FORUMS > St. Helens > First Words of KC's Reaction |
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| Quote: "Keiron Cunningham branded St Helens 'dumb' as they failed to capitalise on a one-man advantage in their clash with Catalan Dragons'"
I'll be interested to hear the rest of his reaction; bet he doesn't blame his own coaching for this shambolic loss against 12 men.
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| Now Sky have his full quote. Read it and weep"I thought the best team won. We had plenty of opportunities but we were really dumb, my halves and hookers were really dumb, especially when they went down to 12 men," he said.
"We got out-enthused. You get what you deserve in rugby league and we got what we deserved.
"Big Alex (Walmsley) did well, so did Greg Richards and Lee Greenwood – but that was about it."
On the dismissal of centre Pomeroy, Cunningham said
Does he think he is a fan and not the COACH? Perhaps he is on this forum criticising himself the style of play
He is stating the obvious but doesn't anything or have a clue about a solution.
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| I think the most alarming part of that full quote is the fact that he called Joe Greenwood by the name of Lee.
I sort of agree with him saying we were dumb. It seemed to me that we gave away so many needless penalties all game.
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| If he just sorted our Abysmal penalty count out that would go along way to half our problems?
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| Oh dear. "Lots of things went against me" Boo hoo.
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| Quote: Rommel "If he just sorted our Abysmal penalty count out that would go along way to half our problems?'"
It certainly would. It's mainly offside that's killing us but if you look at our line we are miles offside. It's not a sneaky yard it's a good few yards offside. KC has this thing for line speed but if we getting hammered for it we need to stop it.
Just watch how offside burns and Percy are next week agsinst hull. Its pretty shocking Imo thst we continue to push the ref and not just get on side
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| Quote: St pete "It certainly would. It's mainly offside that's killing us but if you look at our line we are miles offside. It's not a sneaky yard it's a good few yards offside. KC has this thing for line speed but if we getting hammered for it we need to stop it.
Just watch how offside burns and Percy are next week agsinst hull. Its pretty shocking Imo thst we continue to push the ref and not just get on side'"
The problem is we are not very good at it, most teams are offside at the PTB and this is one of the reasons the refs are pulling back teams 12 metres these days. The good teams come up with good line speed all in one line making it difficult for the ref to pick out an individual and penalize.
We, like KC has mentioned are "dumb", and like you say Burns are Percy could stick out like a sore thumb and get pinged for it. So who do you blame KC for the discipline tactics or an individual player coming up with a dumb action play.
The thing is lots of these discipline infringements are fixable, just need to get it sorted out sooner than later before we come towards the business end of the final top four play offs.
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| Quote: Judder Man "The problem is we are not very good at it, most teams are offside at the PTB and this is one of the reasons the refs are pulling back teams 12 metres these days. The good teams come up with good line speed all in one line making it difficult for the ref to pick out an individual and penalize.
We, like KC has mentioned are "dumb", and like you say Burns are Percy could stick out like a sore thumb and get pinged for it. So who do you blame KC for the discipline tactics or an individual player coming up with a dumb action play.
The thing is lots of these discipline infringements are fixable, just need to get it sorted out sooner than later before we come towards the business end of the final top four play offs.'"
If you and I can see it then surely our coaching staff can. Surely he has told them and if he has and they still do it then he needs to take action with those plsyers. He's the coach at the end of the day.
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| I've kept quiet on KC's tenure so far, as I think it takes the best part of a season before you can be confident in judging which things you are seeing from the team are systematic and which are blips or quirks caused by circumstances such as injuries. I'm not going to start jumping on KC's back now, but I am starting to have genuine concerns at shortcomings which seem to be a direct result of the extremely conservative approach to the game we are now taking (I was away for the semi final, so apologies if I'm repeating what others have already said).
Firstly, kicking on tackle 3. I don't have a problem with this if it is done right (it worked a treat for Leeds and Kevin Sinfield in some of those rainy grand finals against us). But to be done right there needs to be an element of on-field thinking about it: if the side isn't gaining ground and the half back gets the ball at first receiver on tackle 3 and notices that there's clear space to kick into and turn the full-back, then fine - kick it. But with us at the moment it's clearly premeditated. When we start a set in our own 30 we already know (and so do our opponents) that we're going to kick on the 3rd/4th. That means that we're not responding to what's in front of us - we're just mindlessly punting it when it gets to the allotted tackle. Thus we see 3rd/4th tackle kicks going straight to the full back (unforgivable - if you sacrifice tackles for a kick it simply has to turn the full back) and even kicks on tackle 3 when we're in the opposition half, FFS.
To make matters worse, 50% of the time we put in one of these early kicks for territory we give away a penalty straight away and the whole exercise becomes completely pointless.
As people have noted, we continually bring the ball back to the middle. We have a big pack, so I can understand the temptation to do this, but if anything our one-dimensional approach is undermining what should be a weekly advantage in the middle of the pitch. Our opposition knows that the ball is going back to the middle most of the time, so it's easy for them to compress their line in anticipation of this.
One advantage of having tall, strong, heavy forwards is that it's difficult for the opposition to wrap up the ball and there are plenty of opportunities for offloads. You only have to watch Leeds to see how damaging this can be. But you can see from the body language of our forwards that offloads are basically the last thing on their mind. They don't look for them at all (unless the game is getting away from us). Again, the knowledge that we won't offload makes it easy for the opposition to pile numbers into the tackle which then restricts our yardage.
I could understand this conservative, pre-programmed approach when we had no half-backs, but there's no need for it at all when we have our first choice 6, 7 and 9 on the pitch, as well as a full back who can play ball a bit. We need to see these players let off the leash and allowed to play what's in front of them. I also understand that our backs aren't up to the standard of those at Leeds, but they're not terrible either - we need to get them in the game, even if it's just to keep the opposition guessing and make a bit more space for our forwards (a bit wrong-way-round, but if it works...). And we need to start looking for offloads. Until we start doing these things we will continue to be depressingly easy to defend against.
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| Quote: St pete "If you and I can see it then surely our coaching staff can. Surely he has told them and if he has and they still do it then he needs to take action with those plsyers. He's the coach at the end of the day.'"
I think so, as you know KC is quiet speaking and being dropped in the deep end as rookie coach I get the feeling he's still has a mindset of 70% coach 30% player. Its going to take another season for him to have more influence on players tactic and discipline wise.
He is as you suggested earlier, learning by his mistakes if we were mid table its obviously a concern but I think Superleague is so up and down KC can get away with building up his learning curve, the problem is Saints fans want it "NOW", good coach and good players at the same time is a difficult one these days.
At the moment my concern is that KC has no advisory and he might drop into a blinkered state, perhaps Millward can open up some technical options.
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| Quote: Dux "I've kept quiet on KC's tenure so far, as I think it takes the best part of a season before you can be confident in judging which things you are seeing from the team are systematic and which are blips or quirks caused by circumstances such as injuries. I'm not going to start jumping on KC's back now, but I am starting to have genuine concerns at shortcomings which seem to be a direct result of the extremely conservative approach to the game we are now taking (I was away for the semi final, so apologies if I'm repeating what others have already said).
Firstly, kicking on tackle 3. I don't have a problem with this if it is done right (it worked a treat for Leeds and Kevin Sinfield in some of those rainy grand finals against us). But to be done right there needs to be an element of on-field thinking about it
I completly agree with this 100%!
Regarding the kicking on 3rd. It does work agsinst some teams but we go out and kick on 3rd no matter who we play, kicking to leeds with a back three like they have is utter suicide.
We don't have any structure to our attack or set plays. It's just one up boring crap with the odd inside ball or short ball to Greenwood. We ain't playing what we see and that's vital part of any hooker or halfbacks game.
We have big Alex, Mose and Sav that are big and powerful and attract 3 defenders but they never look to offload.
We struggle to get out our own half. It's vitally important our back three return that ball off the kick better than they do and get us on the front foot to get out our own half. Quinlan is one of the worst kick returners ive ever seen in rugby. He's dead with the ball so he looks to pass or just go down and the momentum stops dead. Dawsons kick returns again are very poor, he's like a Backrow running it in and again we don't get on the front foot. To be fair to swifty he does return the ball well so can't knock him. Every team knows they can kick to Quinlan and Dawson and will stop any chance of us getting a roll on.
It's so important those first to carries on kick returns as 9/10 that's what gets teams on front foot to make good meters. Look at wigan they have bowen, Charnley and Burgess who return the ball very well. Leeds have Hardaker, hall and Briscoe.
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| Quote: Dux "
One advantage of having tall, strong, heavy forwards is that it's difficult for the opposition to wrap up the ball and there are plenty of opportunities for offloads. You only have to watch Leeds to see how damaging this can be. But you can see from the body language of our forwards that offloads are basically the last thing on their mind. They don't look for them at all (unless the game is getting away from us). Again, the knowledge that we won't offload makes it easy for the opposition to pile numbers into the tackle which then restricts our yardage.
'"
This is one of our biggest problems alongside our discipline. I mentioned in a earlier thread somewhere that KC is playing a percentage game thats not working, believe it or not but we are the best team in super league for the least amount of errors.
The problem is that its at the expense of our defence, we very rarely have a game plan based on dominating the tackle to give us extra seconds, our game is a sliding defence and not committing too many players around the ruck. This gives the opposition extra yardage on each play and also opens up plenty of offloads for them, if there was a stat for conceding offloads I would bet we are one if not the worse team.
In reality this is this is "dumb play" by coach and players and should be lessons learnt now by now courtesy of Leeds beating us 3 times.
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| Quote: Judder Man "I think so, as you know KC is quiet speaking and being dropped in the deep end as rookie coach I get the feeling he's still has a mindset of 70% coach 30% player. Its going to take another season for him to have more influence on players tactic and discipline wise.
He is as you suggested earlier, learning by his mistakes if we were mid table its obviously a concern but I think Superleague is so up and down KC can get away with building up his learning curve, the problem is Saints fans want it "NOW", good coach and good players at the same time is a difficult one these days.
At the moment my concern is that KC has no advisory and he might drop into a blinkered state, perhaps Millward can open up some technical options.'"
Funny you should say how quite he speaks as someone at the club jokingly said that potter talks louder than him and that's saying something.
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| I did not want KC last year I think you have to move away to show your worth in a side with less resources.
I really wanted us to bid for Powell.
However now KC is in charge.we are comfortably in the top 3 and made a semifinal. Probably the 2nd best team in the cc and would have beaten anyone but Leeds. And we were not far off them.
Warrington showed what a hammering by Leeds is really like.
Calling for the coach 6 months in for what in any other business would be a good set of half year results is crazy.
But we need to start looking outwards. I get the loyalty but we are looking very insular on the backroom staff. New ideas come from difference not everyone knowing the same stuff.
Even at Liverpool with their famous backroom staff it was not everyone, just a few with experience brought in from elsewhere.
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| Quote: bewareshadows "I did not want KC last year I think you have to move away to show your worth in a side with less resources.
I really wanted us to bid for Powell.
However now KC is in charge.we are comfortably in the top 3 and made a semifinal. Probably the 2nd best team in the cc and would have beaten anyone but Leeds. And we were not far off them.
Warrington showed what a hammering by Leeds is really like.
Calling for the coach 6 months in for what in any other business would be a good set of half year results is crazy.
But we need to start looking outwards. I get the loyalty but we are looking very insular on the backroom staff. New ideas come from difference not everyone knowing the same stuff.
Even at Liverpool with their famous backroom staff it was not everyone, just a few with experience brought in from elsewhere.'"
I for one don't want him sacked yet. After all we are 3rd and got to the semi as you say. I didn't want KC In the first place as I suspected this due to him never ever coaching a team in the past. Id liked us to have brought a old head in as coach for two years so he's learning his trade as assistant and not learning his trade as first team coach.
I'm more worried for next year as we ain't going in the right direction with recruitment/retention.
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