i can't honestly see anythings been sorted out. the ageing forwards, defence or attack. it all seems an absolute shambles

Defence is twenty percent structures, 80 percent desire and ability.

The first part of the 80 percent may not be lacking, but there are some players who no longer have the ability to get themselves in the right place at the right time simply because their legs have gone.

While you could argue that some would be more effective in a different structure, i.e. Sinfield's lack of pace would not be as exposed if he defended in the middle channel, when you're talking about your starting props there is nowhere else they can go irrespective of structure.

I don't believe I have ever said such a thing. Can you prove I called nantwich's output "risible nonsense" ? For a keeper of records I thought you claimed to be accurate.

I will always agree with a sensible rugby opinion particularly if it is a positive one which explains why I find yours a bit contrived and tedious.



Well I watched on normal BBC and heard the comment expressed in their build up just before the game.




Are you saying the fweather orecast was precisely to the minute then? I didn't know that was possible these days either. However what you believe is of little consequence as it appears to come from your keyboard coaching manual.

Sorry Juan, I'm with tvoc on the selection of Keinhorst. Its madness to PLAN to move a centre. Either Ablett's the centre or Keinhorst is, and a complete waste of a bench spot to do otherwise. Even more risble when you consider Keinhorst's complete lack of game time and the fact that so far he's hardly shown flashes of a young Schofield or Newlove - which at least would make it understandable to pick him. It smacks of a coach trying to be clever for its own sake.

I also agree that if Burrow is going to play hooker it has to be off the bench. We're starting with a jack-in-the-box whose main strength is wrongfooting tired defenders when the opposition is fresh, then putting on a plodder when the defence may be tiring. Again, a tad bonkers IMO.

As it was our defence was dreadful (and looking very very lazy including early on), our attack seemingly clueless when the game was in the balance, and our bench almost laughably poor. All those issues except lack of any impact on the bench point to coaching - as does Wire's far better performance.

The concern i had about the possiblity of Keinhorst's selection at Wembley was that come the match i wasn't sure McDermott would see his risk through. I remember earlier on in the season when Liam Hood was given very brief cameos against Castleford and Warrington because McDermott was worried about putting him on too early. 2 of Keinhorst's 3 apperances so far have seen him come on just after the 30 mins mark so when JJB limped off just after the half hour mark on Saturday that was the logical point imo to put on Keinhorst and switch Ablett to the second row.

Instead he went for a hooker in Lunt, now i don't know what the gameplan was in regards to when to introduce Lunt and who for but i doubt it was for JJB after 32 mins. With the rain coming down too, not too much ball would be going out to the centres or wings so he wouldn't of faced an immediate bombardment on his introduction and eased into the atmosphere of a CC Final slightly before regrouping at halftime instead of having to sit through that wondering when or if he is going to get on. Seemed to me right then that McDermott was worried about when to throw Keinhorst into the action and that was the problem with that selection.....you can't have anyone in your 17 that you're worried about using, especially in a final.

Seemed to me that McDermott saw the conditions and figured an extra forward on the field at that time made more sense than taking one off and bringing on an outside back. Lunt has played plenty in the back row during his time both with Leeds and at the Giants, in the same sort of role that Buderus played towards the back end of last season when Burrow came off the bench.

Exactly. The true explanation of the regular season defensive shortcomings, dismissed by many as a lack of effort, was very apparent on Saturday. Maybe a new team of fitness coaches could improve matters; more likely many of the lads are now past the point where they're able to respond.

This is a spot on view.

And is one of the reasons why I have a problem with Delaney and JJB. I fully accept that Delaney's "stats" for example look pretty impressive at times. But what fails to be ackowledged from "stats" is the space around him when defenind, and the number of times he can not fill in, resulting in breaks been made.

Those same legs, also fail to move when actually put in space himself.

I think you're missing a few things there. There is a lot more that can be done in team organisation to make a team more effective.
Structure goes a lot further than people realise:
"Formation" - i.e. who's where in the line. (I expect to see more teams start playing their hooker wide by the way as we see more lightweight hookers and more additional props/2nd rows being used at loose)
Familiarity with that formation and knowing the habits and abilities of the players around you.
Alignment - inside/outside and where we do what in the line, and where we leave the space (the defensive line will have at least one less player than the attacking team)
Coverage - wingers or someone else scraping behind the line, who and when and why.
Changing any of the above according to field position - both horizontally and vertically.
Familiarity with opponents:
Individually - how they step, how they carry.
As a team - what moves are run, have we practiced against those moves?

Beyond that then, there's the individual and combination technique, especially in tackling. After all, when Warrington caught us on our right, it wasn't really any of the tactical stuff above, it was beating us in the carry in the middle and getting a quick PTB against a dented line, that didn't allow us to get much of the above into play prior to Warrington getting the ball into play again.

Most of the time, when a defence gets exposed, it's the play before you need to look at to understand why.

Funnily enough it was - it was forecast to at 15:00 on Saturday in London and sure enough it did (well 14:57 to be precise).

I remember the missus making a point of it at the time and I checked my watch.

I provide the occassional stat here and there and always try to ensure any stat I produce is accurate. Pointless producing an inaccurate stat IMO. I cannot and have never given an 100% guarantee of accuracy, although I could probably count the number of queries against them on one hand in the time I've been here.

On the other side of the coin I've corrected possibly hundreds of factually inaccurate posts on here over the years just as I did on page 8 of this thread

I don't keep any records on who says what to who on here. It was a question asked rather than a statement of fact.

If not risible nonsense - how about instead ?



I still have the BBC HD recording so can verify it didn't appear on there and post an absolute word for word transcript of what Jonathan Davies said if neccessary.

Do you (or does anyone else) still have a copy of the BBC broadcast including the Davies comment re Keinhorst? I'd like to hear what was actually said.



Everyone knew the forecast beforehand and it was hardly inaccurate. I'm not the poster claiming the weather delayed the planned introduction of a player ill-equipped to offer anything from the bench.

If a starting centre had been injured in the first few minutes would McDermott have risked Keinhorst?

The game should be available on iplayer

No ta. It's already burned into my scarred psyche.

Dave Woods made a reference along these lines during the first half commentary, I believe. Unfortunately I hadn't read this thread when replaying so didn't take an undue amount of notice. Definitely first half though; I haven't had the stomach to replay the second yet.