The Liam Farrell Column: We have lessons to learn

We need it to improve our league and make our standard better, but the NRL needs something from the series, too.

It’s a big thing for us if they could keep coming but I can’t see why they’re going to want to if they keep putting score lines on us like that.

I hope it can keep going, it is something that we can learn from and make our league better, but they’re going to need a benefit from it as well.

The financial side of it is probably the thing they’re looking at, and seeing if they can get money from it.

It’s a bit of a pre-season tour for them as well but we want to make sure it’s a competitive game, we don’t want any of the teams coming over just for publicity.

We’re really disappoint we weren’t able to give them a competitive game at the weekend.

Hats off to Brisbane – they were really, really good. What I’ll take from it is that they do the simple things at a very high standard, and keep doing it over and over and over again.

They wear you down and when they get their opportunities they take them, and they made us play a way where we don’t usually do things and play it out of our system in defensive areas.

That was probably the main thing for me and I’ll learn a lot from it.

If you look at the NRL, the ruck speed is a lot quicker.

They’ll try and get momentum through quick play of the balls and once they’ve got that and they’ve worn a team down they’ll start playing off the back of that.

The opportunities Brisbane got, they used them well and they scored. I think that was the main thing, every time they did get an opportunity they scored but when we got it we didn’t take full momentum of it.

There’s a lot we can learn from it but at the same time they are more than likely going to be there or thereabouts at the end of the year so they’re one of the best teams in the NRL.

I think the eight-minute spell where they scored two before half-time made the score line look a lot worse.

If you look, there were a couple of tries when they scored off kicks, they weren’t planned, but they had that many players around the ball that knew what was happening it just paid off for them.

Going in at half-time 24-6 down it was hard to come back from that and I think some of our lads put their heads down a bit and lost our way.

It was disappointing, but there’s a lot to learn from.

It wasn’t anything we wouldn’t get in Super League but when they did it they made sure they got their opportunities and made full use of them.

I saw what Ryan Hall said after their game and I think the scores across the series didn’t show a true reflection on all our teams.

I think its good we’ve got a short turn around before our next game, against Salford tonight.

I know it’s not good on the bodies but it is good that we can get out there and fix things we did wrong against Brisbane. It’s quite tough physically but we’re quite well prepared with the team and the staff will look after us, but Salford are in a similar position, they played on the Sunday.

Salford are a different team this year but they’re a hard-working team and have some players who know how to do the right things at the right time.

They’ve not got many superstar players in the team but all the players they’ve got are very hard working.

The halfbacks they’ve got are really smart and know what they’re doing and they’re really experienced, and so are some of the forwards.

I know Micky McIlorum is an aggressive and angry person on the field but he’s quite a laid back person off it, and he’s taken his injury in his stride.

He has the attitude, ‘What’s gone is gone and what’s happened has happened’, he can’t do much about it.

I went to see him on Sunday morning and he was quite cheerful and laid back about it, still in his kit lying there with a big cast on his leg!

That’s the kind of guy he is. How many guys can you know that do what he did to his leg and just puts his hands up and say I have to go off?

He’s a pretty tough bloke and I’m really disappointed we’re going to be without him for so long.

Someone’s going to have to fill his position but it’s a tough one to have to fill.

The things he does off the ball for us are second to nobody so that’s one thing I’m going to miss massively.

In terms of the aggressive streak he brings, I don’t think one person is going to fill that role, it’s going to have to be a team effort with a little bit of extra effort from everybody.