Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sat Oct 03, 2020 7:29 pm  

Or thane wrote:

Just poor all round, speed counts for nothing in this weather, Ashton has speed and that's about it. Today was a forwards game. I would leave Ashton out rather than moving Ratchford from his best postion. Ratch had a great game at 13 so why Trial Austin there. Price just doesn't have the killer blow in him for me, he can do a lot with a team but not enough.
Some weird comments on here taking aim at Gelling saying he was awful and ineffective, take out the favoritism and take off the rose tinted specs and you'll see he did a hell of a lot of hard work today. Took in shed loads of drives and helped out the forwards.
Daryl Clark was none existant, Mamo, Charnley, Widdop and Ashton were none existant and ineffective, but yeah lets pin point Gelling who worked is butt off today.

Personally, I don't think Gelling played well, not the only one though. The non existent jump and a few iffy defensive calls. Did well bringing the ball out from our 20 though.

Clark had eff all to work from, which is to be expected in those conditions. Which leads back to team selection. Ashton on the bench at best and Ratchford at full back. Start Jason Clark (not everyone's cup of tea but I like him). Maybe Matt Davis on the bench I. Place of walker.

Best team won though at the end of the day

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sat Oct 03, 2020 7:49 pm  

I am happy for Salford. Just an absolute shame that they will not be able to cash in on the Wembley merchandising payday as much as they would have.
I hope that they can keep hold of Watson and start to build bigger crowds and sponsorship revenue building on the GF and a CC final appearance.
I never have a problem with the officiating as I believe you make your own luck.
I just hope we learn from this as to how to play those conditions like Leeds did as we will have to if we are to challenge over the next 7/8 weeks.

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sat Oct 03, 2020 7:51 pm  

What has Walker done that people seem so keen to ditch him from the 17? The unpalatable truth is he did more in ten minutes than Daryl Clarke did all game and in those conditions should have been on earlier - he also has a better kicking game than Clarke which would have been useful.

Too often Price is guilty of subs by numbers. J Clarke had his usual bland cameo today, yet Matt Davis is in great form and was nowhere to be seen. Similarly, BMM was pummeling their line and got hauled off - what is he, the proxy Akuola?

[Winslade's Offload]

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sat Oct 03, 2020 8:01 pm  

Wet weather is a great leveller, it disadvantages the runners and play makers and rewards the big forwards. Our game seems to have evolved very much into fast rugby with lots of offloads, breaks, and tries scored from well down the field. Salford rely on forwards scoring from the 10m line, kick throughs and long kicks to the corner. Even their winger Rhys Williams has been converted into a forward and the only time he got the ball in space he looked woefully slow. By and large this season has done us a favour because games are much faster and scrums of course are non existent. In a normal season we would be back to talking about the need for a couple of big forwards.

As well as (or perhaps because of) the conditions we made a lot of errors, some of which were pretty basic stuff. As previously predicted, Ashton had a bad day and invited the kick through for one of their tries. On the plus side we took the two points that were on offer and in the first half pinned them in their own half for good long periods (which I would guess to be our tactics surely ?) Unfortunately after that we seemed to lose the plot whilst Salford simply ground on and never gave up.

Well done Salford, but I don't think we need to start making a noose from the light flex just yet.

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sat Oct 03, 2020 8:28 pm  

CW8 wrote:

Well congratulations to Salford, best of luck in the final, I hope they win. Inu has been fantastic in both games this week. Fair play.

We were far too soft in defence and key areas, a game we should have won comfortably really, poor points to give away throughout. Hill was brilliant so were Cooper, currie and Jack Hughes they didn't deserve to lose.

Agree Salford deserved it. We were soft in defence.

Hill was immense as you say. Best game for us for a long time.

Also thought Hughes was good.

2 players playing well - we didn't deserve to win.

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sat Oct 03, 2020 8:43 pm  

Yeah I hope that's the Chris Hill we are going to get for the rest of his career with us. It's definitely the best version of him, can't fault him today.

I think more than 2 played well but overall we didn't turn the ball over on our terms often enough and made poor options too often when we did finish sets. We didn't get to grip with the conditions for the full 80, we were good in spells but awful in others. The tries they scored will haunt some of our lads.

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sat Oct 03, 2020 9:59 pm  

Well if we've now decided that the Wire of 2020 are the Harlem Globetrotters (copyright Tony Barrow) and can't play in wet weather, I guess I'll either resign myself to never seeing a GF win or campaigning for the final to be in August.

Fact : two teams coped with the conditions better than their opponents and they are both contesting the final. One of them played remarkably error free football and it is perhaps not suprising that team has also previously enjoyed GF success in typically English autumnal weather.

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sun Oct 04, 2020 1:36 am  

Just hypothetical to prove a point...
If you put BBM back into the starting 13, switching him with (loose forward) Austin, for starting 13 balance....
You see that we technically had only one lightweight prop/backrower Philbin and a backrower Jace interchange of forwards on the bench, plus Walker, who carry’s no weight.

A terrible terrible team selection, breaks the first rule of RL, twice!!

I’d have had no issue with Price puzzling 13 with Ashton and Austin, if we’d have gone with an forward bench, regardless of favour. BMM Latu Jace Davis (Akouala)

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:04 am  

Philbin who I rate really highly got absolutely mullered when he came on, There is 0 excuse now for price I would’ve loved to retain the cup but there is no get out from
him now,he has been out coached by Watson on 5 occasions and he is probably spending more than a million in cap more than him let’s see what the rest of the year brings.

Re: Teams for the two Salford games : Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:19 am  

Winslade's Offload wrote:

Wet weather is a great leveller, it disadvantages the runners and play makers and rewards the big forwards. Our game seems to have evolved very much into fast rugby with lots of offloads, breaks, and tries scored from well down the field. Salford rely on forwards scoring from the 10m line, kick throughs and long kicks to the corner. Even their winger Rhys Williams has been converted into a forward and the only time he got the ball in space he looked woefully slow. By and large this season has done us a favour because games are much faster and scrums of course are non existent. In a normal season we would be back to talking about the need for a couple of big forwards.

As well as (or perhaps because of) the conditions we made a lot of errors, some of which were pretty basic stuff. As previously predicted, Ashton had a bad day and invited the kick through for one of their tries. On the plus side we took the two points that were on offer and in the first half pinned them in their own half for good long periods (which I would guess to be our tactics surely ?) Unfortunately after that we seemed to lose the plot whilst Salford simply ground on and never gave up.

Well done Salford, but I don't think we need to start making a noose from the light flex just yet.

Sensible analysis. We played the conditions for about 30 of the 80 minutes. In the other 50 we were impatient and over-optimistic. This is disappointing as both Wire and Salford had seen the way Leeds handled the weather and it seems that Salford payed closer attention. This is down to execution by the players and not to coaching. We will need to be much smarter from this lesson as October is the 2nd rainiest month in the UK (after January) so we may see more of these conditions in other vital matches.