Super League Round 2 Recap

Round 2 was a game short of a full round with Wigan down under losing to the Roosters in the World Club Challenge, but there were still a number of top match ups.

More on the Thursday night's game below, but the two biggest match ups came on the Friday, with four 2013 play off sides meeting each other.

Sky's live game was Leeds v Warrington. We saw an improvement from the Wire on their first round effort. There is still a question over the kicking game and they had a lot of ball in the 2nd half in good attacking territory so the creativity in the team without Briers may still be a concern. On the flip side, Leeds goal defence was outstanding and Zak Hardaker had a very impressive game in attack and defence. Leeds were the better side and deserved the win.

The other big game was an emotional affair as Steve Prescott was remembered when his two former teams St Helens and Hull FC met. A tight first half and a point a minute second half gave Saints a +12 in the race for the inaugural Steve Prescott Cup the sides will play for each year to remember the  inspirational fundraising hero that wore both club's colours with distinction. Saints fan and friend of the podcast (not an oxymoron) Andy Smith was there for the game - here his thought on the night's emotion on this week's show. Not for the first time in Langtree Park history, James Roby was a star man - leading his team in tackles, carries and tries, the second of went a long way towards sealing the win.

Round 2 results and tweets

Home			Away			Attendance
Wakefield	10	(4)	Bradford	23	(10)	4049
Leeds	18	(12)	Warrington	12	(6)	16164
St Helens	34	(6)	Hull FC	22	(10)	13448
London	18	(6)	Salford	44	(26)	1246
Huddersfield	24	(24)	Hull KR	24	(6)	7180
Castleford	32	(12)	Catalan	6	(6)	5104
					Average attendance	7865

Wakefield v Bradford
Dean Williams, Wakefield fan (@deanofthenorth): Bulls better defence earn win in scrappy match riddled with errors. Inconsistency from players and officials. #forgettablerl
Alan Cale, Bradford fan (@shoddynmungo): scrappy but Bulls fought hard, Disko and Gale played better behind a good pack performance. Adjusted well to losing Gaskell

Leeds v Warrington

Steve, Warrington fan (@wildywotsits): better performance this week. Second half particularly. Great effort from the new boys and the half back combo much better.
Martin Ramshaw, Warrington fan (@martinramshaw): Was always a tough one for Wire. Encouraging signs but fear it may be too late by the time we get our season up and running

Huddersfield v Hull KR

Marie Wright, Huddersfield fan (Wychwoodlady): Poor 2nd half from Giants, plenty of opportunity that we didn't turn into points.
Joseph Ward (@johjohn114859): Giants far too casual HKR never say die spirit  deserved their draw great kick by Burns  under pressure . Respect opposition

Observations and star performers

Its appropriate this week to start this section with two outstanding defensive efforts. Jamie Peacock, 36 years old, completed 54 successful tackles on Friday night against Warrington - his inspirational efforts are still setting standards despite his senior status. Tommy Lee went even better, with 57 tackles for Salford at old club London in an 80 minute display than he isn't necessarily renowned for. A count of 57 tackles was only bettered three times in the entire 2013 regular season, that should signal just what a special effort Lee, and Peacock, put in. The other defensive effort we want to applaud was young Danny Bridge - 36 tackles, no misses. 

Justin Carney deserves special praise as the only man to get a try hat trick this week. He also totted up a massive 197m on 22 carries. However he was outperformed in the metres gained by Jake Mullaney of Salford, who got 198m on 17 carries as he constantly knifed through the London defence. 2 tries and 1 try assist, 8 table busts and 147m as well, means Zak Hardaker had a noteworthy Friday night in front of the Sky cameras. 14m per carry for both Tom Briscoe and Kris Welham led the week for this particular figure.

All those singled out for attack above are exciting backs, but a special mention is deserved for a forward too - Alex Walmsley led the way for tackle busts with 10 in his 168m. Ben Westwood led forwards in metres gained with 184m in his try scoring exertion at Leeds. Gareth Hock deserves a mention too as week 2 leading offloader with 6.

Not everyone had a round to remember off course. Danny Kirmond had a rare poor day with 8 missed tackles against Bradford and to be frank he didn't look fully up to speed on Thursday night. Scott Moore of London and Ben Pomeroy of Catalan joined him on this figure, showing missing tackles in such numbers is likely to mean a loss for your team. Lots of players had 3 errors but Ryan Atkins had the distinction of leading this category with 4.

Unfortunately after pondering last week if this could become the year of the 40-20, there was only one in round 2, kicked by Tony Gigot in a losing effort down at the hive.

Last week we talked about the incidence of dirty play and all the calls from the TV commentators for cards to be shown. This week, we've started to see the cards coming. 

Many won't be surprised that Gareth Hock was the first to see a card, seeing yellow and a 10 minute cool down just after half time at London. We talk more about it in the show, but basically he felt wronged by an apparently accidental poke in the eye and decided to take retribution at his next chance. Sin bin sufficient for us but needless action by Hock who never seems to learn. The yellow cards flowed at Huddersfield and Castleford too as first fights were the order of the day. It was 11 v 12 at one point at John Smith's Stadium.

As well as cards, we've seen some bans handed out again, Catalan being the major recipient with Julien Bousquet being the second Dragon to get a 4 match ban for dangerous contract already this season after Oliver Elima got the same from round 1. Eddy Pettybourne and Dean Collis took 1 match early guilty pleas and Justin Poore got a 1 match ban for his part in the Huddersfield brawl.

Feature game - Wakefield v Bradford

Tom had a great trip to Wakefield, one of those rare good days to be a Bulls fan in recent times. 

As for the trip as a whole, we enjoyed it. Neither of us had been to Wakefield for a good few years, not that the place has changed much. We arrived about three quarters of an hour before the kick off time. Free on road parking very close to the ground was easy to find, which was a bonus - we got in and out faster than we had at the shinier newer Salford Stadium.

There isn't so much outside or assertions the ground but another thing we preferred at Belle Vue were the refreshment stands in the ground. They were well stocked and reasonably priced. 

The pre-game 'entertainment' was just a string of young dance troupes that the club announcers seemed very proud of, but not much to inspire the crowd. It gave time to browse the reasonably priced match programme, which at £2.50 had a lot to read with plenty of general rugby league content rather than just specific Wakefield content.

On the field the game was largely a poor affair. The ground looked very heavy and two sides with plenty of issues and little pace were never going to serve up a classic game of attacking rugby, particularly on a short turnaround. Sloppiness and plenty of errors made this a game a poor watch but because of what is at stake this year there was still tension, which does help create some sporting drama in what was mostly a subdued atmosphere.

Although the game was littered with dropped ball and missed tackles, there was the occasional flash of quality - Brett Kearney's catch and spin for his try, Dean Collis' excellent offload for Peter Fox to break clear and Adam O'Brien's quick play out of dummy half to grab his try and help seal the game were bright moments of quality.

Manese Manuokafoa impressed us both throughout with some very strong running making him the Bulls top metre maker whilst others like Sidlow and debutant Mullally did some tough work too. Matt Diskin got Sky man of the match but we were most impressed with Luke Gale who organised the team around and was very active in attack and defence. He looks to have copied with loss of last year's partner Jarrod Sammut by relishing in the extra responsibility of being a real team leader and is one Bradford player who deserves real credit so far in 2014.

Gale's drop goal finished the scoring and the small group of Bradford fans in the crowd were able to smile for a brief time until the whole ownership issue unravelled again following the hefty points deduction this week.

We left with a happy Tom and gambled a bit on the petrol, just reaching the Tesco at the end of the M55 in time. We talk about all this and some more in Episode 6 of Super League Pod.