He played ok Friday and looked to have settled a bit better than the HKR game where he looked nervous. Can't really judge him until he's 10 - 15 games in and hopefully scoring/creating tries, which as a winger he should be judged on.

...is the right answer.

And if he doesn't see much of the ball, he's hardly going to have much opportunity to shine anyway?

he won't score any if he doesn't get the ball!

and so we return to Jeffries lack of direction and poor distribution of the ball.

Newtons form is also not looking good and with 2 out of 3 pivotal positions misfiring it's not really a surprise we aren't scoring. The area's we are weakest in squad terms are causing me the most concern and neither are under pressure from other players.

i think newton's criticism is slightly unfair. he offers a lot in defence and the effort was there on Friday going forward. I think his arm injury hampered him slightly.

Sheriffe's performances have been steady so far while not really eye catching. That's not surprising given the lack of service. Having said that he can go looking for the ball too and I hope to see him do more of this. The best wingers in the game were adept at reading the game and supporting breaks down the middle or even popping up on the opposite wing at times.

I suggest he gets hold of some DVDs of Offiah and watch his movement off the ball, he may pick up some tips. I'd like to see him hang around in midfield and follow the likes of Burgess, Scruton, Menzies and Morrison when they take the ball up, those guys are all capable of getting their hands free and passing to a support player if he was there. It's an area we can improve on and would give Sheriffe a chance to use his pace.

On Jeffries he's never been a consistent player so we can't argue we've been sold a pup. We knew what we were getting. The challenge is to get him to improve and that seems to come when those around him get better. Until we get some competition for places at halfback we're going to have to deal with things as they are.

I'm not criticising his effort or defence I'm talking about creating chances and opening up defences and i don't think he's anywhere near the top of his game at the moment. He is a much better player than we are seeing and if you add in Jeffries misfiring our attacking options look very limited.

Menzies especially has been looking round at times wondering where the support is. Just track him for a game and he'll get chances then we'll see if he can take them.

Can believe it has taken you til Sat Feb 28, 2009 12:26 pm to realise this

Exactly. We've seen Menzies make the ball available. The same applies to Scruton and Burgess.

If anything this is where Jeffries and Platt could support more. Jeffries is likely to be centre field anyway in attack and Platt being FB has a right to roam.

Platt should be doing that but his confidence looks shot so he's not trying anything.
The ball isn't getting wide fast enough and so maybe Sherrife has to come hunting it some times. You can see it in Semi moving inside looking for work and that's down to experience. Sherrife is still settling into the side but hopefully he can start making himself available and show us what he can do.

You never fail to impress me Eddie boy Where do you get your information from ??

Absolutely spot on The team have no respect for Macca & it shows. Even Deacon is not showing his true form.

As I've said many times, I never quite understood why we signed him, if we weren't going to play him at 7, since he's not and never will be a top class stand off. And we were never going to give him the 7 shirt.

He does really need to have a much better season than last, though, and sadly so far shows no sign at all of doing that. It has occurred to me though that maybe we have dented his confidence by the Bird farrago - since we all know Bird would have taken Jeffries' spot.

Well with a year left on his deal he ought to be working harder if he wants to carry on playing here or anywhere else. It's funny, I never thought we'd miss Iestyn that much but we are. Failing to get a replacement for him has really left us short in the playmaking department. While Menzies might be a stop gap he's more of a runner than a playmaker, and he performed that role at Manly. To take advantage of Menzies at stand off the rest of the side would need to support him a lot more than they currently do.

You'd like to think he'd want to buckle down and prove a point, in the way Jamie Langley undoubtedly did after the Ellis fiasco - and not sulk and self-pity the way Stuart Reardon did.