Re: Real coaching test : Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:50 pm  

Anybody who has seen Bailey play will know that he is a weak defender. So why put him on the wing where he will have to make more tackles than he would in his normal position of fullback?

Re: Real coaching test : Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:57 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

Anybody who has seen Bailey play will know that he is a weak defender. So why put him on the wing where he will have to make more tackles than he would in his normal position of fullback?

His tackling wasn't the problem.

Re: Real coaching test : Tue Apr 07, 2015 6:42 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

Anybody who has seen Bailey play will know that he is a weak defender. So why put him on the wing where he will have to make more tackles than he would in his normal position of fullback?

He didn't really have to do much defending. I can't recall him missing a tackle really either. The one for the try he had no chance really.

It was kicks he struggled on.

Re: Real coaching test : Tue Apr 07, 2015 6:56 pm  

Not sure whether it's a coaching challenge so much as a scouting challenge.

What I wonder about is our inability to find big backs. Wigan seem to have a production line of 6'0+ athletes who can shift a bit too : Burgess, Manfredi, Gelling are all considerably bigger than anyone we have in the backs. Leeds also have no problem producing or procuring big lads for the threequarters and fullback. Yet our backs production line seems to be based in Lilliput. Makinson and Swift are tiny, as is Lomax. Percival is a slip of a lad, and even Jones is hardly huge, despite playing second row a bit. None of this would mater, of course, if they were fast as whippets with the evasive skills of a particularly slippery eel, but they're not. They're moderately fast, small guys. And as RL is such a physical game, perhaps we shouldn't be overly surprised that a lot of our small backs have spent a fair bit of time injured : Wheeler, Lomax, Percival.

As someone born and bred in St Helens, I recognise that many of my fellow Sintelliners may be more broad than tall, but at 6 foot I wasn't a freak ! Yet even our homegrown forwards tend to be on the small side. Beefy, but short. Clough-clones. So where are the big lads coming up through the youth teams ? Where are our equivalents of Burgess and Manfredi, Hardaker and Watkins ? Get some size in there !

Re: Real coaching test : Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:49 am  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

Anybody who has seen Bailey play will know that he is a weak defender. So why put him on the wing where he will have to make more tackles than he would in his normal position of fullback?

We were asking that exact question during and after the game

Re: Real coaching test : Wed Apr 08, 2015 6:49 am  

St pete wrote:

He didn't really have to do much defending. I can't recall him missing a tackle really either. The one for the try he had no chance really.

It was kicks he struggled on.

That try should never have been given. I saw it on SLS yesterday and Bailey had nailed him over the touchline. I thought that was a terrific tackle given that the rest of the team had left him entirely isolated. Good that he didn't get tempted in like our regular wingers can be. Just a pity we didn't have the video ref present on that occasion.

Re: Real coaching test : Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:43 am  

Roy Haggerty wrote:

Not sure whether it's a coaching challenge so much as a scouting challenge.

What I wonder about is our inability to find big backs. Wigan seem to have a production line of 6'0+ athletes who can shift a bit too : Burgess, Manfredi, Gelling are all considerably bigger than anyone we have in the backs. Leeds also have no problem producing or procuring big lads for the threequarters and fullback. Yet our backs production line seems to be based in Lilliput. Makinson and Swift are tiny, as is Lomax. Percival is a slip of a lad, and even Jones is hardly huge, despite playing second row a bit. None of this would mater, of course, if they were fast as whippets with the evasive skills of a particularly slippery eel, but they're not. They're moderately fast, small guys. And as RL is such a physical game, perhaps we shouldn't be overly surprised that a lot of our small backs have spent a fair bit of time injured : Wheeler, Lomax, Percival.

As someone born and bred in St Helens, I recognise that many of my fellow Sintelliners may be more broad than tall, but at 6 foot I wasn't a freak ! Yet even our homegrown forwards tend to be on the small side. Beefy, but short. Clough-clones. So where are the big lads coming up through the youth teams ? Where are our equivalents of Burgess and Manfredi, Hardaker and Watkins ? Get some size in there !

Not sure I agree with this.

Gelling, he's a terrible back, so not sure I'd be longing for players his size in the centres. He's a back rower.

Manfredi? He's not particularly big. In fact according to the respective club websites Swift is taller and Makinson only 3cm shorter.

Makinson being shorter than Swift doesn't make him any less effective as a winger. Turner is the biggest of the lot that you don't mention, but young Jack Ashworth is taller than him. Carney is probably the most powerful wing in the league and he's shorter than all of them.

I don't think we have an issue producing backs at all TBH. We could put out a back 5 of Lomax, Makinson, Percival, Jones, Swift - could any other teams in SL put out a better home grown back line from players at their club?

As for small forwards, Greenwood is enormous, Savelio is only a couple of cm shorter etc.

Re: Real coaching test : Wed Apr 08, 2015 11:32 am  

Manfredi shorter than Swift? Is someone having a laugh ?

Btw, I disagree on Gelling. I think if he played for us, despite his brainfarts, he'd be our most dangerous back.

Take your point about Greenwood, but also worth noting that he has the best prospects of any forward we've produced since Graham, and he's a big lad. We need more like him.

Re: Real coaching test : Wed Apr 08, 2015 11:44 am  

Roy Haggerty wrote:

Btw, I disagree on Gelling. I think if he played for us, despite his brainfarts, he'd be our most dangerous back.

Fair enough, that's your opinion but I don't see us clambering to swap Percy/Makinson/Swift/Turner/Lomax for Gelling any time soon!

Re: Real coaching test : Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:22 pm  

I think the selection of Bailey shows just how much Cunningham doesn't want Dawson in at winger. I'm not sure him at full back would have meant him dealing with high balls any better either, he'd just have been taking them in the middle of the pitch rather than on the side, Hull would still have targetted him.