If you're going to win 3 or 4 titles you need more than just one of those type of players.
Peacock had Sinfield, McGuire, Burrow, JJB around him; Sculthorpe had Cunningham, Long, Wellens, Joynt in the early days.

Wire don't really have anyone like that. Chris Hill has the fire and passion but overheats sometimes and players like that need a Morley/Peacock figure to keep them together.

Other than that, our senior players seem more introverted personalities.

Daryl Clark is a great player, but if we're relying on him as our leadership group then it would be like Saints if they hadn't had those players I mentioned above and were reliant on Roby as the leader.

Ratchford is the other leading player in the team. My gripe with Ratchford on that thread about "best ever Wire SL signing" was when we have our dud games, what does Ratchford do to turn things around. Can anyone remember games where he's taken charge of the team and pulled us out of a hole? Or is he just a good player, who is on the field being a good player whether we win or lose, so everyone respects his ability but he doesn't dictate games or change a losing situation?

We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater like people do with blaming Briers, and conclude that we've never won a GF with long serving senior players like Clark/Ratchford/Hill so getting rid of those guys would win us a GF. The issue is the absence of the group of leadership greats alongside them.

Those three would have all been good enough for the dominant Leeds/Saints teams of the past, as would Charnley and probably Cooper. Austin and Lineham would have been squad players, Ashton and King would have been given a shot as younger talents. If you put them in a team with those 4/5 leadership greats from Leeds or from Saints then it would be a team that would win multiple titles.

We're quite a long way off that as we don't really have any. The competition in general is not as strong now as it was then, so perhaps with only a couple of those type of players we would be able to get over the line, but we do need them.

I’m not sure there is much in this “Club culture” idea. The culture is set by the current coach and players. Look at t he self styled “entertainers”. Dog dirt under Cunningham, played well for Holbrook, reverting to negativity under Woolfe.
Coach and players need to take responsibility. The fact that we haven’t won the Championship since Julius Caesar was a young lad should have no bearing on anything happening on the pitch in the present.

My reply is simple. When the pack is weak, it matters zero how highly rated the halfback is.
Johns earned us tabloid inches for his appearance and a bit fat nothing in the cabinet, Patton steered us on to beat the untouchables and won a CC.

Have a day off, duckie.
Your double use of hyperbole in one single sentence does you no favours
We won the CC DESPITE Patton, and to class last season's Saints side as "untouchables", I'd say you've broken into miaw's house, and drunk his supply of Harvey's Bristol Cream.

The Mersey, Manchester Ship Canal and Bridgewater Canal will be on flood alert, when Patton eventually leaves, such will be the amount of tears you'll shed

RD has now gone full on Oozlum bird.

Thank-you for the concern, but I keep the Harvey's under lock and key in my bedside cabinet. I moved it there during the Anderson/Plange era when I kept waking up with the night terrors.

RD clearly has been at the Mr Muscle drain cleaner though or something similar. External use only old chap. His misplaced loyalty reminds me of a friend of mine who had a baffling fondness for Gary Tees. And frankly, if Patton is a SL quality half then Tees was 1982 Kangaroo material.

A pencil up each nostril, and his underpants on his head, a la Cpt. Blackadder.

WIBBLE

Surely the days of taking anything Duckie says remotely seriously ended the other week, when he stated that this present Wire squad is the best he has ever witnessed?

That was the moment when the white coated men should have put the clamps on his taxi and wheeled him away for his own safeguarding.

We had Morley amongst others. Some poor decision making on the day has cost us a couple of GF wins. That's just the way it goes when were down to fine margins in some big games.

The issue with Sita for me wasn`t his initial recruitment.

It was the fact that his contract was extended while already demonstrating that he can`t do the minutes on the field required for a Super League prop ..............

In the interest of fairness, i do agree, about giving him an extension, it was probably wrong, however for the most part of this year he has been better, pre lockdown he was doing more minutes and keeping his performance up (ooer) and was a good tandem with philbs.

Since his alleged falling out with pricey around the covid fortnight, its all gone a bit pete tong again.

However, i do agree that if we'd not extended him, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Bit harsh with regards to 2013. That was sheer bad luck.

How often does a side lose 2 backs to bad injury in the same match, especially one who is your prime threat to the opposition tryline?

Almost inevitable that something that happens so infrequently should happen to us in the biggest game of the season.

Yes, Duckie will fetch up having the wrong bench and there is an argument for planning for every eventuality, but losing Monaghan and Ratchford like we did absolutely killed us - If that hadn't happened, we would likely have racked up a GF record winning margin.

I don't think that any "luck" was involved at all

2012. Beaten by a :battle hardened Leeds team. No disgrace

2013. I'm sorry. We bottled a 16 - 2 lead. We should've been able to cope with the loss of a winger (a very potent one, I grant you, but he wasn't vital). When Monaghan went off, our players were just staring into the air. Ratboy Tomkins was busy cajoling/bollocking his team mates. They scored off the next set By the time Ratchford went off, he were rabbits in the headlights, and the game was as good as over. Fuming.

2016 and 2018 Wane masterclasses.

Agreed, me neither. I think our bench influenced opposition tactics. The cannonball on ratchford was appalling.