If the management had shown some faith in Jones-Bishop they needn't have wasted a contract extension on Donald for 2010 and what would the make up of the three-quarters been like now if McClennan and Donald had stayed?



The same people who think Jones-Bishop is all of a sudden worthy of a spot would still be saying let him get some more SL experience elsewhere if Donald hadn't cut and run. It's the kind of thinking that helps to hold our game back.



Watkins, great potential but still needs to look after the ball better in the collision. An old issue that is still a concern.

Agreed - class apart from anything in SL and he 5 years passed his best - the England set up should be getting him to do some masterclasses with the likes of young Milner at Castleford

If you take the NRL model as the patent then the second row forwards are simply tackling machines - which is why Ellis has been so successful down under then a back row containing Delanney and Clarkson would do very nicely with either Ali or Hauraki to provide the ball running back row player.



On last night's performance Watkins still looks like he has much to improve on his defence - although I think he played the last 30 minutes injured

He was right 1-17 did impress. 1-17 as a team that is, what they did as a team was very impressive, with the injuries they had to contain with also.



I think people are been a bit hard on Smith. He certainly was not a stand out individually like Buderus and Kylie were, but he did his job for the team having come on as a sub. You also have to remember he was outside a young kid who was far from displaying the talents he did the week previously. But this is the sort of games where Watkins learns and can develop further, and having Smith outside him will have helped him more through some of those tough periods than with BJB in that second half.



I could not understand where sky got MOM from, because personally I didn't think Burrow was great individually and bombed more opportunties for us than created. But as a link and a team player I thought just like everyone else in the team he had a great game.



Top 3 for me were



Buderus

Kylie

Kirke, yes Kirke. That lad has had a lot of stick, me included, but I thought he really stood up to be counted last night.

a lot impressed me. delaney was brilliant i thought. hauraki impressed too but i thought buderus ran the show with burrow great in support. what amazed me was how easily we handled there big men. they rarely got a quick ptb as they were always turned on there back. tell you what though, it was BLOODy FREEZING!!!!!!!!!!

Agree 99% D ,but i think saying Burrow bombed more chances than he created is harsh because i thought the timing/runners and options were off as much as Burrow getting the sole blame.

For the BJB try, did anyone else notice the flick back by Sinfield between the kick through and BJB taking the ball? It was a very risky play as he could have easily knocked the ball beyond BJB and into open field for a Hull player to run onto, but as it turned out it was pure genius. In terms of a "rugby brain" Sinfield is up there with any other player around at the moment, but sometimes I feel that his body can't match what his brain wants it to do.

I'd agree with all of this bar your comments about Burrow who I thought was excellent, again.



As for the Buderus hero worship he was indeed excellent and we may well see the best of him playing 80 mins a week, assuming he remains fit all season long. However, we're two games in to the season so let's not get too carried away.



It wasn't Diskin or Buderus's fault that the club wanted to go to a 2 hooker system. We had been hugely successful with Diskin (who looked pretty handy last week) and I hope we are as successful with Buderus. He only has 4 championships to get there...

And disco moved on to seek rep honours he only has 24 caps to go to get near bedsy, not to mention 21 origin caps? Let's see where disco is at when he has another 55 first grade and rep games under is belt like DB.

big chomp

Yep, but it's all true

Be careful judging players on Championship medals, doesn't Ian Kirke have more Championship medals than Lewis Jones for example?