Re: McDermott : Mon Sep 12, 2016 4:34 pm  

Gotcha wrote:

We have got worse. Putting in the same performance as our last four games, if we were in the top eight, would have resulted in the same sort of scoreline as those games you mentioned. Playing easier teams does not hide the problem.

They wouldn't have been the same scorelines at all. You honestly think the defence is as bad now as it was in the first half of the season when we use to crumble like an old mans hip a the first whiff of danger.

Re: McDermott : Mon Sep 12, 2016 6:14 pm  

As others have said and as i previously said cant see McD going anywhere. Hes an ex-marine so he wont quit and he has GHs trust so I cant see him going anywhere yet.

Re: McDermott : Mon Sep 12, 2016 6:15 pm  

ThePrinter wrote:

They wouldn't have been the same scorelines at all. You honestly think the defence is as bad now as it was in the first half of the season when we use to crumble like an old mans hip a the first whiff of danger.

Cas Wire & ST's just to pick 3 would destroy what we've served up imo esp the London away debacle & most others will if that's a preview of what's to come under the current regime.

Re: McDermott : Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:20 pm  

RHINO-MARK wrote:

Cas Wire & ST's just to pick 3 would destroy what we've served up imo esp the London away debacle & most others will if that's a preview of what's to come under the current regime.

Do you really think we were putting our all into that match? We were doing that in 1st gear, Watkins being tackled over the line when he thought he scored summed it up. If we put a number of the performances we displayed in the Middle 8's when playing away to Hull several weeks ago we wouldn't have won there....but as often happens in sport teams do raise their performance for the bigger games. Some weird idea that last weeks performance would be entirely identical if we playing Wigan or Saints.

Re: McDermott : Mon Sep 12, 2016 11:56 pm  

I don't care what was being discussed off the field and by whom. What I do care about is the laughable defence in way too many games, combined with an awful unstructured attack. I would have thought that any side struggling on attack would concentrate on simple sets and kicking for position. I don't recall seeing much of that controlled rugby. In attack if things are stuttering you either go for a game based on offloads and hope to create something in broken play, or go the other way and just go through rigidly planned moves every set. As far as I can tell in a lot of games we looked to have literally no idea what we were even trying to do, never mind executing whatever the 'plan' was.

All of that is down to coaching and players in poor form.

Re: McDermott : Tue Sep 13, 2016 10:17 am  

BrisbaneRhino wrote:

I don't care what was being discussed off the field and by whom. What I do care about is the laughable defence in way too many games, combined with an awful unstructured attack. I would have thought that any side struggling on attack would concentrate on simple sets and kicking for position. I don't recall seeing much of that controlled rugby. In attack if things are stuttering you either go for a game based on offloads and hope to create something in broken play, or go the other way and just go through rigidly planned moves every set. As far as I can tell in a lot of games we looked to have literally no idea what we were even trying to do, never mind executing whatever the 'plan' was.

All of that is down to coaching and players in poor form.

Add to that the amount of sets we've been caught in position on the last tackle or a poorly executed kick.

Re: McDermott : Tue Sep 13, 2016 11:08 am  

BrisbaneRhino wrote:

I don't care what was being discussed off the field and by whom. What I do care about is the laughable defence in way too many games, combined with an awful unstructured attack. I would have thought that any side struggling on attack would concentrate on simple sets and kicking for position. I don't recall seeing much of that controlled rugby. In attack if things are stuttering you either go for a game based on offloads and hope to create something in broken play, or go the other way and just go through rigidly planned moves every set. As far as I can tell in a lot of games we looked to have literally no idea what we were even trying to do, never mind executing whatever the 'plan' was.

All of that is down to coaching and players in poor form.

As i have said before, in general our defence hasnt been that bad, our attack has had problems, probably more than is acceptable but is it down to a 19 year old halfback playing more games than he could have expected? Losing our MoS fullback to injury and then completely and moving a new player there? Having only 1 player in our first choice back line play 20+games doesnt really help anyone play any sort of planned rugby, having your only experienced half in and out of the side isnt going to help.

With the players we had out there at times, i'm not surprised we didnt know what we were doing

Re: McDermott : Tue Sep 13, 2016 12:06 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

As i have said before, in general our defence hasnt been that bad, our attack has had problems, probably more than is acceptable but is it down to a 19 year old halfback playing more games than he could have expected? Losing our MoS fullback to injury and then completely and moving a new player there? Having only 1 player in our first choice back line play 20+games doesnt really help anyone play any sort of planned rugby, having your only experienced half in and out of the side isnt going to help.

With the players we had out there at times, i'm not surprised we didnt know what we were doing

All have what you have said there is true. And shows where I think Mac went massively wrong, with players in and out of the squad, young halves etc as coach he should have looked to simplify our game plan, ensure we complete sets with a good kick and cut down on the champagne stuff that doesn't go to hand when fit and out of form.

Unfortunately it took most of the year for Mac and or the players to realise that. This in turn put us under a lot of pressure for most of the season.

Re: McDermott : Tue Sep 13, 2016 1:48 pm  

Barrie's Glass Eye wrote:

All have what you have said there is true. And shows where I think Mac went massively wrong, with players in and out of the squad, young halves etc as coach he should have looked to simplify our game plan, ensure we complete sets with a good kick and cut down on the champagne stuff that doesn't go to hand when fit and out of form.

Unfortunately it took most of the year for Mac and or the players to realise that. This in turn put us under a lot of pressure for most of the season.

But do we have the personnel to play that game? Who is taking on that long kicking game? For a long time, certainly in the early part of our season i would have said our problem wasnt that we were 'playing too much champagne rugby' but that whilst we had no problem marching down the field but were struggling to get over the line because Lilley and Sutcliffe (who werent our first choice half pairing) arent adept at putting players through those holes on the line and simply dont have the consistent short and long kicking game needed to play that kind of grinding rugby.

Re: McDermott : Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:56 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

But do we have the personnel to play that game? Who is taking on that long kicking game? For a long time, certainly in the early part of our season i would have said our problem wasnt that we were 'playing too much champagne rugby' but that whilst we had no problem marching down the field but were struggling to get over the line because Lilley and Sutcliffe (who werent our first choice half pairing) arent adept at putting players through those holes on the line and simply dont have the consistent short and long kicking game needed to play that kind of grinding rugby.

A fair point on the skill set deficiency, which I think was exaggerated early on because we had Hardaker rather than a 3rd pivot type at fullback. They're were times though where we tried to play too much rugby (offloads to floor etc) and to me it doesn't really matter if the skillset for a long kicking game, a crap kick with a good chase is better than turning it over on the last with regularity.

We also waste a potentially lethal last tackle option of kicking to Hall, but that's nothing new.