Brian Noble has announced his 21 man squad for Friday's game against Batley. Bayley Liu and Kieran Gill come back into the fold, replacing Mitch Souter. Nathan Mason, James Donaldson and Jorge Taufua are all sidelined with injuries. 


Guy Armitage
Logan Bayliss
Waqa Blake
Zac Fulton
Matty Gee 
Sam Hallas
Tom Holmes 
Luke Hooley
Konrad Hurrell
Joe Keyes
Michael Lawrence
Jordan Lilley
Bayley Liu 
James Meadows
Ronan Michael
Jayden Okunbor
Tyran Ott
Eliot Peposhi
Ebon Scurr 
Emmanuel Waine

Hopefully Ott will be given a chance in this match. I remain disappointed that we haven't manged to sign another winger in whilst Tafua seems indefinitely injured.

I have an awful feeling he will return with about 8 games left and just start finding his match fitness before he is banned! I have been impressed with Armitage and he looks solid defensively and would help sort out some of the weaknesses exposed out wide if he was playing at centre.


The defence has simply not been good enough against the top teams and if it doesn't improve I don't see how we improve on previous 3rd place finishes. I expect Batley will make it difficult and slow on the tight Odsal pitch.

Them losing their coach doesn't really help, this can always be a bit of a lottery. 


How often have we seen a team part ways with a coach and manager then produce the performance of the season....

I agree but it could also have the reverse effect. Look at Catalans since McNamara left.

They looked a shadow of their former selves at the last game at the Mount but they did have some key players missing.  He may be old but James Brown always causes us some problems - hope we're not superbad this weekend or their could be payback and another loss would leave me in a cold sweat.

I feel another loss and the fan base would start to get the knives out. Big month coming up with our notorious bogey team Barrow away and York away. I feel if we slip behind York in the table, we won't be able to wrestle it back and I think a semi final exit and yet another 3rd palace finish would be bitterly disappointing. 


I expect we'll beat Batley comfortably as they're pretty poor. But the two games above will define our season. Up to the players to step up, otherwise they'll be in the T&A again bleating about the nasty comments on social media. 

Looking like a sweltering evening tomorrow night. Hopefully we have plenty of drinks breaks for the players and officials.

And fans

Bet the pitch is rock hard again.  In summer it's like concrete despite the lush grass covering.  

Ott & Peposhi make the 17. Meadows 18th man

Good to see the boys get back to winning ways with a hard-fought victory over a determined Batley side. While the scoreboard suggests a comfortable win, it was anything but straightforward.

I felt that we started sluggishly, with poor discipline in the first half keeping Batley well in the contest. Time and again, needless penalties invited pressure and allowed the Bulldogs to gain territory without having to earn it. Batley spent more time in our half courtesy of our own mistakes than through any real momentum of their own.

I also thought our ball retention left much to be desired. Promising sets were squandered with handling errors and poor decision-making.

How Batley didn’t lose a man in the opening exchanges is a mystery. Manning dangerously dropping Michael Lawrence on his head within the opening few minutes, and not long after, Brown caught Holmes with a high shot.

Batley must be credited for their defensive efforts during the game. They showed real steel on their own line and never threw in the towel.

My highlights were our defensive efforts. I felt that we defended superbly when it mattered most, particularly on our own line. Armitage was clinical out wide, finishing with confidence, helped by a sharp passing game from Keyes, who constantly asked questions of the Batley defence and created 3 great scoring opportunities for Armitage. Jordan Lilley’s goal-kicking was another highlight, slotting them over from all angles — a marked improvement after recent weeks. Tom Holmes also had a good game and grabbed a nice solo try late on.

All in all, a scrappy but crucial win to keep pressure on Toulouse. Another huge game coming up next weekend away at Barrow.

2pts that's the bottom line.  But Batley really are the poorest team we've faced this season and they really made it a dogfight at times.


Armitage took all his tries well.  I'd love to see what he could do in the centres.  Holmes great enthusiasm and pace at fullback.   Thought Bayliss had a good game and Waine was decent when he was given a chance.   Lilley's goalkicking was great too.  Also though Blake was great in defence, I wish we could get him more ball in attack. 


On the negative side we were really scruffy with our handling and  our ends to sets and against a better team we'd really get punished.   Out PTB was too slow with our players put on their back too much. Credit is Batley for their effort.  


We could've had a lot more points if we'd had better support play too.  A lot of times we seemed to be standing back and admiring rather than backing up.


Plenty to work on. We had to work really hard.   Think were lacking impact players, we really miss Doro and to a lesser extent Pele.