We do have one and a very good one at that. But once again Coleman wasn't playing. I would love to know why.

Yes, I really do love you Guess Who, I just wish that you didn’t play ‘Devil’s Advocate so often!

I, like many other Cougar fans, must be asking whether the players actually want promotion after today’s debacle! I was once castigated by Phil Larder after we’d travelled to Carlisle only to be defeated, after the players were given the best of treatment and came up with nothing short of a similar display to that at Lawkholme this afternoon.

JD is literally working his socks off to get bigger crowds but it’s a crying shame when he gets so little support from his players. That said, If JD believes that Halley is the ‘best thing since sliced bread’ then I’ve got to say he’s wrong!

However, JD is no-longer a stand-off or scrum half. He’s a loose-forward and he needs to realise that there are, or should be, far quicker players than himself around the base of the scrum. He’s got the ideas and ability but he needs to concentrate on that and not being ‘all things to all men’.

Changes are needed before next Sunday:

1. ATTITUDE - we need to play from the start of the game, not the start of the second half

2. SQUAD – Halley IS NOT a first-team player as he has proved. He’s had enough chances to prove himself and has failed, letting-in more points than he has scored. The time has come to drop him and give others a chance.

So, for next week, dare I suggest:

Cougars:

1. Moss

2. Duffy,

3. Baines,

4. Normington,

5. Hutchinson,

6. Coleman,

7. Smith,

8. Shickell,

9. Feather,

10. Benjafield

11. Cartledge,

12. Jones,

13. Demetriou,

Interchange: Wray, Law, Rawlins, Purseglove.



Other suggestions welcomed!

H



The team listed looks a good winning combination on paper and its a team I agree with, however, JD has his reasons for choosing the team he sees fit to play and we as fans should respect his decisions, I do think the boys will do the business next weekend against rochdale and put town in their rightful place at the HJ - second to the cougars



In JD I trust - keep the faith

Here's my synopsis albeit a drunken one.



1. We struggled to handle their big pack in the first quarter. Once we realised that they were less mobile and therefore weak defensively around the ruck we exploited it.



2. We played too much 1 up rugby in the first half, mainly due to our lack of field position, because of errors and giving penalties away.



3. Our fans were cr*p we we're comprehensively outsung on our own park, there were no where near enough of us putting the effort in. What happened to the awesome effort at the Swinton game. As a group of fans we must do better.



4. We had our bogey ref and yes the officials were very poor, in fact a friend of mine who's a Giant's fan said from a neutral perspective that they were a joke. Although this wasn't the main reason we lost.



5. We left ourselves too much to do in the 2nd half.



6. We only seemed to have 1 set move involving the full back joining the line.



7. We took the wrong options at times, why on the last tackle would you give the ball to your lightest Prop Forward and expect him to barge over the line against a huge Cumbrian pack?



8. They seemed to want it more, this is certainly not good enough.



9. Our kicking game was poor although it has to be said it was better than when we played them at their place when it conceded 22 points.



10. We didn't capitalise when we had possession in their 20 area enough.



Sadly for family reasons this was the last game I can attend this season. I wish the club, players and fans all the best. We certainly need to improve quite a bit in order to gain promotion.

The "bad decision" on the try was actually a good decision. If you look at Mickey's video of it you can see that it wasn't disallowed for not touching it down properly but because your No. 8 blocked a tackler from getting across to tackle the try scorer. Correct decision.



The second try disallowed was for offside, being in front of the kicker, and that decision was made by the TJ dead in line with the incident. Again correct decision.



The referee did make some strange decisions and none more so than the tackle on Workington's Holt (24) where a player put his hand between Holt's legs and lifted him and pushed him head first in to the ground. The ball came loose and the ref allowed play to carry on as Holt lay injured on the ground (much to the delight of a female Cougar fan that can be heard on the video).



It was a good hard game today and the best team won so try and be a little bit more magnanimous you could still get to the final!!!!!

Fair comment hugh mann cougars were beten by a side who wanted it more. With regarda to ur little dig at a female cougar fan then i dont think workington fans have anything to say on that matter. It was an absolute disgrace to rugby how your fans was swaring all game when kids were yards away and then to top it off your players come over and do it too.

We need to give it a rest regarding JD at 6, simple fact is there is no one else who can do what he does. He set both our tries up created another for moss when he was held up and also trhe try that got chalked off for off side. I am sure JD would love to be able to play 13 but fact is when he isn't there, we don't create anything. We had other players who were poor yesterday and the worst was shic. he looked dis-interested and very lethargic and was often slow to move up. Buster and Killer need to stick to the game plan how many times on the last tackle are JD and ryan in place to kick and they pass it to a prop with 3 players on him. You could see JD was fuming and saying give me the ball. JD needs to get his hands on the ball as much as poosilble because when he does we look like creating something. When we did play to the game plan we scored to easy tries and remember they scored all thier tries from kicks and struggled to break our defence without kicks. I am sticking with JD and i believe we will be a much different team against rochdale.

With regard the first try - This is an area where poor decisions are often made. The Workington player is initially fooled by the dummy run and attempts a tackle on the Keighley forward. In those circumstances tries are normally awarded. The Keighley player does not "hold" the Workington player, which is the signal given by the ref.



Second "no try" - I can't really say and the linesman could well be correct, but it looked good from my position right in front of the scorer. This is another area where poor decisions can made because attacking players are moving so fast the linesman can't tell. Even at SL level, replays often show this clearly.



Without better/other angles the video is inconclusive.



With regard to the tackle on Holt - my initial reaction (and of those around me) was penalty to Worky. However it was no where near as bad as you are making out and worky perform the same tackle on a Keighley player a couple of plays later. I'd be more concerned regards Chris Clough and Your fullback coming in third man with fists and elbows and your fullback using knees on prone players. It's one thing to be fired up but your fullback was frothing at the mouth.



Plenty of posts have said the best side on the day won (and they did), but considering this is a Keighley forum, we are more interested in our "lack of performance" and inconsistency than that of Worky.

Team for me has to be



James H

Moss

Normington

Purseglove

Duffy

Coleman

Smith

Shick

Buster

Rawlins

Cartledge

Baines

JD



Subs

Benji

Law

Wray

Jones



Shame Halley hasn't done much since coming from Bulls, but going on JD comments Halley should be dropped cause he was s**t on sunday, can see why bulls now kept platt and raynor instead of him.

Yes some of the towns fans language was poor,and a number apologised for it. but a lot of your fans were shouting inbreds and such,which if my kids were around i wouldnt be very happy about,but im sure its ok as it was the cougars fans, and lets be honest they werent very loud. also the tackle was pretty bad on holt and its probably because your players are sicking of him kicking your team to death,again yesterday he was head and shoulders above your 2 half backs.

Those that were stood behind me didn't, they even ignored repeated requests from a Marshal. But I suppose when there are several dozen drunk fans chanting abuse, and one marshal, there aint much he can do. We have tried very hard to generate a family atmosphere this year and its a real shame that several families felt the need to leave half way through the second half.







No it's not acceptable, even if some of the home fans were annoyed at the behaviour of some of your fans.







Holt had an excellent game, and from what I saw, the "tackle" deserved a penalty but was not as serious as some are making out. It's just a shame that your teams "swinging arms" on already held players and knees and elbows on prone players went unpunished by the ref.



It's also a shame that you feel the need to come on our board gloating. I've been on your board to say well done, I didn't feel the need for petty sniping.