And rightly so IMHO.shaunedwardsfanclub wrote:Wane won't drop Green.thegimble wrote:Why Hampshire was not even in the 17 tonight is a joke. This was the game to test him and see if he could cope with it now. If Green has a donkey next week then its a big gamble to play either the following week.
I never, ever make knee jerk comments on the quality of the play, or player in any particular game, until I've had a chance to watch it back and analyse who does what. Without exception, I notice things that it is not possible to take in when I watch it live of the terrace. The benefit of being able to rewind the action and watch a players individual input or the teams performance in situations where you have to see where it went wrong.
Green made mistakes in the game, but he was no worse than most of the others. He threw the interception fair enough, but it was green who threw into the gap a pass that was ruled forward for thornley's disallowed try (a pass which wasn't forward); he also double pumped the defence to put thornley into a gap which saw thornley break from the half way line before failing to pass to smith; he was also the player who broke the line that lead to pat's try; his kicking game was largely ineffective, but he did kick a 40/20. He also put in a brilliant crossfield kick to find pat in lots of space.
They came with a plan to keep us in our own half, and cut out our options; a plan they really managed to execute because we let them. Leeds had very quick line speed in defence which cut down our options. We didn't, which allowed them to build an attack. In the first half they pinned us and controlled the game, but they couldn't manage to score from their own enterprise because we defended well. When the defence are running in and in your face as Leeds were, you are going to struggle to get the ball beyond first or second receiver and it will starve your outside backs of the ball. We needed to change our game plan but didn't or couldn't.
Darrel didn't come back on at half time, and almost immediately, scablett is through a hole created by his absence. The next score from Leeds was also on the same edge and was simply down to Farrel not being familiar with where he should have been. Watkins try was purely down to his enterprise, and he is a class player.
