itself.

Not sure how many that stand holds but it was 2/3rds full at most.

Wasn't Howell our top try scorer in his first year.



Didnt he make the break for Melling to get away then Dorn to finish



Ive got a feeling Howell and Burnett will make a good strike partnership on the left

I think it holds 4,200.......regardless of the actual attendance, 1700 or 3000....it is still a worry that the club spent money in Metro, offered loads of freebies/cheap tickets to ST holders, it was the first home game of the season and yet we struggled to get a decent crowd.

Let's hope they continue with some activity in Metro through the whole season and come up with some good "local" initiatives.....

from where i was sat the for sammuts second try the defence was compacted so much on the left there was acres of space for sammut to play with, so sorry have to say it was as much a team problem, Sammut was always going to be the problem man.

I not watched the tries on tv yet, so happy to be proved wrong but looked like we had poss 3 defenders that side of the sticks!!!!

How did Kouparitsas and Bailey go in the game ????

I'm an 'm62er' as you call us! I'm one of the ones who wants RL in London to thrive because my sport comes before my club. If you got over 3k, even if it's for tax purposes, you should have reported it as that. I just think it would be a lot better publcity-wise.



Good luck for the season by the way. Even though you cost me a fortune last week by coupon-busting me.

I arrived just before kick off and walked right along the front of the stand to get to the end we were kicking towards. That stand was about half full, i.e. 2,000, with about eighty behind the sticks. Official attendance was maybe a bit light, but not by much.



I enjoyed the game, but Quins should have won a bit more convincingly. Looking at the fixture list it's hard to see where any more points will come from in the next four games, but we've made a good start, so "onwards and upwards". I feel more enthusiastic than in the last few seasons.

There does seem to be a bias against teams outside the M62 corridor up here. I can't understand it though - it's very backwards thinking from my fellow Northerners. Personally I would like all of the expansion teams (and apologies if you're offended by that term!) to succeed - it can only be good for the game if Quins, Catalans and Crusaders start producing youngsters, putting out good teams and draw good crowds. Talk of throwing any of those teams out for Leigh, or other such League sides is madness. If I was in charge, Toulouse would be in with a shot of a license this time around.



Oh, enjoy Mellor and Pryce. He gets a lot of stick from the home crowd, but I think Karl is an excellent little (ha!) player. Teams are terrified of attacking his wing, and he falls over the line with the best of them. Mellor has been spoken in the same breath as S. Tomkins at Wigan, so it'll be interesting to see how he performs for you guys as the season progresses.

Sorry, wasn't having a dig it was genuinely funny.

Agreed. I've only seen the tries on Sky Sports but the second Sammut effort was due to lack of numbers, not an individual error. Granted, Clubb missed a 1-on-1 for the first Sammut try but, again, there was a lack of lateral movement inside him - when anyone is left 1-on-1 it means there's been already been a defensive failure to read the play.

The most pleasing aspect of the game for me was our kicking game. We may actually have an English half-back who can kick the ball to stay in the in-goal area!

We should have won by a bigger margin, and they did bomb a great opportunity to steal the game from us late on.

I did think we looked really great in the spell when Chad went to 9 and Bailey operated at 6 (and that is no disrespect to Andy Ellis who had a fine game). As the combinations settle down I think we'll be better with ball in hand, although I've got to say Dorn's try early in the second half really was a joy.

Great to see KT's go forward - the whole team lifted when he came on. It does annoy me though that we let that lazy, greedy get Sammut over for 2 tries.