So .... : Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:18 am  

.... whats going on ? For what they are worth my thoughts.

Last year we slipped under the radar, placed a deserved second, but with that comes a target on the back, and I suspect all teams now gun for us and have more experience of our players abilities, etc. Disrespect the opposition at your peril.

Recruitment ? Out the door Magrin, Keyes, Macani, Foster, Bussey, Slyney, Thackeray and in Spencer, Gee, Pitts, Purtell, Sammut, Grant, Channing, Roqica, on paper at least, far more formidable set, but are these new recruits too soft ? Is there heart in this gig ?

Injuries, well they certainly don’t help. We haven’t seen Channing or Grant yet this season, Cunningham has only just got back, as has Api, Spencer out long term as is Battye, Ackers now out for months, now it appears Barthau injured as is Garside, so this has been disruptive, very disruptive. I don’t think we should underestimate the impact Battye has.

The forwards in general have been underwhelming, out muscled, out enthused, in almost every game. With the exception of Pitts, I don’t think we have anyone who could break out of a paper bag never mind a watertight defence.

Coaching and style of play seems to have gone back in its shell. Where's the dynamic, fast paced, brand of footie we were expecting to see.

Dynamism of rotating hookers, last year Cunningham / Ackers were brilliant complimentary rotation at dummy half, this year they haven’t played a game together.

Rhys last year was the comp leading try scorer, this season I don’t recall the last time he scored. So why is that ? Is he being marked out of the game ? Too much focus on the other wing ? His centre not playing as well ?

Ability to catch the ball – speaks for itself, as does giving away silly silly penalties.

The Sammut effect – is the introduction of this maverick – and yes he has scored a lot of points for us – at the detriment to the ‘team’. It certainly explained the Rhys situation as the ball never gets beyond JS.

Having seen the awfulness at Oldham and Swinton, the appalling show at Halifax, a defeat to Sheffield was hardly a huge surprise, disappointing, but not surprising. Still, I’ll be at Fev hoping rather than expecting.

Re: So .... : Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:51 pm  

Thing that strikes me this season is team selection. Confusing at times and I get the impression AH does not know what his best team is or who to play

Re: So .... : Mon Apr 03, 2017 8:59 pm  

One thing seems to be a real lack of leadership. We seem back to the state we were in when Hendo had to come out retirement in order to coach the team on the field. A lot of the time there just needs to be someone out there who will instill patience in the team and get them to understand that you can't usually dominate until you've built some pressure which means that you don't need to score on every play but you do need to hand the ball over on your terms.

A second thing is a lack of respect for team mates, the oppo and the ref. These lads don't seem interested in toughing anything out and they are very quick to blame each other, the officials, bad luck, indeed anything that means it isn't their fault.

1-6-7-9. If in doubt, revert back to last year's successful recipe of Kear-Pewhairangi-Barthau-Cunningham/Ackers. If Sammut plays, give him the left-hand side or full-back gig. Switching Barthau to the right-hand side hasn't worked.

Nick Slyney. Ran hard, tackled hard, played big minutes, led the team, wouldn't shy away from a fight. I think we're missing him.

[brian2]

Re: So .... : Tue Apr 04, 2017 11:47 am  

One thing seems to be a real lack of leadership. We seem back to the state we were in when Hendo had to come out retirement in order to coach the team on the field. A lot of the time there just needs to be someone out there who will instill patience in the team and get them to understand that you can't usually dominate until you've built some pressure which means that you don't need to score on every play but you do need to hand the ball over on your terms.

A second thing is a lack of respect for team mates, the oppo and the ref. These lads don't seem interested in toughing anything out and they are very quick to blame each other, the officials, bad luck, indeed anything that means it isn't their fault.

1-6-7-9. If in doubt, revert back to last year's successful recipe of Kear-Pewhairangi-Barthau-Cunningham/Ackers. If Sammut plays, give him the left-hand side or full-back gig. Switching Barthau to the right-hand side hasn't worked.

Nick Slyney. Ran hard, tackled hard, played big minutes, led the team, wouldn't shy away from a fight. I think we're missing him

I think all the posts here are spot on. I think the lack of leadership is evident every week, Slyney and Thackeray where big losses and we miss them, Cunningham/Ackers ditto, we seem to have lost all sense of dynamism, we get sucked into situations we shouldn't, we give away endless penalties etc etc. no-one seems capable of grabbing the ball/team and saying this is how we play .....

Still lot of the season still to go, but next two weeks critical to top 2!

Re: So .... : Tue Apr 04, 2017 5:35 pm  

I think maybe we came into this season undercooked and with the wrong team attitude. It seems to me that they believed the hype at the start of the season! We were nailed on to be second place a fighting with KR when it came to the back end of the season. Reckon it was reinforced by the performance against KR. We have the players with thd skills I don't even really agree that it's a foreward issue, every game so far we have come out and been shocked by teams posting early points then we are playing catch up. The squad have shown disrespect to the opposition at the start of games assuming that we are going to steam roller everyone only to get caught out.
They need to come out with the attitude that every game is a challenge instead of assuming the part time teams will roll over.

Re: So .... : Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:14 am  

We miss the likes of Thacks and Slyney - end of. Miss their experience and miss their attitude.
Key players like Ackers injured.
Barthau's injury problems surface again. Some of our new signings are yet to play or are injured.
Too reliant on Sammut.
Our wingers aren't getting a touch of the ball - especially RW.
Not showing sufficient respect to the opposition.
We're still hanging on to 4th place - but we need to improve ASAP or else face an end of season in the wrong 8s!