A very encouraging performance for the start of the season especially given who was missing and the loss of Coote. Welsby displayed great touches in attack and Lomax was sublime although my favourite moment was the show and go from Theo for his try
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Obviously there's a mixture of opinions on here about Paulo, but I think I'm in the same camp as you. I get the feeling that he 'organises' the middle of the field when he's on, which may go unnoticed by many. Just a gut feeling. I'm not a coach and I don't pretend to be an expert here!
He also, like Lomax, is willing to take the ball to the opposition line before releasing the pass. There's an argument to be made about overseas signings bringing more to the table than you'd expect from domestic players available, but he isn't as bad as some make him out to be.
Agree. Hard to find fault with any of that last night bar the odd few pass selections.
Having said you could see that Lomax and Fages were trying to work on an opening for Taia for several minutes before he walked in. They are willing to stick at it and target certain areas of defences. I thought that was committed, intelligent, focused rugby.
Really impressed.
Seen the Wigan v Wire game now, I think we'll have a real test Thursday though. Thought Wire did well with a man down
Welsby at 6 and Dodd at 7 in a few years could he a devastating combo if they keep on their trajectories. He looked lost on the wing; Makinson would have scored at least 2 last night, but looked a class above at FB. Dare I say, even better than Coote did.
What was the story at the start last night when we let the first 3 Salford kicks bounce? Was it just a miscommunication over who's ball it was or did no fancy it? It's one we need to sort out before Warrington.
We seem to have stopped using our backs so much to clear our own half.
Good win even though I don’t think we got out of second gear. All the defending they did in the first half opened things up for us in the second.
I thought our defensive was more aggressive, with us committing more men in the tackle especially in their 20 which was good to see
One slight concern was the amount of times
they created overlaps in our 20 and with a bit more quality, they would have scored a couple of tries at least. Probably down to a new defensive structure which should get better each week.
After watching it back on telly, a few thoughts:
We weren't scintillating, but a decent first-game performance. We got the majority of 50:50 decisions and thdcrub if the green s few times.
Lomax was, as I've said, on another level. Fages was also very good. Thought Welsby was out of place on the wing, but did well at FB.
Our pack is still awesome.
Our 'D' looked very compressed in the middle. Salford began to take some advantage. If we carry on with this, teams will analyse and exploit it more as we move into the season.
We also played some snide rugby at times. And I really hate the wrestle.
Thought the young ref did alright. Missed a few 'dark arts' from both sides, but those PTB changes are a shocker to enforce and just give another thing for refs to focus on, when IMO they should just be trying to ensure no slowing the OTB by the defensive team.
Salford aren't as bad as that scoreline suggests, and I hope they go well this season. That Evalds has a huge pair of cherries on him - he took some punishment and never shirked. But Brown is such a shithouse.