Quote: Gazwire "It's obvious I've backed Powell, but I do agree with many of the comments against him - he's not been the easiest to back!
I think the blood letting has been taken by releasing the old guard - let's hope we won't have to do this again for at least a long while. Now the pressures off, I'm expecting us to show some signs of encouragement before the season ends, I'd be dissapointed if we didn't. One thing I will say is that our pack still lacks a bit of punch, though Holmes was much better last night and Bullock was excellent. With the arrival of Vaughan and Mcguire, it'll change things much for the better and I believe Philbin will be an asset once more with the help of an improved pack.
I agree also with your comment about Toulouse, would be a shame for them to go down. I can't really understand why we don't increase the size of SL so we could keep Toulouse, Leigh, Widnes and even Bradford who were a big loss imo - Leigh and Widnes have excellent facilities too.
Thank goodness we won, onwards and upwards.'"
Few points there, I think Powell came in and tried to do too much too soon, that may well have its benefits for 2023, but we will have to wait and see, I think some of the decisions made have had a disastrous impact on 2022 - I just wonder if he had his time again, would he do anything differently?
On Philbin, next year we will have Philbin and presumably Bullock getting very little game time, I assume (form & injury permitting) Dudson, Vaughan, Mikaele & Kasiano will be the 4 props with McGuire at 13 and Harrison bench 13 (pressure from Nicholson hopefully) I just wonder where Philbin fits in, and whether having him and Bullock in the stands is a good use of salary cap.
I thought Holmes was good vs Wigan and was good again tonight, his ball and all tackle on Belmas I thinkin the second half was a try saver and at a critical time - they would have gone 10 up and we would have been right where we didn't want to be. Hopefully he can continue in the same form.
On Toulouse, I agree, I wanted them to stay up and have a similar impact as Catalan, Catalan were protected for the first 3 years, should Toulouse have got the same treatment I think it would have been a big shot in the arm for French RL. Leigh I'm sure would have done better with that grace period as well of course, the gap between SL and the championship is just too big. There is massive investment from the British game in to France, at some point that needs to be reciprocated with a French TV deal, IMG coming in i'm sure will shake things up structure wise. I just wonder rather than expanding SL to 14/16, whether 2x10's would be better, I'm not a massive fan of loop fixtures, but if it can be sold as SL1 & SL2 and we could get a bigger Sky deal, possibly increased C4 coverage and a French TV deal from a guaranteed 2 team French involvement (with more to come?) whether that will solve the issue of the promoted team yo yo'ing. Could also give a good base to growth for the likes of Newcastle, York, London & France 3 with also giving the likes of Leigh, Fev, Wakey better security.