What personal stuff are you referring to?

I assume you mean speculation about a players health problems or stuff like than and not comments about their ability?

Or are you suggesting criticism of certain players is over the top which is not the same thing?

Bandwagon's do tend to form against certain players and it was pretty evident to me at the game on Sunday Mathers mistakes were picked on more than other players by the crowd for example. I sometimes think people join these bandwagon's because their mates do whether they have seen the game or not!

However it works the other way as well. Lockers is a a golden boy in many peoples eyes and can do no wrong.

Dave

I think that there is a distinction to be made between people saying "Mathers played crap on Sunday" and people saying "Mathers is crap". The first expresses disappointment and demands improvement, while the second displays nothing constructive.
As for players believing that performances are acceptable when they are not, I don't buy it. They know when they've had bad games, regardless of whether or not anyone tells them.
Further, if criticism is made with the intent of informing management of our opinion, it should be contstructively and articulately made. Simply saying (for example) "Feka's a fat lump of sh*te" isn't going to persuade anyone and will more than likely be dismissed as evidence that the poster is drunk or has a personal vendetta against Feka. On the other hand, saying something like "Mathers' positional play in defence was acceptable, but was undone by his weak one on one tackling, which was ineffectual at worst and dangerous close to foul play at best. In attack he failed to support the ball carrier and was therefore nowhere to be found just when an extra man coming into the line was needed. " is much harder to dismiss. I still doubt that any coach is going to look to fans' opinion for guidance in analysing the performance of his players, but there we go.
In my opinion, if we wish to motivate players, telling them they are rubbish is not the way to go about it. Booing them off the pitch is the right of fans, but must be used sparingly, I believe. After the Hudds game last season, it was a much needed wake-up call. Do it every week and it becomes counter-productive. For better or worse, these are the players we have this season. They are not going anywhere anytime soon. We need to balance our support and our criticism to get the best out of them. Ultimately, we want the players who play poorly to feel sorry for letting us down, to think, "those guys supported me and I let them down, I've got to do better", rather than thinking "they all hate me anyway and I get paid either way, screw 'em". Get them to see that the reason we are angry is that we demand better and we expect better...and we just may get better. Let them think that we expect nothing from them anyway, and where does their motivation come from?
I should just say that I quoted wigan pie man to help me answer a couple of general points. I am in no way saying that he advocates constantly slating the players and fully understand that he is talking about criticising for constructive and honest reasons.

yeah...good theory... ...sounds like a feckin politician...


He earns more money than we will ever earn....If I think he's a knob-head, I'll tell him...and whats more...on that money...he should walk round the pitch at the end and take it.

Mathers does not look like he is willing to put his body on the line. Everyone see that and thats why people have called him a coward. Although i dont agree with getting on a players back during the game, like happened on Sunday. How is that going to help us!? Some of our supporters are embarassing when it comes to things like that.

I think the ironic cheers at the game for Richie Mathers did nothing to help his confidence and nothing to help the team. Some of the things put on here about Richie have been constructive whilst some of it has just been to bag him for the sake of it. Like others have said you will always (sadly) get your scapegoat and then you will always get players who can never do any wrong.

I don't like seeing fans getting on players backs at the ground but I have no problem with them calling players out on here as long as it is fair and not personal.

Thankfully the personal stuff on here stops a long way short of some of the disgusting stuff I have seen on my football teams (SWFC) forum, one particular peace of pondlife wished one of our players and his family would die in a car car crash!!!!

I wondered that as well.

I don't think that the abuse the players have got since Sunday is over the top. At the moment their is valid reason to criticise all aspects of the club (potentially with the exception of Mick Hogan who got us the Mecca deal). I don't think anyone has got overly personal, and if they did, that is surely what the moderation process is for.

Well said Memony.

I can't believe some people on here questioned Bailey's defence. The lad made 39 tackles.

It's not a lack of leadership as much as a lack of professionalism which certain/the majority of our players seem to struggle with and it's a disgrace for elite players. They have to take responsibility for it rather than hiding behind lack of leadership.

And let in a crucial try.

Normally I'd regard Bailey as a dependable defender. But against Wakey he was skinned in one instance which led straight to a Wakey score. If he's going to let fast lads run around him, then, given that he doesn't offer much else apart from defence, I don't see how he can be selected ahead of Harrison Hansen or Joel Tomkins.

When was he skinned that led to Wakefield scoring? I can only remember him getting skinned once and that didn't lead to a try. He is put out there to make our awful right sided defence more solid imo and I don't think he does that bad of a job.