Words of wisdom

Yorkshire Carnegie was given both  a fright and a wake up call on Sunday when visitors Nottingham just failed at the death to take 3 points from a game which they dominated for most of the second half....

Despite starting with 2 wins from 2 it was obvious to the 1300 fans who watched the game that the squad have a lot of work to do, not least when it comes to fitness and conditioning. The photograph in the Carnegie Times showed 51 staff. 37 of these were players and of the remainder 3 had the words"fitness and conditioning" in their job title. It was obvious to everyone attending that we have some issues with fitness and conditioning.

There also appears to be plenty of work for the attack, defence and forwards' coaches after last weekend. We certainly made things tough for ourselves but Richard Mayhew put it into perspective in his post match interview: The performance was not what the players wanted. Frustrating but grinding out the win and working on key areas this week for what will be an extremely tough game at the Old Deer Park this coming Saturday.

London Welsh started the season with a defeat at Rotherham and a winding up order against them in the high court. A week later they had a new owner and smashed the Scots at the Richmond Athletic Ground. We had mixed fortunes against them last season. A win in Richmond followed by defeat in the cup final a week later. I remember how frustrating the cup game was, knowing that we could play better than that. In a way the frustrating performance last weekend has lowered our expectations for Saturday. This is a good thing and takes a bit of pressure off the team.

I would hope that Brush keeps changes to his matchday squad to a minimum. That said Stevie McColl, if fit, is worth a place but I am not sure that I would take the 15 shirt off Jonah. To have two good, incisive, running fullbacks is a bonus. Casson also looked ok when he came on against Notts - he has got to be worth a punt at 12. Gray clearly, in my opinion, needs more game time to build his confidence. There was an instance in the first half on Sunday when, if he had backed himself, he would have scored.

So I am not too disheartened by last week's poor showing. I hope for, and expect, an improvement against London Welsh. We have a few ex-Exiles in our squad. Let us hope they show us their true form on saturday and help us to a narrow away win. Tykes by four!