Joined: Nov 19 2002 Posts: 13618 Location: West Yorkshire
Simmo71 wrote:On reflection.... Lots of good points made. Walker and Sezer had poor games - both are better than that. Walker has to be given some slack as he's been out for 2 years. Prior and Tet played well - but we struggle when they are not on the field. The rotations are not good enough. Donaldson has the best tackling technique at the club - but absolutely nothing else. Thompson and Mellor don't offer anything really.
We looked clueless when we were close to their line. I know it's first game for Sezer and Austin, but we didn't look like scoring. We actually missed Dwyer when we were close to their line. It's a worry what Long is bringing - I really don't get this view of him being head coach. We looked disorganised, disjointed, disinterested and unfit. Quite a bit to be concerned about...
Oledski is not fit, but we had no other choice. Briscoe is finished. And Sutcliffe had another poor game. It must be time for Broadbent now.
In the end, we were burned for speed by Field. An average player with speed to burn. He'll score plenty of tries against the likes of us. Against the top teams he will be anonymous.
Talking of speed, Tindall looked a threat - should get another shot. Yeh, he messed up when he should have stepped inside Field, but he'll learn from that - and we all jumped out of our seat!!
And what was Agar doing putting Johnson in the centre?? Ridiculous - I worry about some of the in game coaching decisions and rotations tbh.
No complaints about the ref this week. Moore is probably the best ref. Didn't get much wrong. Yellow card was harsh, but the game was gone by then. And we give far too many 6 again's away - they killed us.
Agree about the ref he was good and in fairness bar some laying on we were both well disciplined with regards to head high tackles and thankfully no late tackles.
Tindall for me keeps his place especially with Handley picking up a knock, he is very very quick and string for a young kid, he seems to have worked on his defensive weaknesses aswell.
We had a shocker of a ten minutes after halftime it happens and as fans we may be over analysing it (which is fine that’s what we should do) if we put in a decent performance or a few on the trot this wigan game will be quickly forgotten, it’s round 2.
Agar has taken us as far as he can, as long as we don’t go all 2016 this will and should be his last season. Should have been last year for me, as this season will now just mirror last season and we’ll huff and puff our way to 4th-7th.
Joined: Nov 19 2002 Posts: 13618 Location: West Yorkshire
FlexWheeler wrote:Agar has taken us as far as he can, as long as we don’t go all 2016 this will and should be his last season. Should have been last year for me, as this season will now just mirror last season and we’ll huff and puff our way to 4th-7th.
We’re very vanilla.
And what if we go on a long winning streak?
We played half last season without any halfbacks didn’t we have something like 15 different halfback combinations? i think you’re underestimating how well we actually did last year with all the disruption
You mention 2016, what if it ends uo like 2017, remember us getting walloped by cas that year in a much worse performance than last night
Joined: Feb 26 2002 Posts: 9574 Location: anywhere, literally...
We were decent without being great for the first 20-25 last night, changed the props, had a bit of bad luck for their first try, and then fell off a cliff for the next 20-30 mins. Like I said I can handle players making mistakes, but we showed a mental weakness last night, that needs addressing double quick.
I hope we are still looking for a big beast prop, we’re definitely short there even when they’re all fit. Still too many plodders in our squad from about shirt 20 onwards, they need to be moved on and replaced with better quality or give the kids a shot.
It's not how much talent you've got, it's what you do with it that counts.
A weeks a long time in Rugby. On last nights performance Bentley was exactly the player we needed. Agree he needs to manage his discipline but for all those saying he was a bad buy last night was evidence that our supposed back row strength in depth is not as good as some might think.
FlexWheeler wrote:It’s the 2nd game of the season, the tone is as if they’ve had a long gruelling season. They collapsed for 10 minutes after halftime.
I'm not apologising for them. I slogged up the M62 in horrid weather, froze my ass for 80 minutes, saw them get stuffed and slogged my way back again. I am not best pleased with the performance. At the same time I also recognise that they were without Myler, Fusitua, Newman, Martin, Bentley, Holroyd and Dywer and then lost Smith and Handley on the night. This combined with playing with 12 and 11 men for 65 minutes against Wire (I don't care whether it's the second or the twentieth game of the season) takes its toll. Sometimes you just have to reign in the pessimism and accept the fact that we lost away at Wigan, not an uncommon occurrence even for the golden generation, and move on.
Joined: Nov 19 2002 Posts: 13618 Location: West Yorkshire
ArthurClues wrote:I'm not apologising for them. I slogged up the M62 in horrid weather, froze my ass for 80 minutes, saw them get stuffed and slogged my way back again. I am not best pleased with the performance. At the same time I also recognise that they were without Myler, Fusitua, Newman, Martin, Bentley, Holroyd and Dywer and then lost Smith and Handley on the night. This combined with playing with 12 and 11 men for 65 minutes against Wire (I don't care whether it's the second or the twentieth game of the season) takes its toll. Sometimes you just have to reign in the pessimism and accept the fact that we lost away at Wigan, not an uncommon occurrence even for the golden generation, and move on.
I don't think anyone would have any complaints about 'just' losing away to Wigan. All mitigating factors included last night was still well short or an acceptable performance. Agars clearly not happy either so nobody needs to get particularly precious over the criticisms of the performance.
Moving forward this season I’d move Handley to LC and put Tindall outside him . Sounded the only player to do anything exciting last night and we need pace. Ideally I’d drop Handley (a very harsh call perhaps) and play Broadbent LC with Tindall outside him. I just don’t think Broadbent is going to get picked much this season though……
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