Going back over the last few posts.

I think sally cinnamon nails it, with his 4 bullet points.

Barba, despite him looking like a good/great player, looks like Sandow Mk II. There'll be tears before bedtime. Mark my words.

Myler. Still missed by me. Not the greatest player by any means, but has that "X-factor" about him, in the same way Maguire and Long did.

Dwyer, he's OK. Shows potential, but I'm not losing sleep over his leaving.



Back on thread. There seems to have been a malaise about our club, since our last Wembley win. Get to the top table, but seem to be complacent, ever since. Gatcliffe left. Just happy to be chugging along with Leeds, Saints and Wigan, but not moving on to the next level.
Spending big transfer fees on Brown, Lineham and the other fella from Hull (genuinely forgotten his name) was to me, an ego trip...... simply because we could. Lineham's try scoring return aside, I'm still shaking my head over all 3 of them.

Poor recruitment / retention of players. Buying jack of all trades players. Smith staying those couple of seasons too long, AND bringing his mate Agar in. The fall out with senior pro's and the fitness coach from a few years back. Getting an ex RL pro to go and sit a few business exams at the local tech college, stick a tie on him, and class him as your COO, shouts smalltime, to me.

Something's not right. If we don't fix it, we'll be coasting back to mid table mediocrity, where we were 20 years ago.

I'm not TOO pessimistic, though. Anything is possible in SL, now. We've the poorest standard competition since it's inception. Anyone can beat anyone. Yes, that makes for sustained interest, but it's only because of lack of quality. It's like having a bad weight division in boxing. Bang average world title fights, but having the same boxers keeping hold of their belts.

As JJ Burnelll once sung.....Something Better Change

Well said, Lefty !

Yes lefty G well said
You summed it up well
I said
3/6 from the first 6 games
Still sticking with that
At least we have removed some
Baggage from the squad
But their are another 8 or 9
Bang average players here still
No strength in depth will find us out
5/6th this year which is an improvement on last is where we will be

yep. He just isnt a fullback.... that lethargic, half d attempt at a tackle on Hall, for his try, was embarrassing. We have seen it before and we will see it again.

I would think the new coach has seen enough by now to know that's a position that needs sorting out.

but im not too downbeat on the whole...... its going to take a year or 2 to turn around the mess that was left behind.

You cant undo that last 3-4 years of the Smith era in a few months.

onwards and upwards... im not expecting any trophies.... just progress and a further 'cleansing' of the squad in the summer.

'Sit back, try to enjoy the rugby and get behind the new era' is my mindset.

Great post Sally...can't argue with any of that mate. I think your right about Clarke...he needs to impose himself much more as a key pivot and decision maker...he should be calling the shots..along with Brown, Roberts and Ratchford.

I thought Myler was decent for us, he scored a lot of tries with good players around him. He got a lot of stick when he was here probably because he was signed for big money with an eye to replacing Briers, and he never became that sort of player, which started to be more of an issue in his final two seasons after Briers had gone.

It made sense for both us and him to move on, I would have kept him but salary cap pressures might have come in if he was one of the bigger earners. Also he probably needed to change his environment if he was going to improve as a player and now he's at Leeds it could be a great move in that environment, he's a similar type of player to Danny McGuire who added things to his game later in his career and stood up after Sinfield left, so Brian McDermott might see the same potential in Myler. He looked good on Thursday night.

Also for us, the players who replaced him (Sandow and Brown) haven't really worked out so maybe he will be remembered more positively now and if he goes well at Leeds we will ask what were we thinking letting him go...

Myler in my opinion was the player who put himself in a gap to receive the perfect pass to let himself run & has never seemed to be a creative player. On the other hand,Ratchford has imo been the more creative of the 2 but it usually only benefits him because he doesn't pass the ball a lot either ,but he needs to be taken from fb & given a more attacking role. Let's hope we don't end up with Atkins & Ratch as centres or the wingers will be redundant.

Too early to be pessimistic, we have not had an ideal present season players injured and returning late from World Cup. Ratchfords mentioned after the game they did not play as intended and how they had been asked, they reverted to what they knew. St helens are/were in a similar situation to us they made an early change which HD an immediate effect but they are starting to feel the results if new structures put in place we need to be patient expectations of us being a completely different team to last season are unrealistic a few new signings won't turn things around over night.

My reasons to be pessimistic are g King Russell Hughes and Atkins still getting games. Atkins is bearable but we really need our centres to be utilising their wingers!!! And our passing from dummy half is still sloppy at best how many times is the first receiver reaching above head or having to make adjustments to take the ball it's basic stuff but a loose pass costs us massively virtually nullifies the fast play the ball if we get one.

I'm more optimistic but think that there will be moments like the Leeds game throughout the season but it will be an improvement on last year.

If that game went on a few minutes more or Atkins dives rather than jumps it's reasonable to speculate we could have won that game and e would have been saying its the sign if a championship winning side to win but not play well. That was the margin of our defeat irrespective of how we played we were a contested try from it being a win against last seasons champions!! If after 9 games we look the same as our first game there's reason to worry but I think we will start to see the benefits of the changes made off the field further into the season as saints are starting to now under Holbrook. Their immediate turn around was more new manager impact that snowballed.

I thought our attacking structure and organisation was awful. Could see that Roberts was attempting to organise people but even allowing for the fact that it was his debut and there will be some getting used to his style etc it wasn't up to standard. I've seen far better lines run in the u19s than the majority of play on Thursday.

I made a point on the Leeds board earlier this week that the key issue could be age. Myler was 23/24 the first year when Briers retired, was too much expected too soon? Luke Gale won a MOS at 29, where was he at 23/24? McGuire was successful at that age in 2007 but he was a supporting HB running in tries, he had Sinfield by his side and wasn't the more complete game managing HB he showed in GF wins of 2015 & 2017 even though he'd made impacts in GF's before then.

Not just a Warrington problem but is the game here too quick to write off a HB if he isn't the complete article before 24/25? Sinfield and McGuire were still winning GF's at 34/35. Lee Briers was 27 in 2005, look at what he did after that age.

I'm not sure halfbacks get written off early over here. Myler and McGuire have both been first choice SL halfbacks every season since they were 19. Whatever questions Myler had over him he still was first choice in his position.

The interesting question is, why are Aussie halfbacks able to come in and lead top level teams from a young age, when English players don't seem to have anything like the same ability to run a team at the same age and take much longer to mature. Mitchell Pearce was NSW halfback from the age of 19; Todd Carney, Cooper Cronk and Michael Morgan were first choice halfbacks from the age of 20-21; Jonathan Thurston was Queensland halfback from 22. You even see when young Aussie halfbacks get put in front of the media to do interviews, they are much more articulate and confident and you can see why they can command respect of their older teammates, whereas the English lads just shrug and grunt and reel out cliches about completing us sets and that.

The Aussie system also found a way to keep guys that took a bit longer to develop. Daly Cherry-Evans didn't make his first grade debut till age 22, but he was player of the year in the Queensland Cup for Manly's feeder team and then was in the Kangaroo side at the end of his rookie NRL season. James Maloney didn't become an NRL regular till age 24 but he had been proving himself in the NSW cup competition.

I know it doesn't help that we have closed the reserve team but SL reserve team would be nothing like the breeding ground for a young halfback that the Queensland or NSW cups are.

McGuire always had Sinfield though. Would McGuire of 2007 have been able to come into Warrington of 2014 and been able to replace Briers. Them being first choice in their positions is easy when they had much more experienced partners.

Interesting that McGuire last played for England aged 26 in 2009 yet became a much more complete HB and didn't get a look in as he was already deemed a flop at international level although he continued to be a key guy in his club winning trophies. Myler not been in contention since he was 22.

Yes Australia can produce more complete HB's at a younger age but does that mean we should write off any that don't live up to expectations at the same age? 27 with the potential of another 7/8 seasons can still do an awful lot.

So how long do we persevere with Patton? He's off contract end of this season.

He has a big few months ahead of himself doesn't he? Problem being without injuries he could spend all of that time either playing 10 min spells for Clark, or down at Rochdale.

I don't think any other side would come in for him at this stage, so I'd guess he will get another 1 / 2 year contract here. If he gets a shot this year, he really needs to step up.