im sure by now potter and his team will have a pretty good idea who will be retained for next season and who wont.if they can accept that the play offs are gone for this year why not try some 'of the youngsters' and give them 4 or 5 games to see what they offer.i would start with addy at loose and southernwood at scrum half then we have o'brien, bateman, and crossley.if they are fit give them a run im sure they would benefit from the experiance.

in fairness thats what st hilaire had to do last year and we ended up losing 13 on the trot.

It's quality we're lacking. Particularly at halfback and across the backline. We might then be able to take the chances we get presented with. We also need better discipline and attitude.

hand speed is an issue. very often it doesn't get past the second rower and we don't get to see the 3/4 line have a proper go.

is that because we too often persevere with a flat line attack and dont have enough options and quite often knock on as the pass is fired out too quick for the receiver to react?

Our halfbacks seem to get it right only about 50% of the time. Yesterday we executed quite well when there was less intensity in the game but once the pressure was on it all went to cock.

You can't expect to take chances if passes are thrown above players heads or behind them so they have to stop to take it. You can't expect to do anything if there's no clear direction on field and people have retreated into their shells and aren't making calls.

In contrast Cas never gave up and retained their structure and concentration and could execute their moves well. The runaround for Arundal's 2nd half try being a case in point. You could see it coming a mile away yet when we had chances up the other end we never looked capable of executing a simple move. It was one out stuff. When we get desperate we stop playing as a team, the halfbacks disappear and our backs get rubbish ball.

Any clearout should primarily target halfbacks who can lead a side around and perform under pressure. That'd be a start. We need to be mentally much tougher across the whole side so any leaders we can bring in in the Menzies/Morrison mould would be ideal.

A second priority is some quality in the threequarter line. Lulia should be an improvement in defence at least, we need another one too.

Lastly we need some dynamism and leadership in the pack. Elima is a shining light in the second row. Langley is nowadays too injury prone and none of the kids are of sufficient quality at the moment, and I include Whitehead who is too ill disciplined and error prone.

when criticising lynch what about langley...our so called great player- injured again! only on 25 mins 1st half conceding us 3 penalties. we have a lot of players who are failing to make the grade but still have 1-2 years left of their contracts. we cannot afford to buy all of them out! sykes, platt, donaldson. please get rid of ah van and herbert- absolutely garbage and a waste of valuble quote spots.

My major concern here is that I have heard rumours potter isnt too popular at odsal. there have been comments he isnt too involved in the day to day on field training, hasnt developed relationships with the players and there is no 'club buyin'. by this, i mean that all the training takes place at tong, so there is a real seperation between the players and the club staff members etc. Whilst this does not seem too important, it can impact the pride of playing for the club etc.

Potters major downfall imo is the lack of consistancy in choosing a backline. Its seems to be accepted the partnerships and cohesion are important for a backline to be effective, yet it seems we never have the same combinations. rotating in the forwards is much easier but halfs and centre/wing combinations take time and he doesnt seem to give them this time, and this doesnt even take into account the effect the changes have on morale.

i would be interested to see how many of the centres have had the same winger and halfs for 3+ games before being dropped for a in experienced 2nd row. if potter didnt see whitehead as a centre in pre season, then surely he needs to give the guys he did see as centres a min of 3 games without change to assess them.

Our ball handling compared to some teams is shocking. watch us move the ball from left to right or vice-versa , invariably this takes us 7 to 8 short passes. Watch the likes of wigan,saints,catalan christ even leeds and it 4 or 5 tops. a couple of short passes on the run and bang, a cut out pass missing 1 or 2 and the centre/wing is in in the corner. We just simply aint good enough to do that, Thats no slight on anyone, people in any job have others who can do the job better than them.
Maybe this stems from potters insistence on shuffling the back-line about , players not having same players inside/outside of them but as a team we should be able to throw the ball about. Look at our backline on paper, Kearney (played s/o) sykes (s/o fb) royston (l/f,s/o,/fb) herbert (so/sh), jefferies (so/sh), platt (fb) all players whose natural position involves good ball handling skills so potentially players who should be more than capable of putting a move together

Yes, you are right. Imaging posting on a thread called "Ensuing Clearout at Odsal" and mentioning the people I would like to see "cleared out". Indeed I really should have thought that through a bit better.

i think you are wrong. rumours of potter not being liked? by whom..dave halley! a sour faced bitter reject? potter is professional through and through, he differs from mcnamara as he had favourites who he let bum lick him hence therefore getting a place in the team. potter is serious and a hard task master, he picks the team on ability and ability alone. the training regime put in place my potter is a dramatic improvement on what mcnamara had in place- a few hours play around compared to potters intensive days long training sessions. maybe money was the reason why we signed poor players this year? and its a case of potter has to make do with that he has (a few poor players) you do not know what potter has allowed him to play with and what players the bulls buget enabled them to sign
i personally feel for potter as he must be pulling his hair out at the massive comparision between his ex st helens players and what he has to work with at bulls

bullbreath, i actually like potter but your assumptions are wide of the mark. firstly, i wouldnt care what halley thought, the guy was unwilling to follow instructions to bulk up and had a horendous attitude to training, so therefore i expect him to be bitter towards anybody.

the rumours i have heard have come from 3 people who work behind the scenes at odsal. 2 have mentioned his insistance on being away from odsal and not intigrating the team with the backroom staff or with the team himself. the other comment came from a senior coaching member who said that potter didnt get involved in much of the training at all, simply organised it like a manager and not a coach. he even mentioned that he often didnt get even organise much re tactics and schedule for the week.

re potters training, i dont know about the effectiveness of either method, but many sports scientists believe short intensive sessions are much more proven than day long sessions.

Agree with all that. Lullia looks the part but a new scrum half is a must and a forward in the Puletua, Luke O'Donnell, Hoffman, Waterhouse mode. Marching 6,7,8 players to the gate to be replaced with another minibus full of journeymen is not the way forward.

In my opinion it's the players rather than the coach that need to buck their ideas up. It's the players that consistently crumble under pressure and have done under Potter and McNamara. It's the players that make poor decisions, let their heads drop too early and give away needless penalties.

The club have spent a fortune on training facilities at Tong which are apparently the best in the league. Before that we had the worst training facilities in the league. I don't think that their proximity to where we play our home games has anything to do with it. How could it?

I agree with you about backline cohesion but we've had a fair few injuries that have disrupted things and the players we have aren't exactly world beaters as it is. Many have deserved dropping given the performances they've put in.

Agreed. I'd hope that some astute signings could turn things around. However I remain to be convinced that a few other players have the attitude required to improve.