Widnes best team for 59 mins

[shimmy]

Nothing better than hearing these people that have never played rugby in there lives slate the team... Why get rid of betts because when the next coach comes in and loses 1 GAME then we'll just say its bacause its not his team... I wasn't confident as soon as i seen the team in thursday with NO Watts, Briscoe, Davies, Flynn, kite and Phelps put them into That sqaud tonight and its a whole different ball game!!! Its Round 1 of 84 (3 years of 28 rounds) and its a big step up from championship!! Lets just give the 10/15 rounds to gel as i can DEFINATELY see positives to come out of it!!! UP THE VIKINGS

[Rickp]

I've just watched the match back & I must say I may have been bit harsh with my original take on the game. We DID actually play a lot better than I first thought. Having said that we still must improve on our attacking options. Looking at the first half in particular, after a shakey start we did dominate the next 30 minutes or so & could've & should've put the game to bed in the first half. Maybe thier heads(Thats Wakefield) may have dropped if we'd have converted some of the chances we had. I thought the 3Video Ref decisions, he got 2 wrong & 1 correct. Our first no try was defo a try for me & theirs wasn't. The 3rd one he got right Ah Van did pull back Fox, so no qualms about that one. But while they were always in the hunt scorewise that kept their(Wakey) confidence high.
 Our right wing defence looked solid Ah Van & Isa I thought tackled really well. But on the left we were found really wanting at times & they spotted that weakness & exploited it to the full.
I'm willing to say the occaision may have got to us in the end & hope that we can come up with the answers to beat Salford in a fortnight. I can't see us beating Huddersfield next week, but hey who know's stranger things have happened.

[MT]

Think you have your left and right mixed up, Marsh and Dean looked much more solid on the right than Isa (who looked a weak link) and Ah Van on the left.

[angie]

Do you not think that maybe the occassion got to the players as well as the crowd?  They wanted to do well in the first game and sometimes that can go against you, you try too hard but when thngs dont come off your head goes down and you give silly penalties away through frustration, it won't be the same in the next game because the hype has gone, so no pressure now, things will come good in the end. 

[rayvon]

Think you have your left and right mixed up, Marsh and Dean looked much more solid on the right than Isa (who looked a weak link) and Ah Van on the left.

I thought Isa and AhVan did pretty well, AhVan in particular really ran the ball back hard and put in some good hits

[MT]

Thought Ah Van had a good game in the main. Isa missed too many tackles, but was OK in attack. Part of the problem on the left seemed to be not enough players getting across quickly enough and leaving them exposed to be fair.

[Hugo]

Should change the title of the thread to We had more of the ball for the first 59 minutes! We had zero creativity in attack, two good individual tries and our defence was lazy.  As a paying stakeholders in the club we shouldn't make excuses for em, that was garbage last night! I really hope we improve but we should right last night off, garbage.

[Dawn]

Thought Ah Van had a good game in the main.

I am liking Ah Van more every game!  I posted a thread after the Saints game saying that should we give him more space I think he will be very creative....however his attempted conversion of his own try     

[Penkvik]

As has been said,we competed well in the 1st half but that try early in the 2nd half seemed to set us back.I too thought Dean & Marsh had reasonable games,on one occasion Dean was very quick to spot the danger when they were 2 on 1 and flew in to snuff the attack out.  By comparison we were a lot slower at the play the balls particularly 2nd half and they were more organised in attack but let's see how we go when Watts and the others are available.

Not too downhearted as it was our 1st SL game and it'll take a few games to get up to speed.

[mick george]

Right Mick - out comes that shilling - season 3 - I say we will finish in the top half - you on ?
Seriously - does life always work out according to your ordering of things ? You must make millions at the bookies - can you tell me the top 8 in order for this season please ? I've got a shilling that I'm happy to bet with ....

Will only take that bet John if DB is still coaching us then

[Loz]

No positives at all mate - was our 2nd easiest game of the year and we shipped far too many points.. We are poorly coached and again recruited poorly...

N

Happy go lucky soul aren't you !!!!

[BarryJohn]

Personally I don't think wakey will go that well this term tbh, and that is a slight concern. But as the OP points out, we did have a quarter of the probable starting thirteen out. We lacked the creative spark in the middle of the field admittedly, but lets not look over the fact that we were in the contest for the first 60 minutes, which isn't quite good enough, but it is round one, and it wasn't as if Wakefield racked up a cricket score. Just a shame we looked so out on our feet near the end. Big concern, see it is addressed over the next few weeks.

[johnf]

Will only take that bet John if DB is still coaching us then

Sneaky Mick, sneaky 

I suspect - unless we show unexpected progress next season - that he will probably be gone by the third season. Not because of a lack of performance but more because we will have better options available to us when it comes to looking at contract renewals. The same will apply to the squad too. I'd say we will probably only have about half a dozen of the current first team squad by the start of the 2014 season.

In a way it's a bit like last night's match - last season we would have given them a game for about 20 minutes - half an hour tops. On Friday we lasted 60 minutes against an established (though weak ) SL side. It will be the same for a while and will probably, at the moment be half a game against the better sides (like the Saints friendly)  It will improve as the season goes on and the players and coach 'get used to' what they are up against. That said, a better coach may have had he players being able to play a full game against the likes of Wakey and 60 minutes against the Wire. A better coach and better squad might have lasted a full game against Saints or Wire.  Trouble is the best of players and coaches didn't consider us as a sensible option YET because at the current time we have no pedigree in SL. It will change slowly over the next two or three years and bit by bit we will be able to attract the next level of players and coaching staff. This view is a bit simplistic (believe it or not I'm trying to keep it short) but I honestly think it is a realistic appraisal. 

Anyway, back to our high stakes gambling on the footy for the time being ? 

[bellringer]

about the time when dave allen went off best player last nite by far hope he proves all his critics wrong