Don't believe Wakey are deliberately conditioning their players for the last 8 of the season. That's how injuries happen. Martin Clawson used to be the conditioner at the Bulls, he's just simply an awful conditioner. Wakey won't be any fitter or stronger come the split than they are now.

For me it's a massive gamble what Websters doing. He can really make the fans become disillusioned with the club. Last year after we got humiliated by Leeds & Wigan at Easter, our coach said that games against Leeds and Wigan weren't going to decide our season. We then played Salford who at the time were the directly above us in the table. The game was over in 20 minutes. Confidence and moods of the club/fans are massive. Wakey lose the fans with getting tonked every week, they will struggle.

You can't guarantee you have a fit and healthy squad either. Look at Carney's injury. One tackle and a season could be over for a player.

When all the squads are fit and healthy, i would have Wakey as a better team than Bradford and Leigh on paper. But i would also have Warrington as a better team than Cas, St Helens a better team than Hull KR, Wigan a better team than Widnes. None of them results went the way we expected. Beauty of sport is, it's not played on paper. If we knew what was going to happen in sports matches, we could all make a living off the bookies.

Whilst I think that Wakefield and in particular Webster have got this one badly wrong, clubs can only work to the system (2 x 12 & 3 x that has been put in place.

I actually posed a question of James Webster at the fans forum just before the season started, as to how he intended managing his squad as there was a strong possibility of us finishing in the "middle 8".
The reply given was, that they would re asses where the team were at regular intervals.

I guess that the number of injuries sustained early on, especially in the forwards, has made it extremely difficult to compete and realistically, even at such an early stage of the season, Wakefield look nailed on for the "middle eight".

Where Webster and M. Carter have got things badly wrong, is that people will not turn up to watch a team going through the motions and quite frankly, if this is what we have, I would rather that we were playing Championship rugby, although IF Wakefield do get relegated, they may never return to SL.

There are major issues with the ground, falling attendances and of course, cash is tight.

It's a very sorry situation but, the one certainty is that if there was 1 up, 1 down, based on final league position, the white flag would not have been raised yet !

If Wakefield's current predicament is partly down to Webster placing greater emphasis on Wakefield's final standing than the here-and-now then you can really only judge him at the end of the season - against his own goals.

I'm not saying I like "gaming the competition" - but haven't Rugby League fans been crying out of "more intelligent coaching" for years?

Granted, the two teams aren't comparable in terms of quality players - but I remember Nathan Brown being repeatedly slaughtered for some of Saints' performances around the mid-point of last season. At the time those criticisms seemed reasonable to many. But looking back now it was obvious that Brown had targeted early points which would allow him to take the foot off the accelerator somewhat mid-season and experiment with new tactics so come the arrival of the playoffs the team would be fully conditioned and tactically ready (injuries allowing). I don't want to get into whether Brown was a better coach than Millward or Anderson. But I will say he more than any Saints coach I've witnessed never saw individual games as anything other than a [imeans to an end[/i. A chess move set against the context of the entirety of the game.

This is why I'm very much against getting rid of coaches mid-season in the professional era unless it is absolutely essential.

You mean something similar to this scoreline??? Leeds 4 Wigan 74 the main fault was the Leeds players, no moral fibre or backbone
And whilst we're at it just in the SL era
Bradford 96 Salford 16
St.Helens 75 Wigan 0
St.Helens 18 Wigan 68
Warrington 0. St.Helens 80
the list goes on, you just have no idea do you..
And just for the London fans
London 68 Warrington 18, at a time when Warrington were flying high bunch of non tryers