Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:03 pm  

I think it was unlikely to be a matter of funds, but player contracts that kept roughly the same squad intact. Virtually all of the players retained were under contract (and if this forum is right, 15 are still on contract for next year).

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Sun Apr 07, 2013 11:22 pm  

poplar panther wrote:

If he did not think the squad was good enough he should have said so at the end of the season. He can't have taken the job on without promise of funds to improve the side can he?

Why not?

When you have a squad limit and limit on funds and people were signed for a couple of seasons before you start your job, you have what you're given. He could get one player. He did. As I said, let's see who's off contract and who HE wants to buy.

Saul Hudson wrote:

I think it was unlikely to be a matter of funds, but player contracts that kept roughly the same squad intact. Virtually all of the players retained were under contract (and if this forum is right, 15 are still on contract for next year).

And out of those 15, who knows how many of them he'd actually want or have chosen?

He got what he was given.

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Mon Apr 08, 2013 7:47 am  

One thing that is beginning to grate is the management speak jibberish that TR spouts in the programme notes and in post-match interviews. I don’t know if he thinks he is the new Dalai Lama but fans are fed up with this twaddle, when what they really want is some plain speaking about our continual under achieving and failure to close games out and what we might do about it. I can only hope that he deals with and instructs the team a whole lot different, but then again given our dire performances perhaps he doesn`t.

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:05 am  

I understand that Tony Rea inherited the squad. However, he was just replicated Rob Powell's failed combinations to precisely the same effect. We still have to put up with our defence on both edges being demolished because we have Channing/Howell-Witt on the right edge and Sarginson-Gower on the left edge. We still concede 30+ a game on average.

Knowing this, surely - surely - our one off season signing should have been a (right) centre.*

I would like to see a change to our defensive set-up so that, on the left, Gower moves infield and Bailey slots outside him and, on the right, Colbon moves to third man in and Witt to centre. Something likes this, right to left:

Dixon - Witt - Colbon - Rodney - Middle unit - Gower - Bailey - Channing - Robertson

Now, that may not work and it involves asking Colbon to attack from right centre and Channing as left centre but at least it is a combination that is not a tried and trusted failure.




*Re. signings. When Powell was a dead man walking, who authorised the signings of Robertson, Grady and Wheeldon for 2013?

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:06 am  

Under the sticks wrote:

One thing that is beginning to grate is the management speak jibberish that TR spouts in the programme notes and in post-match interviews. I don’t know if he thinks he is the new Dalai Lama but fans are fed up with this twaddle, when what they really want is some plain speaking about our continual under achieving and failure to close games out and what we might do about it. I can only hope that he deals with and instructs the team a whole lot different, but then again given our dire performances perhaps he doesn`t.

Agreed.

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:35 am  

Under the sticks wrote:

One thing that is beginning to grate is the management speak jibberish that TR spouts in the programme notes and in post-match interviews. I don’t know if he thinks he is the new Dalai Lama but fans are fed up with this twaddle, when what they really want is some plain speaking about our continual under achieving and failure to close games out and what we might do about it. I can only hope that he deals with and instructs the team a whole lot different, but then again given our dire performances perhaps he doesn`t.

This is his way of dealing with defeat and presumably his attempt at protecting players. If the alternative is going off on one like Millward and slagging them off in print and interviews, its probably better how it is now....

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:07 am  

The Penguin wrote:

This is his way of dealing with defeat and presumably his attempt at protecting players. If the alternative is going off on one like Millward and slagging them off in print and interviews, its probably better how it is now....

Agreed. Most coaches go down this route. The idea that the coach should come out and tell it as it really is is somewhat naive, same as fans expect the club to make public details of injuries which will help the opposition target players.

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:13 am  

Fine.....don`t name or berate players, I am not wanting or expecting that but perhaps he could just shut the F up and stop coming out with such a load of cobblers and going all mystic about the way forward etc.......saying nothing at all would be preferable to the current nonsense. You read his programme notes and come to the conclusion at the end that he has said nothing at all, same with the after match stuff.

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:30 am  

Colly2.

Do you think Tony Rea would be 100% happy with the squad that he has and the line ups that he has to put out there?

Re: Tony Rea - lets have some answers : Mon Apr 08, 2013 12:20 pm  

Rooster Booster wrote:

Colly2.

Do you think Tony Rea would be 100% happy with the squad that he has and the line ups that he has to put out there?

I think you've set me up with a straw man to knock down!

I doubt very much that these are the 20-odd players Rea would pick from scratch but that would be the same for every coach in the world, wouldn't it?

Rea should be getting something different from this squad to what was delivered by Powell. Sadly, his record is little different to Powell's because he's selecting the same players, *in the same roles*. That makes no sense to me.

Equally frustratingly, he seems to be making precisely the same error as Powell by running his better forwards into the ground - Lee, Rodney and Bailey can't play these minutes every round and, like last year, we're starting to see the effects of physical and mental fatigue.

Honestly, RB, it is very difficult to watch the same season twice! I fully expect us to draw Dewsbury at home in the Cup ...