So has Whiting, I'm sure it was just forgetfulness on your part to miss him out.

I love eating humble pie.

Maybe but think Whiting has been slightly more consistent but they all stood up to be counted yesterday and im big enough to say i was wrong.

Fair play for admitting it. It still just annoys me that a lot of people will only pick out the same names for criticism and ignore others. I would actually say that out of the 5 mentioned between us, Galea has probably been the pick for the last 3 games now, yet I bet you'd struggle to find many who would admit it. Whiting is in the opposite camp, even when he makes mistakes it is largely glossed over. Although it would be nitpicking in yesterday's defensive performance, it was Whiting's miss for their 2nd try. But that's my point; not that Whiting or some others have been noticeably better/worse than each other, but that with some players fans seem to want to do that nitpicking where for others they want to make allowances. There are some marginally different levels of performances which are made out to be huge gulfs because of the players involved.

Is this the same Danny Houghton who Zod thinks is a one trick pony?

Excellent defensive performance, awful ball retention.



Looked ok in parts in attack, when we held the ball. Despite it being a bit boring I think gentle got his tactics spot on.



The most frustrating thing for me was the stupid penalties we gave away and this must improve if we want to progress in the cup and league.



Thought Houghton, Ellis and heremia was fantastic.



Time to use our squad for Friday and give game time to Shaul, crooks, arundel, Pitts, Bowden and Hadley.

Congratulations to the lads for getting through in tough, tough circumstances. Let's pray for a favoutable draw

Hellfire that's the second time this week I've been bob on

Great post! Galea has been our standout over the last few weeks and it alwyas the same names that get brought up and the same ones missed off.



Ball retention didn't worry me, both sides had issues so it was more about conditions than our ability. Defensively we were outstanding, lots of players putting their bodies on the line. Really pleased to see Briscoe play well. hope that improves his confidence. It was a tough battle and everyone stood up well. Glad Crooks didn't end up regretting his mistake when he should have put Lineham in.



If we defend like that in the semi we will give ourselves a real chance.

Spot on about Whiting, can do no wrong in some people's eyes.

I think the problem is that he has been so consistently good that people are loth to criticise him when his standards do drop.

I think it's tit for tat really in terms of criticism. Whiting was totally in no man's land for the try you allude to and I've no idea what he was doing. In Tickle's first game back against Wakefield he made a shambles of an effort in defence on his own line to allow a try in that in score terms cost us the match. Against Hudds Westerman was poor on his own line to miss a straightforward one on one to allow a score which in score terms cost us a point. The Tickle and Westerman incidents were barely mentioned on here so I think overall criticism is fairly evenly shared out. I do think that sometimes the grafters (Westerman being one) sometimes don't get the credit they deserve but that's always been the case.

I don't think it's evenly shared out, personally. Individual incidents are possibly pulled out as often, but they are used/held against different players in very different ways IMO, and a lot of my point was about how it is done. It's also always then the same names who are called of to get rid, regardless of form of both them and others.



I know it continually harks back to the same names, but it's just that they're such good examples rather than an agenda, but look at a few weeks ago when I pointed out Whiting costing us a try against Cas with a penalty followed by a missed tackle. The instant reply I got was that he shouldn't have been in that position because Westerman shouldn't have attempted an offload and lost possession. If it had been the other way around we'd have had yet another thread on here saying we should get rid of Westerman. If you'd like a couple of different examples, I think it's also true of McDonnell and Crooks but to lesser extent. McDonnell has been one of our best players, but those few errors are still picked upon with relish by many, whereas probably because of how good Crooks has been in attack, his defensive lapses have been overlooked/forgotten about.



We have a handful of players who when they make a mistake, mitigating factors are found and acknowledged (and rightly so, most of the time), but likewise we have a bunch for whom fans just seem to be poised waiting to pounce on every error and castigate them for it, without offering the same defence.

It did worry me a little, but not massively. Obviously the fact that Catalan suffered a lot too showed how tough the conditions were, but I was still a bit concerned with how many times we but the ball down cold or simply fluffed the pass. The ball popping out in the collision or squirming out on the floor is one thing, but I still thought our basic catching and passing should have been a bit better.