rlHererl

Is it just me, or has Hood taken over from Macca with the "there were positives" quote?

at least his dad has come out and defended him but i will be interested to see what is said this afternoon. maybe he will get grounded or something.

My opinoin is that he should go with Ellery Hanley replacing him and i think 2 more loses and that will happen.

Noticed him make reference to our first half performances. Now good first half performances are all well and good but if they fall to pieces in the 2nd half what good does a good 1st 40 minutes do us?

Well, none, Sherlock. But he never said it did, did he?

And the humiliating collapse doesn't alter the fact of the good first 45 minutes performance, and when we certainly have a big problem in the side, it won't help to fix it to pretend that we either [ican't [/iplay, or played crap all game.

The obvious question for any side is, is it intrinsically a useless side that can't play, or is it a side with good players who can play? I'd say that the answer to that question is absolutely key in what you do to address the problems. Shouting down Hood in a "Na na na I don't want to hear it" unctuous rage for providing a correct analysis, now that's what I call pointless.

While at the end if you were like me you feel about as bad as it gets, do you really believe that there were no positives?

If Menzies hadn't been held just short in the last minute, but had reached out for the match winner, we'd have all gone home reasonably happy, if scratching our heads at a bewildering performance, wouldn't we?

Some people are too emotive, and this applies to many fans. You may not want to hear an accurate analysis of the game, and you may for some reason prefer to strike out from your consciousness all the good things we did in the game, and pretend the disastrous collapse is all there was, but it wasn't, and Hood rightly is not going to have a fit of pique and throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I just wish folk would realise that Hood was never going to and is not going to sack Macca and his team. I hate to keep saying it, but even if he was minded to the club could likely not afford it and the probable much higher costs of the replacement coaching team.

If he was a Simon Moran maybe it would be different - although I suspect in that case we'd see a Director of Rugby appear to take a lot of the load of Macca. Maybe that is on the cards for next season. I dunno. What is clear is that there are so few people now at the club that we must have very limited scope for changes.

No matter how much shouting and screaming there is, and no matter how many sanctimonious missionaries return as a public duty to put the club right, it just isn't going to happen.

Quite what that means for the fans who are exasperated by whats happened I don't know. I'll just go along and support the team regardless, and live in hope that the performances improve. If those guys can just stop collapsing as soon as the pressure goes on, they will.

I disagree. if things continue there will be no option. I don't know how much it would cost to pay them off, but a few thousand off the gate times £15-20 each will soon stack up.

Don't tell me you've now joined the ranks of those who think that sacking the coach is a cure-all which will immediately and with certainty transform our fortunes, win the league, and have said thousands clamouring to get in?

Not at all. Up to 26-0, there is no doubt there were loads of them.

The comment wasn't designed to suggest there were no positives, just that I'm getting a little bored of hearing the same statement every week.

Seemingly we can play when the opposition allows us time and space to do so. However should we be put under pressure (HKR last min of first game, Cas last week, Cats this) we fold like a pack of cards.

So I presume that's the problem we have to address. Given it's not evident to me why players of Deacon's, Newton's, Menzies' experience should collapse under pressure there is obviously a serious issue with confidence that suggests a fundamental problem with the team culture rather than merely a 'blip'.

This is not easy to address, it could stem back to the Wigan playoff match, and it might be ingrained in the collective experience, such that at the first sign of recovery of the opposition doubt begins to creep in, which promotes mistakes. If we were 30-0 up against Leeds at half time on Friday I doubt there's any Bulls fan who would be totally convinced we could win, and I would suggest this goes for the manager and players too. That's a terrible position to be in. Ironically they often appear more comfortable and free to play when they're behind, finally losing the burden of the lead and being able to go in to fightback mode.

How to change this - we need to start afresh (impossible i know) but at least a new manager wouldn't have that millstone around their necks. Just imagine how the players feel, I think they genuinely like and feel for McNamara, and their anxiety about capitulating will be magnified by fearing heaping more of the same on him.

Is there really no way we can envisage a "Director of Rugby' situation, saving face for Macca before easing him out, or demoting him to assistant? The only other situation I can envisage at the moment is a slow agonising end for his reign, punctuated by a couple of narrow wins/entertaining losses but where where the pain is magnified by a failure to make the play-offs and some big beatings by Leeds/Saints etc.

Sam and I were once told by the club the gross profit (in accounting terms, actually "contribution"icon_wink.gif per body through the turnstiles. I stress profit, cos that includes ancillary income but also is net of attributable variable costs and of course VAT. That figure was very substantially lower than the ticket value of entrance fees - as you would of course expect.

That said, you have a point - to a point. Without posting up figures on here, in terms of bottom line I suspect it would be six of one and half a dozen of the other at best fort the current year, with the cash outflow front-loaded.

The meeting I WOULD love to be a fly on the wall at is the one between Macca and Hood where they discuss whats going wrong. I suspect that would give a much clearer indication of what action needs taking.

There are fixed costs (administration on match days), the proportion of these to income increases with the reduced income.

I said yesterday that whatever anyone feels about him, the departure of McNamara does seem to have the same air of inevitability and resignation as his face when interviewed in France. Whether and when that will happen still depends though, and I entirely agree with you that the lack of a relegation threat has the effect of increasing what might otherwise be a very limited shelf-life of coaches whose teams are under threat. ( Though not in all cases, as the sacking of Lowes demonstrated. Ironic that some want him here, a failed coach with less experience than the incumbent)

But going back to Adey's point, there is a financial reason for that, and that of course is weighing the cost of sacking a contracted coach against the disastrous financial effects of relegation.