Quote TRB="TRB"Having started the year on the back-foot, and with all the restrictions we have faced in terms of recruitment, then I reckon we have come a long way.
Having said that, not all of our recruitment this year has been spot on, and in particular I reckon the signing and then subsequent retention of McCarthy was a complete waste of time and money and, had the reaction not been so cool from the fans I fear we would have had Semi back at the club by now (just an assumption).
But, here's the rub, given all the struggles we have had to get to this point, I suddenly find myself frustrated that, IMO, the squad we have could be used so much better, both in team selection and tactically, and that I honestly believe that we are now capable of, and have the tools required (no pun intended) to do a far, far better job of both playing winning rugby and entertaining us, the fans.
For whatever reason, be it fitness, percieved lack of skill, or just plain tactics, it seems to me that the players appear frustrated at the lack of opportunity to play - why we even have some pace in the squad now, and still don't appear to have the opportunity to use it!
The lack of dummy runners is now getting to stupid proportions, without players making themselves available to the man in posession, then we must be the simplest team to defend against in SL. Now whether that is the guys playing to orders, or not playing to orders, I don't really know - although I know how it appears to me!
Tactically - we also stick rigidly to the left side / right side approach for our half-backs. On Saturday we did not see that from Quins, but rather we saw 2 half-backs operating together with the freedom to flex and move around to suit the move. This was an issue with Rooney and with Jefferies and again, with my novice eyes, it appears to me to make defending against us that much easier to plan for.
Final point - team selection. We all made the error of thinking Smith had turned the corner against Huddersfield - and that backfired massively on Saturday. Morton also found himself out of his depth in this game, but then he wasn't the only player under-cooked for the match. My point? Well I seriously think that we have made too many selection errors and have picked the wrong players in the wrong positions too many times - the result of which leads me to believe that we COULD have won more games than we have and it's time we collectively stopped looking at all the external factors and concentrated on what is best for us as a club now and for the future.
My team currently would be:
Tony
Johnson
Murphy
George
Griffin
Hyde
Moore
Korki
Rinaldi
Amor
Mariano
Johnson
Morrison
Hendo
Higgins
Hickey
Davey or Wildie
Howarth would squeeze in it fit. Dean needs to work on his defence. Smith - release. Walshaw and Annakin must see first team action this seaon as well!
That team is capable of beating most sides in the bottom half of SL - and that is who we are up against - but they need to play rugby and be allowed to play with a smile on their faces and put a smile on ours too!
All just IMO of course!'"
No I am sure it is the opinion of others as well - well certainly me for one.
I probably come across as a JK and Sanctuary bagger, but its not personal to them, if we had a different coaching team and played like we are, appeared to lack the right conditioning for RL, I would say the same.
Must admit though I hadn't thought about how frustrated the players probably are with the tactics. Im sure someone said that Kear had a run in last season with senior players over tactics and TBF it wouldn't surprise me.
