Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:00 pm  

We've had our ups and downs as a club over the years, most notably with DH collapsing the club at Barnet.
I think the club is now at a crossroad, they commit to an investment programme or close.

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:24 pm  

The kicking issue, poor decisions and poor execution with last tackle option. Better option on a number of occasions, eg when kicking from inside own half, would have been get to dead ball line and accept a 7 set 20 mtr restart. When we got closer to haven try line playing out the set and having handover 2 or 3 mtrs out would have been better option and building pressure make haven work the ball out, nearly everytime ended up with 10 or 20 mtr restart, dumb play

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:36 pm  

In his video, Mustard says we need to give the squad time given there are 23 new players. Wholesale changes to the squad (and coaching staff) was the club's choice. They knew when the season started and should have been prepared for it. A competitive start in the new home should have been a priority to spark the interest of any new fans. The lack of any sort of joined up thinking at the club is very frustrating.

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:40 pm  

BigTime wrote:

That was my uninformed opinion. But was he the worst out there? He is a L1 player who was last seen in aL1 team getting spanked every week. In a sense he’s been put in an invidious position.
Put it another way. Who was good?. Tuilagi seemed to try to get forward. Latu wasn’t as bad as last year- he seemed Ok. Parata and Curran were Ok.

My even more uniformed comment earlier was "What does Thomas offer". Can't have been good if he looked bad today even to me. Should add any sport I always caveat with what was a player asked to do, and is it a reasonable ask based oh his/her ability and skill set. In other words it's not simply saying the player is to blame.

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:44 pm  

Smithers99 wrote:

My even more uniformed comment earlier was "What does Thomas offer". Can't have been good if he looked bad today even to me. Should add any sport I always caveat with what was a player asked to do, and is it a reasonable ask based oh his/her ability and skill set. In other words it's not simply saying the player is to blame.

Let's be realistic, most of the players are out of their depth at this level.

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:45 pm  

Edited for accuracy:

jbuzza wrote:

The lack of any sort of joined up thinking at the club is very frustrating predictable.

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:50 pm  

BigTime wrote:

I’m not experienced enough in the fine detail of the game to understand what Thomas was doing. Can anyone enlighten me. He seemed to me to be kicking the ball 10 metres and inviting Haven to attach us fro just inside their half.

Bearing in mind I wouldn't recognise a game plan if it hit me on the head. But against a not very good team, wouldn't a game plan be to pin them back inside their 20, avoid penalties and wait for the inevitable mistake and look to capitalise with (hopefully) a bit of creativity. Ok a bit simplistic, but a start.

I couldn't understand that kicking, but may be misunderstanding the rules. Deep in the second half I think it was Thomas kicking from around half way. He sent it towards the Main Stand. Travelled about 10m downfield pitching a metre or so from touch. What was the purpose? If it goes straight into touch don't Whitehaven start from where he kicked it? By bouncing into touch don't Whitehaven start from there (so just a 10m loss)? If the plan was for a Bronco to recover it, the only players who might have done were on the subs bench? What am I missing here, because I don't understand what is was offering beyond not setting up Whitehaven for a counter attack if it stayed in field.

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 9:40 pm  

jbuzza wrote:

In his video, Mustard says we need to give the squad time given there are 23 new players. Wholesale changes to the squad (and coaching staff) was the club's choice. They knew when the season started and should have been prepared for it. A competitive start in the new home should have been a priority to spark the interest of any new fans. The lack of any sort of joined up thinking at the club is very frustrating.

This.

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:24 pm  

Smithers99 wrote:

Bearing in mind I wouldn't recognise a game plan if it hit me on the head. But against a not very good team, wouldn't a game plan be to pin them back inside their 20, avoid penalties and wait for the inevitable mistake and look to capitalise with (hopefully) a bit of creativity. Ok a bit simplistic, but a start.

I couldn't understand that kicking, but may be misunderstanding the rules. Deep in the second half I think it was Thomas kicking from around half way. He sent it towards the Main Stand. Travelled about 10m downfield pitching a metre or so from touch. What was the purpose? If it goes straight into touch don't Whitehaven start from where he kicked it? By bouncing into touch don't Whitehaven start from there (so just a 10m loss)? If the plan was for a Bronco to recover it, the only players who might have done were on the subs bench? What am I missing here, because I don't understand what is was offering beyond not setting up Whitehaven for a counter attack if it stayed in field.

For someone with so little RL experience, I vote for you taking over as Coach.

Re: Whitehaven. The Honeymoon is over..... : Mon Feb 14, 2022 12:03 am  

Smithers99 wrote:

My guess is the final number will exceed 1K comfortably. At a stretch maybe closer to 1.5K, but probably won't reach it. The lack of 400+ Widnes supporters will have some impact, I assuming less than 100 from Whitehaven?
.

Pretty close to what I suspected.

Seems pretty solid based on what we know. Less away fans. The AFC Wimbledon offer was Widnes or Whitehaven. I'd suspect most of the uptake was on the former. However good the experience, only so many will return at full cost.

A lot depends on the make-up of the 1,400 today. How many fall in the one-off category? How many are second timers? How many are reconsidering future games due to poor performance etc?

The obvious next target area are local residents. That is the (large) untapped market.