v North Wales Crusaders

Should be another good little run out. Cresta has said Ramon Silva will feature at this one so will be good to see

No more injuries please !!!

Should be a good tester for the Barrow squad tomorrow as North Wales are definitely not a bad team. Hopefully see run outs for Costello, Silva and Burke and S.Toal. 

Barrow 38-12 North Wales, MOM Cresswell

No Ramon Silva in the warm up despite being named as starting. Currently only 17 players on the field. Missing Stack, Burke, Silva, Ogunwole from the forwards as well as Makin who arrives at end of month and Ellis who will return from injury point. 
Hopefully all the players are not injured 

Yes we won and scored some good tries, but I thought we also conceded some soft tries too. Disappointed Silva wasn't given a run and it appears there were no forwards on the bench? Strange and not sure why? Brett Carter came on for Tom Walker. Lower attendance than last week (935) even though Crusaders brought some fans with them. Bit concerning about the lack of interest. Maybe I'm wrong, but I detected a lack of enthusiasm with the crowd, expect because nothing was at stake.

Weird game with having no forwards on the bench with Burke, Gillam, Stack, Silva and Makin all unavailable hence the available forwards tired towards the end but we looked solid and our shape looks miles better than last year. 

Walker got 3 try assists and had a huge part in a 4th hence deserved MOM. 

Greenwood and Tom Walker looked a class above any forwards on the pitch.

Fair play to the travelling Crusaders fans, best fans we have had down to Craven Park in a long time. 

Didn't look good for Emslie for a few minutes in that second half. Jackson was limping around and I thought I saw Broadly signal that he needed to be taken off (never went off tho)

Not sure what happened with Silva, must of been an issue right upto kick off. I thought we were better first half than second 

Silva was being looked at by the Physio before the warm up, he looked uncomfortable and it was pretty clear there was something not quite right and so I suspect it wasn't worth the risk.

16 minutes ago, 2Cents said:

Yes we won and scored some good tries, but I thought we also conceded some soft tries too. Disappointed Silva wasn't given a run and it appears there were no forwards on the bench? Strange and not sure why? Brett Carter came on for Tom Walker. Lower attendance than last week (935) even though Crusaders brought some fans with them. Bit concerning about the lack of interest. Maybe I'm wrong, but I detected a lack of enthusiasm with the crowd, expect because nothing was at stake.

It's hard to get enthusiastic about friendlies.

I actually wish they weren't happening as its not worth risking players, but I understand why clubs like them for the revenue and match practice 

Cold day in January when everyone's in financial recovery from Xmas playing a league one team is a pretty hard ask for a decent crowd 

More concerned the comments on FB ,great result,great performance etc ,just played a bang average team and lost the second half ,wouldn't normally pick on this but these are the same people that will be slaughtering the club because we didn't beat Wakefield after beating North Wales in a friendly,sounds daft but we all know who they are 

Thankfully it's all about minutes in the legs this time of year  , because let's face it if that was a decent champ team we'd have got battered 

Biggest plus is all the players that were missing which makes all the above immaterial 

I also thought we were not great, lots of errors but it is all about fitness and getting these errors corrected. We did have Gilam, Burke, Stack, Silva, Makin , Bulman missing so not a big deal at this stage.  It did highlight however, a need for a back up hooker for Josh as a priority 

16 hours ago, 2Cents said:

Yes we won and scored some good tries, but I thought we also conceded some soft tries too. Disappointed Silva wasn't given a run and it appears there were no forwards on the bench? Strange and not sure why? Brett Carter came on for Tom Walker. Lower attendance than last week (935) even though Crusaders brought some fans with them. Bit concerning about the lack of interest. Maybe I'm wrong, but I detected a lack of enthusiasm with the crowd, expect because nothing was at stake.

Thinking Saturday games are not as well attended as are Sunday games due to soccer matches, work, shopping, family, commitments, etc. 

Would think some will turn up today not realising it was a Saturday game. As regards the game itself I thought we lacked leadership.

I am not sure who the captain was but nobody seemed to be getting everyone together during breaks in play after tries etc. 

As soon as Stack is missing it shows, no one to guide or organise them and nobody seems to be picking up the mantle!

Decent last 30 minutes in the 1st half but the 2nd half was basically a farce imo

The amount of missed tackles from Barrow were poor, yes its a friendly but don't come screaming for punters when players can't be arsed or putting players on the team sheet with no intentions of playing them

I also get these games are free hits & no money for the players but yesterday afternoon was Absalutely freezing & nothing warmed me up

I do like Walker x 2 & Wilkinson & Charlie never stopped working

We still look lightweight imo but I get some players are still to comeback

Both games up to now are miles off from what's to come

As far as the leader goes, not got a clue why Ryan is the captain &  moans at others then misses tackle after tackle in that 1st half yesterday

Stack, Ellis, Makin & Razor hopefully make the middles stronger

Don't think Broady enjoyed yesterday but at least he wants the ball & will run it in

Maybe the new hooker will add more depth when Woods is off the pitch

23 minutes ago, Pablo Escobar said:

Decent last 30 minutes in the 1st half but the 2nd half was basically a farce imo

The amount of missed tackles from Barrow were poor, yes its a friendly but don't come screaming for punters when players can't be arsed or putting players on the team sheet with no intentions of playing them

I also get these games are free hits & no money for the players but yesterday afternoon was Absalutely freezing & nothing warmed me up

I do like Walker x 2 & Wilkinson & Charlie never stopped working

We still look lightweight imo but I get some players are still to comeback

Both games up to now are miles off from what's to come

As far as the leader goes, not got a clue why Ryan is the captain &  moans at others then misses tackle after tackle in that 1st half yesterday

Stack, Ellis, Makin & Razor hopefully make the middles stronger

Don't think Broady enjoyed yesterday but at least he wants the ball & will run it in

Maybe the new hooker will add more depth when Woods is off the pitch

I get why we looked lightweight with all the forwards we had missing and an obvious drop off in the second half with having 2 wingers, hooker and half back on the bench. 
 

Re Johno.. one of the best defensive halves in the league according to Cresta

2 hours ago, Jarc said:

I get why we looked lightweight with all the forwards we had missing and an obvious drop off in the second half with having 2 wingers, hooker and half back on the bench. 
 

Re Johno.. one of the best defensive halves in the league according to Cresta

Johnos tackling has improved immensely. He was weak a few years ago hence got targeted but last season he would easily do 20-30 tackles without a miss which is very unusual for a half back. 

The most noticeable thing for me was line speed. We didn't have it last season and again we looked lethargic in defence at times which resulted in 2 of their try's. 

I personally thought Crusaders line speed was better than ours. 

Another is our attack, we don't attack from deep? At this level we should give ourselves better options instead of playing what looked like basic rugby.