Wigan showed last Friday that rovers are not quite the invincible they have been made out to be so far. But they did so by matching rovers physically for the first hour, turning it into an arm wrestle, and then it was Wigan who found that extra spark of quality in the last fifteen minutes when the game was in the balance. Also thought it telling that, when put under pressure in those last fifteen minutes, it was rovers who lost their shape and started pushing for that extra magic pass a bit too often.


The question from our perspective is can we replicate the physical intensity that Wigan showed for 60/65 minutes? I think that is where the doubts creep in for most of us. The key for us is how we utilise the bench and how we avoid the drop-off in intensity which decisively swung the game their way two weeks ago. If it's a close game on the hour mark, the crowd will become an increasing factor in our favour, but if they are eighteen points up at the break (as they have been in the last four derbies) it will kill the atmosphere again. We have to find a way of staying in the contest and keeping a vociferous crowd involved to stand any chance of grabbing a win.


Can't make my mind up on the Herman-Knight conundrum, do we continue to run them as a pair from the start or split them so that one of them is always on the park. I will trust JC judgement on this, as the man who has got most things right so far, but if we had another duo to match those two I would back us against anyone right now. I can't escape the feeling though that the first set of interchanges at around the 20-25 minute mark will go a long way to deciding the outcome tomorrow.


The last four derbies have effectively been done by half-time, so it would be nice to buck that trend for a start, and then hopefully kick on from there. Losing last week has also put some pressure onto them, a second loss in a row may sow seeds of doubt in their minds, whereas a win means they simply pick up the thread again after a momentary aberration. But that is something we may potentially be able to feed on, especially if it does become a close game.


My gut feeling is they will again have too much firepower out wide for us to contain (we had the devil's job containing Wire in last week's second half when they moved it wide quickly) and I worry that if they get a roll on we might find it difficult to stop them, but this team has been confounding all our expectations since kick-off on night one and I sense their internal belief is growing with every week and they are relishing being given a weekly challenge to prove themselves again and again. If we do go down it won't be for lack of effort, that's for sure, it's just a question of can we stay in the physical fight and, if it is a close game, can we produce the moment of quality at the optimum time.


Reckon it's going to be a thumping atmosphere once again, let's hope it's as noisy as hell with thirty seconds left on the clock! Either way, my stomach will be doing its usual somersaults come 12:30 tomorrow!!! I love these games and hate them in equal measure!!! There are times when I wish I'd taken up stamp-collecting as a hobby, it sure would have been a good less stressful than sitting in that ground tomorrow will be. I've made myself nervous just by typing out this post, God help me!!!!! 

I have no issue with the red. It looked bad.The ref and vr can't look at it all day the have to make a decision.


I doubt Cust was being deliberate but thems the breaks.


And let's be honest is anyone suprised the first red goes to us?


We have to be super clean.

Pryce would have got the red for attacking precious Ikkle Mikeys shoulder with his head.

I just think it was an unavoidable collision so you are penalising the player and team for something they cant do anything about unless they don't challenge for the ball 

my  view of the cust red card is this.
ive watched it so many times, both cust and morgue are goign for the ball, you can see custs hands going for it. morgue gets it the ball a split second before cust. from there, how are you supposed to pull out. running at full speed and less than a foot away.


not only that, grant claims there is no mitigation,  but when you look at morgue, his legs are bending before contact, so lowering from his height (which is already small)
all those things mentioned above is mitigation surely? 


i never thought it was a red. even the on field ref gave a drop out. my kr friend i was watching it with said sin bin. she was stunned at the red card.


then you get JWH clear punch to asiata face. linesman right inline with it and says nothing. rfl have 3 different camera angles of it and say "unclear"


was stevie wonder on the board?


one more thing both me and my kr friend noticed was JWH try. hiku knocks the ball onto briscoe in the air (knock on) yet they said nothing about that and awarded the try.


her words from that game were "thats our get out of jail free card used up" 

also, i believe JC commented on the "hit off th ball"


sezer got hit 3 times off the ball against wire and nothing. again sezer and pryce hit off th ball vs kr. nothing


yet asiata got penalised for contact with lewis...