Official West Hartlepool RFC

robok
as it happens i dont remember mick kent, i was probably not around but had i been my opinion would have been the same. also i was only talking about yesterday. i dont see why either club should, or would want to play players from outside their club. at present i consider myself 23rd choice open side flanker at the club and had there been 22 unavailable i would have genuinely felt aggrieved at being left out for a player not from my club. this is not a moan about the result as i've congratulated rovers on the victory.
again, this is not a dig at gav he is a top lad who loves a game and was offered one!

Looking at the West team I think that their forwards are worse than they were last time rovers played them. Very unimpressed by the 2 lads they signed from Mowden. Thought young Dixon in the 2nd row was good but the other second row didn't seem to want to do the hard graft a second row should be doing. I think Chocky is a miss. The front row wasn't as good either. Dixon very quiet and like I said the other prop wanted to ref the game more than play. I would have expected West to hammer rovers in the scrums, this has been a weak part of rovers game this season but West didn't or couldn't. Myers is an exceptional talent. For my Tim gave away far too many penalties, constantlt handling on the floor, over the top or not rolling away. I think the backs were pretty evenly matched.

Rovers wanted it more and played well as a team.

I still think West are the better team but on the day Rovers did well.

Best of luck both teams

In all honesty I can say that West never looked dangerous the whole game. 1st option every time was to kick...Wonder where we've seen that before? Some bloke with a tash in the 90's perhaps?

When they did go wide it the phases required beforehand to create gaps weren't there, the lines of running were flat and slow bordering on static.

Aaron Myers was awesome, as he has always been.

Rovers ground out a good win, however some poor decisions made at times, perhaps a result of playing in a league that is a bit more forgiving of those decisions.

I think Rugby Observers comments about game plans are fair, however the tactic of Carr questioning every penalty to prevent a "quick one" worked very well for West.

To sum up I think Myers made the difference for West between the actual scoreline and perhaps another 7 to 10 points in favour of Rovers.

I too felt sorry for the ref who was in front of a big crowd and being assessed by that little bloke with the clipboard, by all accounts. His reaction was to whistle for everything whether seen or perceived.
According to another post he awarded more than one penalty every minute which resulted in a dreadful game to watch with very little invention. No doubt he will learn from the experience and good luck to him.
Rovers made the best of it and no complaints about the win.
What we have to do is to stop worrying about the Ref and get on with beating the opposition.
On the day the forwards, with the exception of Myers, just didn't do enough and the backs just couldn't string the passes together.

With all due respect to rovers, i was told that they did not ask gav to play ... but he offered his services - any1 know the truth? or did rovers ask gav to play? Like oldge sed i think any1 in the 2nd team for rovers should be asking questions on this topic as it is a chance to give youngsters and other 2nd team members a run out

The lad was after a game,he had posted on techs site looking for a run out in the gingers v stashers but must have opted for the less serious afternoon match :oD:oD:oD does it really matter ! He probably had sounded west out aswell.

frle - west backs may not have looked dangerous but neither did rovers?!? you were on the line as few times as we were and your one try was thanks to forwards moving the ball upfield and a quick tap pen from foreman. as i said in the report i don't think you could say either side dominated.

we always get tagged with kicking too much in these games but next time i think i'll keep the stats myself....i'd be willing to say foreman kicked just as many times from 10 as mossy. i can only remember one chip through in an attacking area which was probably the wrong option but at the time we only had 2 props and a second row out wide! our lack of attacking in the backs was more down to dropped passes than kicking the ball away.

as i said in my post on the other thread. neither team offered much in attack. I don't know where the extra points for rovers that FRLE mentioned would have come from - apart from another individual effort from one of the foreman's again. In the same way, west couldn't manufacture any points towards the end either, the passing and handling in the backs was poor

Is it true that some players also played in the Gngers v Stashers game that morning? If so we deserve a refund of the gate money.

yes

Who?

Excluding Myers who was west's best player, West's back row was not up to much. Bad choice having Sawyer at 8, does not offer enough of the back of a scrum. He commits far too many penalties. Are there no other 8 options after Vinnie? He has done well to get back playing but he is not mobile enough for the back row now.

The backs had no cutting edge going forward at all, should have switched Dixon from full back to centre to see if he could break the game line from there. Tinker did a great job at scrum half in defence I thought, he kept foreman at bay for the most part.

Rovers were the better team, with the difference being there forwards wanting the win alot more. They were much more aggressive as a pack. Without Myers, none of the West forwards carried the ball well or broke the game line

Got to be quick as I'm meant to be grafting:

I thought Myers saved West from maybe another Rovers try by getting to every breakdown first and having an impact by slowing the ball down just enough for West to get their defences organised.

Rovers could have countered this by trying to play more phases but doing this normally resulted in a West player over the top or handling in the ruck, hence the penalty count against you. This is probably why Foreman kicked a lot because rucks seemed to end in a slow ball or a penalty one way or the other.

West backs dropped a lot of ball because they were flat/static and put pressure on themselves.

Good to see the education level of rovers fans is the same as always....still no decent schools in that part of town ?......how do you spell divisions or do you get dizzy looking that high up ....how is the old slag heap

if people are not happy about gsob's post, just roll your mouse over his name and e-mail him to tell him.not that clever now are you john mel or josh!

I think you will find all you budding myers fans that the lad all be it has a good rugby brain and talent spends most of the time running in the backs so in your eyes will be the forward who stands out and gains the most comments so look a bit deeper in other players contributions

Thanks FRLE for spelling dyslexic, wouldn't have attempted it other wise seeing as I am dyslexic. Always have to think of other words to use when I come up against a word that I think is spelt wrong, wish this site had a spell checker.

Also good to hear your voice of reason through out this topic.

My own thoughts are that Rovers wanted to win the game more than West and the result shows this, plain & simple.

Phil