JWH must play at full back. Widdop certainly played well and as gizempo says he opened up Toulouse several times down the right when he moved to half back. Ed And JWH certainly thrived from his passes.

Defence wins games and it let us down so badly.

We looked so far off the pace in the first half that i wonder if the travelling caught up with Olympique after 50 minutes or so.

I’ll have to watch it back to have a second opinion and I’m not having a go at Finn.
However we have Davies playing at 9 when he’s had his best games elsewhere and a make do second row in McComb whilst shipping out Olly Davies.
On the day we had Pons, McCormack and Ruan with just parts of one game together all playing on the left edge at the same time, why would you do that?
No prizes for guessing which side Toulouse we’re going to hit us on, yes the left hand side!!

In hindsight Louis at 9 might have been a better bet, but that would have left us light defensively. He was good from acring half when he went there, but we had most if the ball then and he didn't have much defending to do.

Having said that, defence couldn't have been worse than our first half efforts. Not sure that was all down to the outer edges on the left. Fairbank failed to move across quickly for the first try and the was stood in no man's land flapping his arms for one of the others.

I know a lot of team selection is based on stats but stats can be deceptive.
For example a guy does 40,50 or even more tackles a game, gets the hitman award and it’s what a player etc etc.
Now whilst that on it’s own might be a deserved outcome.
What about the stat if it was checked that shows 20, 30 percent or even more of those tackles were down to unforced errors such as silly penalties or dozy dropped ball by your own teammates, again for the umpteenth game?

As regards the 9 spot to me it’s more about foresight than hind-site and with A O’b being fit enough to be in the 17 he’s the specialist and should have started not Davies or Jouffret and if he goes okay then no probs if he breaks down then you can make the substitution which is better than bringing him on and having to sub a sub which did happen albeit for a different injury.
Why make do with a stand in until you’re forced to?



ARrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg frustration.

Come on puss, here kitty kitty I didn’t mean to boot you down the garden again.

How did McCormack play?

I think the big thing with Widdop is that he has mainly played behind dominant packs and like any half back when he has been behind a poor pack he has struggled. Ive no doubt if we had a very good pack he would have been a great signing for us but you just can't get away from the fact we spent a fortune on a player in a position that we did not need whilst ignoring positions where we are light. By all accounts this signing was somewhat forced apon Finn along with the Greg Eden signing.

For just a suggestion of how much Widdop is allegedly being paid, if you can put up with listening to and believe anything Mick Gledhill says, check out the Full 80 minutes “Assessing the Championship Club Season” from Feb 21st 2024.

Whilst not saying the exact amount the figure hinted at even had one of the other hosts saying “surely it can’t be as much as xxx k” with MG nodding oh yes it could.

My info has RD being particularly keen to get the Gaz deal over the line.
When it first surfaced on a brief online chat interchange with RD I mentioned asked / suggested that having achieved so much in the game that to go out playing for your home town club could be another important milestone / achievement and if there was any chance / truth in it.

The reply was, “ If not it wouldn’t be for the lack of trying.”

Ive heard figures of between 35-45k banded about by pretty reliable folk and the same story that it was RD that was very keen to get the deal over the line more so than the coach. I also hear our wage bill went up this year by over 100k which if true is crazy and shows agents had his pants down. Back to Widdop though that sort of money would bring in 3/4 really good props or a couple of very good centres and that decision is clearly been made by someone who does not know rugby at this level.

That's less than I thought it could have been and had heard. But also that half of his costs were being covered by a sponsor and not all out of the clubs finances. And that this money had been up up purely for getting GW in.

And I believe we have at least one player paid in that region, and if you were to believe all rumours, that's the sort of money Gwaze was demanding.

Just watched the first half. Why did it take 5 tries and 40 minutes for the coach to decide his position selection was wrong? And what did Widdop keep kicking into the shade side of the field when clearly the only kick into sun caused problems.