Beaten by Hull KR with Willie Poching on their coaching team, I rest my case!

If Agar is our coach when Smith calls it a day then I'm off to Widnes.

The amount of injuries worry me ,it may be bad luck or it may be training and conditioning ,we are certainly not showing any signs of improved fitness

Injuries are a difficult one. No amount of training/fitness work can account for broken bones (Laithwaite, Grix & Ormsby), and Saints using Ben Evans as a giant wishbone is difficult to protect against. Hoping this has just been one of those seasons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Agar. But then again, he's not on my list of most hated.

BUT.
Isn't it amazing, the last derogatory post was the day before we beat Leyth.
We go on a good run of performances, and not a dickiebird. We lose a CC semi, with players plainly not interested, and a much depleted side v. Leeds, and the haters resurrect the thread. Obviously, he was on sick leave, from late June, to the day after the Cas rout.

Ah well

TS has taken the heat off Agar by becoming more visual over the last 2 months and reverted to the role of speaking to media after the game where pre summer months it was Agar.

Why should the heat be on Agar?
Smith dons a smart suit and becomes a new Tony Blair, and starts doling out media savvy soundbites, and we start looking like a RL team again. Naaaah, I don't buy it.

The scapegoating of Agar, is getting to that of Clarke (Jon)/Wainwright/ Penny (Kevin) proportions

Though it does seem to me that since Agar arrived we have lost our flair. Where is the off loading game a la Leeds? Is Agar coaching the structured approach at the expense of the expansive way we had been playing when we were winning trophies?
Just a thought.

Could it be that our expansive game is being snuffed out by opposing defences & the times when we do get the ball out it is going to ground ,into touch or not going to the correct player to make the break ?

Also, don't forget the number of times the ref has robbed us this year.

I think what we do need though,if we have the manpower,is a more aggressive defence like all the successful teams have even if we have to bend the rules like they do. An aggressive defence is a must in order to get the ball back quickly & get back on the attack. Maybe we will front up against Wigan again.

There's a direct correlation between how good results are and how often Richard Agar is mentioned on here. I can only assume he was on holiday between June 20 and July 31?

I dont want to make excuses for Smith and Agar because I do think mistakes have been made in the transition from the ageing team of Briers, Monaghan, Morley, Carvell, Hodgson as follows:-
A) The moment Grix suffered his injury we should have known that we were going to be short in the back row for the best part of 12 months - Laithwaite would have been a decent back up for short injury spells in the back row but not for 12 months because if he gets injured who is his back up.
B) it was just a few weeks before the start of the season when Wood left - Other teams have brought props in mid season (Tilse and Garbutt etc) but again it was a case of we will just go with what we have got.
C) We have brought in players like Clarke and Russell that are great down the middle off a quick play the ball and I fully expected us to play more of that type of game. From the first try we scored away at Hull I was convinced that we had changed our style of play and it would be happy days but we have rarely played to our strengths but if a replacement for Wood had been found and a short term replacement for Grix then we may have been better placed to cope with injuries.

Having said all that we cannot expect Philbin, King, King, Wilde to replace the strength in the tackle of Westwood, Bridge, Atkins, Harrison and Grix. Currie is great in attack but he is no Trent Waterhouse in dominating an attacker in the tackle, Laithwaite is similar. When Waterhouse made a tackle Europe was a bit closer to America by the time the ball was played.
I was one of Coopers biggest critics back in 08/09 because he appeared just content to make a tackle and didnt put the extra effort needed to wrestle and dominate but he has proved me wrong for the last 4/5 years now.
If you watch some of the younger players when a team mate has stopped the momentum they hesitate for a split second asking themselves "do I get involved and help wrap the ball up and wrestle the player on his back or do I get back in the defensive line". Players like Harrison, Westwood, Bridge and Atkins dont even hesitate, they just get stuck in get bodies in the tackle.
Sam Wilde had less hesitation than a lot of others that have had a lot more games than him.
But it will come - Currie has had over 80 games and is still not the finished article. I am sure that all of the younger players will learn a lot from Friday. They still have a lot to learn but hopefully alongside more players with experience
It would be interesting to see how many first grade games the whole team had between them that took to the field last Friday compared to the team that took to the field in the last challenge cup final. It was a very inexperienced team that took to the field last Friday and at a guess i would say there would be about 1000 first team games worth of experience missing to the 17 players at Wembley in 2012.

Interesting you mentioned Waterhouse DDI, I think he's been missed a lot more than any of us expected.

In Dwyer I thrust. I've lost about £100 on him so far.
Have him every week for last try scorer.

I hope he reads this post!