Russell is an outcome of gambling on Bateman. Papered over the crack last year and kept money in the bank incase he couldn?t get a deal in the NRL. 

My main issue, after watching it back, is that we don?t know what type of team we want to be (or maybe panic and get desperate and go away from the script). On 12 minutes, we?re 2-0 up and have them on their line, and we kick cross field for King rather than roll in the in goal and repeat. It?s a lottery when the ball is in the air and we lost and they run 60m on the break. The next time we?re down there, we have another chance to go to Sneyd and try and get a repeat and we go short to Dufty who kicks dead, 7 tackle set and we?re under pressure. It?s 2-0 away from home, we?ve took all of the venom out of the crowd and then we are going away from the script and release the pressure twice, doing 2 different things. 


We need to either be comfortable in the arm wrestle, don?t crack and just grind and make them work harder than us. Or just play and see what happens, which we seem to reserve for when the game is almost out of reach. 

Were just the slowest team in regard to line speed and I cannot remember any game this season when we actually won the arm wrestle. So disappointing, Leigh should have won by 4 points given their dominance.

I blame Justin Holbrook's wife

I like Wane and would have liked him to come here but that was always a worry. Wigan has a very different culture with a conveyor belt of young talent who are bought in to the team culture and know that egos are not tolerated, but also they had a good eye for signing quality players from outside. Wane always had a culture of guys who knew how to dig in and win big games when it counted. 

Powell did well in the Cas culture which was also one of leaving your egos at the door and making shrewd good value signings. In hindsight he wasn't the right man to do a clear out and culture change here - especially as the Cas guys he brought over to try to bring Cas culture were past their best and didn't have the performances to get credibility with our existing players. 

Burgess was better suited to changing the culture because he has the aura and personality to stamp himself on players who have big egos. But that gets undermined when the recruitment is bad. The quality of squad is weaker than it was in the Price era before the Powell clear out and Burgess is struggling to get performances out of a team which is very mid-table quality with some players who would struggle to get picked up by other SL teams if they left us. 

I remember during the Price era I used to think our fans overrated our squad - there was frustration that we weren't winning the Grand Final because a lot of fans on here would argue that we were as good as Wigan/Saints/Catalans on paper. But I think now most of our fans accept that we're lacking in quality and there's some chaff in some positions. 

Which players in our squad have big egos though?

9th and staying 9th ?

MorePlaymakersNeeded: Were just the slowest team in regard to line speed and I cannot remember any game this season when we actually won the arm wrestle. So disappointing, Leigh should have won by 4 points given their dominance. Re physicality can you cite one instance of one of our pack putting the opposing player on his arris? Either with a block busting run or towering tackle?  Thing is when you keep extending the likes of Joe Philbin (as an example) and having him as interchange then its quite clear why we struggle. And Crowther making his pitch for a new contract in the WG when he has zero impact on the game.  Admittedly Musgrove was probably our standout against Leigh and Vaughan.  Re Sam the press have picked up on his new prickly nature now.  Being surly in the post match press conference when your team has been dirge never ends well.  https://www.totalrl.com/sam-burgess-gives-ill-tempered-press-conference-after-warrington-wolves-loss/

MorePlaymakersNeeded: Were just the slowest team in regard to line speed and I cannot remember any game this season when we actually won the arm wrestle. So disappointing, Leigh should have won by 4 points given their dominance. Re physicality can you cite one instance of one of our pack putting the opposing player on his arris? Either with a block busting run or towering tackle?  Thing is when you keep extending the likes of Joe Philbin (as an example) and having him as interchange then its quite clear why we struggle. And Crowther making his pitch for a new contract in the WG when he has zero impact on the game.  Admittedly Musgrove was probably our standout against Leigh and Vaughan.  Re Sam the press have picked up on his new prickly nature now.  Being surly in the post match press conference when your team has been dirge never ends well.  https://www.totalrl.com/sam-burgess-gives-ill-tempered-press-conference-after-warrington-wolves-loss/

Depends if Salford's money comes through.


Seriously top 4 will be out of sight after the next run of games.

We won`t make the top six to qualify for the play-offs, so the season will be over if we can`t beat Leigh in the Challenge Cup semi final.


Doubt if we will beat Leigh, and no chance of beating Hull KR who are are a shoe-in for the Final.

He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy! 

Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each.