Dufty plain and simple on three occasions has chickened out of attempting to catch a high ball.. that’s not a mistake that’s a problem within Dufty himself.. as good as he has been these last few months it doesn’t excuse him for not having the balls to make a decent effort catching the high ball..

The only one harking on about past errors is you.





His tackle attempt in that game was pretty poor and cost a try, hence my comment. I think most reasonable posters on here would agree with me.

He's no Steve Hampson for sure, but what to do with him? Do you drop our most dangerous offensive player?

I think not cos he scores/makes more than he let's in but I'm sure he will be being worked on. Some of the tries he has let in have been a bit strange. Who would come in? We might have a similar problem.

Exactly. Thewlis has not looked rock solid in defence or under a high kick recently either and we are trying to move on from Ratchford.



Dufty earns his place for me, he is a dangerous player and entertaining to watch. His deficiencies can be worked on and you cannot coach pace.

Hope the coaching staff can install confidence and make sure he at least try’s to attempt a catch.. I’d stick with him, it seems we have no one better. Thewlis has started to look shaky as well, so that rules him out.. fingers crossed that Burgess works on a plan to get the covering defence to work harder at shielding Dufty on the high kicks and not leave him exposed to oncoming attackers

In Dufty's case, I think that's the point of the debate, there's no need for over reaction to any criticism.



AFAIC I wouldn't lose his attacking threat if he continues in this season's vein of form, then fine by me. We accept he has flaws and work on strategies to cope with them. He's not suddenly going to become a Hampson or Hodgson, you can't coach that IMO, but we need to protect him a bit better from the chase and try and get the opposition kicking from deeper and apply pressure rather than letting the likes of Abdul kick us to death, which will be an opposition blue print as team's sniff out a perceived weakness.

Agreed UR, pressuring the kicker (while not going so far as attempting to charge down every kick as per TS) and giving Dufty “coverage” are the ares to concentrate on. Abdul was given way too much time, we all knew what he was going to do so the players must have, there just didn’t seem to be a plan.

I guess Marshall will be working overtime on how to deal with it as every team will see it as a blueprint. Unless we bring Ratchford back in as a specialist to deal with that threat, and to kick goals.

Ratchford at centre I mean.

I get that there might be variables such as weather (wind/sun/wet) but you'd think kick pressure and catch protection would be a relatively simple thing to coach?



There aren't that many contested variables

How tall is Dufty? Is that a factor in his not being able to contest high balls?

Not much doubt that being 6ft 4 ins & say 17st is a handier than being 5ft 8 and a half.