A much better second half, but we have a lot of work to do. We were far from brilliant.
First of all, the rule in which an attacker gets the penalty when they run the ball into a big hit and get their head in the wrong position is dreadful. Pritchard laid on probably the biggest hit you will see this year and it knocked Simmons out at no fault of Pritchard's, yet he will now probably miss a week due to being placed on report.
Our forwards were very good I thought. Pritchard and Kasiano look the same as last year to be honest, in terms of lack of work rate. But Tolman and especially Graham were awesome. Graham especially was easily our best player. His go forward and ball playing was bloody fantastic and his overall work rate was very high (over 40 tackles.)
Having Ennis back is a very good thing for us, but also resting him and using Romelo is going to work very well I think.
Now to the negatives.. Lots of errors (yes in wet conditions but still) and a terribly high penalty count won't please anybody. They need a lot of work in the area of discipline and basics for mine. Once we nail the necessities we then have the platform for a team that can go a long way.
Reynolds was very good at 5/8th I thought just with his aggression. It brings something we have always needed and his over all game wasn't too bad at all. Hodkinson was very quiet so our halves definitely need work but I don't think they should be changed. They need time to gel.
Overall, very happy with a first up win in tough conditions in which we were statistically annihilated but were the better team with ball in hand and in defence. Oh yeah, did I mention our goal line defence looked terrific?
