Doom and Gloom! : Sun May 19, 2013 9:03 pm  

15 games into the season and we are on target for the worst points difference in a SL season..... We currently ship 2 points for each one we score.....33 a game.

The Players we have are being paid the cap.....the coach we have was persuaded to stay here last year and I can only assume there wa a decent financial incentive for him to stay. Neither the squad nor the coach are giving anything like value for money at present.

We've been hammered before, but it would seem that there are too many players at the club who no longer want to step up to the mark.....we recruited badly for a number of years and we are now reaping the spoils of the total and utter mismanagement of the club since 2008 onwards.

The fans have drifted away in alarming numbers, with those hardy souls left being outnumbered by Wigan fans at the weekend.......

I used to feel anger when I saw what was being done to the club I support.....unfortunately, it's now more sadness and acceptance that by the time 2015 hits us, there will in all probability be no club left to support.

I will still fight for bandwidth to listen to the games, but in all honestly, if we make the Challege Cup final, I wouldn't even be tempted.....whereas a few years back, I would have not hesitated at spending $4,000 to get home for it.....they really have ripped the heart out of the club.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 6:19 am  

I think TR was stuck with the players to be fair.

I recognise he is responsible for getting them to play, but...

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 8:05 am  

wire quin wrote:

I think TR was stuck with the players to be fair.

I recognise he is responsible for getting them to play, but...

Stuck with the vast majority of players, yes. However, there are other things we might have expected him to change - physical conditioning, attitude, psychology, mental toughness, playing structures, on-field partnerships. Not easy, obviously, but really, he's been clueless. I doubt very much he took the job on thinking he'd be treading water for a full 15 months - he expected to do better than Powell and he hasn't.

I still can't work out who was in charge when we signed Grady, Wheeldon and Robertson for 2013 in the middle of a staff review. Did someone let Powell make these decisions just weeks before firing him?

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 8:55 am  

Phil Bailey?

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 9:05 am  

What about Phil Bailey?

It would seem Danny Ward is on the coaching team to.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 9:08 am  

Saul Hudson wrote:

Phil Bailey?

Yeah. Maybe he was the one making contract decisions in the middle of last year.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 9:22 am  

Tony as the coach has to take so responsibility, one comment I heard was that he said he could tell before the match they were not up for it! what a sad and truly bad situation.

Who can we sign for one more season? with doubts about the future.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 11:27 am  

Colly2 wrote:

Stuck with the vast majority of players, yes. However, there are other things we might have expected him to change - physical conditioning, attitude, psychology, mental toughness, playing structures, on-field partnerships. Not easy, obviously, but really, he's been clueless. I doubt very much he took the job on thinking he'd be treading water for a full 15 months - he expected to do better than Powell and he hasn't.

I still can't work out who was in charge when we signed Grady, Wheeldon and Robertson for 2013 in the middle of a staff review. Did someone let Powell make these decisions just weeks before firing him?

Be Fair Colly. After 15 rounds last season, we had two wins only. So in theory we are doing better.

Conditioning – The Head Coach's job? Also, if he helps with mental toughness, attitude and psychology how will that make our players more talented. Because, the thing I hear from here is that there are players there that don't even know the basics. Something very f-ing annoying if you think about it. And something to add to the list of a first grade coach that shouldn't even be on any list at this level.

jaybs wrote:

Tony as the coach has to take so responsibility, one comment I heard was that he said he could tell before the match they were not up for it! what a sad and truly bad situation.

You can get that feel pre-match. Players are quiet. Warm up at not at an intensity you want. etc. etc. And then revisit those thoughts it if you lose.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 12:16 pm  

Rooster Booster wrote:

Conditioning – The Head Coach's job? Also, if he helps with mental toughness, attitude and psychology how will that make our players more talented. Because, the thing I hear from here is that there are players there that don't even know the basics. Something very f-ing annoying if you think about it. And something to add to the list of a first grade coach that shouldn't even be on any list at this level.

I imagine the coach has a say in whether he wants players to bulk up/down, improve stamina etc. and then the conditioner delivers that. That's what I meant.

Related to that, one thing that worries me is that we have very few natural forwards. Cook, Clubb, Lovell, McMeeken, Grady, Bailey, Melling all started life as backs and those that played on Sunday were overpowered by a big, aggressive set of forwards. That's happened a few times now. Wigan had big, aggressive threequarters too and given that any of our backs who offer physical presence are encouraged to become middle units, it's little surprise that we got bullied right across the pitch. (And I do mean bullied; not content with running through us, some of the Wigan players spent the afternoon goading our smaller players - the complete lack of response was embarrassing).

But you are right, some players don't seem to know the basics and that must infuriate Tony Rea.

Re: Doom and Gloom! : Mon May 20, 2013 12:28 pm  

Hello all,

I think that you have to look at the fact that London Broncos recently sent out notifications to 12 of the first team squad with reference to whether they would be retained, whether the club was still considering this, or whether they would be released.

The likes of Mark Bryant, Michael Channing, Liam Colbon, Matthew Cook, Luke Dorn, David Howell, Alex Hurst, Will Lovell, Chris Melling and Chad Randall are very likely to face uncertain futures and the older players are probably finished in terms of top-level Rugby.

You'd have to imagine that this would have a very negative effect in the short-term in morale across the whole squad, especially when you look at the fact that three of the Australians on this list believed to be leaving were signed by Tony Rea in his first spell here and thus have been with the club for about 20 years, so they will be massively influential/vocal.

I personally felt that this season would be a great one if we could avoid the bottom three and a good one if we could avoid bottom given the squad we had, which let's face it has been consistently been at a 20% win rate for the last 40 games of Mac's tenure, not even that with Powell and now is at around the 33% mark since Tony came back, so is improving but not even Wayne Bennett could expect to put Alex Hurst against Pat Richards or lose his one Hooker, who is the retired assistant coach after 5 minutes, and hold out against Wigan.

Sam Tomkins was probably the best Rugby player who has ever appeared at the Twickenham Stoop at club level and he was mesmeric.

Some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue. I didn't enjoy being the statue. It was like being in an electric chair.

Rammo