By all accounts, he stated his thoughts as he left. Not sure at whom they were directed.

Always seemed like a centre playing SR to me. His one trick now seems to be chasing planned grubber kicks from Williams. Maybe he will play more centre next year, he seems to have the necessary skills. I think Wire would do better with a work-horse (Ben Westwood type) SR who will get involved in the more physical stuff and give a higher tackle count, especially as next year's front rowers are not the most mobile and won't play big minutes.

one thing that peed me off a lot this year, was the usual suspects at right and left second row, not doing enough tackling, mopping up from the middles.

i've mentioned it a couple of times and others have as well, if you look at some of the tries we've conceded more often than not you'll see currie or holmes not even trying to effect a tackle.

thats whats annoyed me more than anything else with the pair of them, thats why i was demanding they be dropped, that isn't a 'play themselves back into form' situation, thats a lack of effort and most definitely a CBA.

Dare I say it, that we may have missed all the tackling Hughes did?

Quote: Captain Hook "Dare I say it, that we may have missed all the tackling Hughes did?'" on one side possibly, have a look at this set of 'highlights' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv41WfDrg7Y look at the salford tries and the lack of involvement from currie and holmes in most of them

Quote: Captain Hook "Dare I say it, that we may have missed all the tackling Hughes did?'" on one side possibly, have a look at this set of 'highlights' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv41WfDrg7Y look at the salford tries and the lack of involvement from currie and holmes in most of them

same thing in this game as well, i know other people have mentioned currie's lack of effort on goal line defence, but in most cases you can see the pair of them, sort of just there in the back ground on a lot of tries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2il9psYquw

same thing in this game as well, i know other people have mentioned currie's lack of effort on goal line defence, but in most cases you can see the pair of them, sort of just there in the back ground on a lot of tries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2il9psYquw

This is why I am sceptical of Powell. Fair enough blame 1st May, blame out of contract players, blame culture, blame whatever, but surely there is no excuse for not looking drilled defensively in the basics?

And this is also why he only has 6 games IMO and blooding youngsters in them wouldn’t mitigate an excuse. The reason being I expect to see an enthusiastic and coherent defence from the get go and seeing one or two youngsters make individual defensive mistakes would have no bearing on the overall picture….as it didn’t last season.

I actually think 1 game would be enough to see if he has even tried to address those issues.

Currently I am mainly wearing… the pack will be a completely different outfit next season. The 2 Aussies come with quite a pedigree and while that is no guarantee, I’m hoping that they bring a professional attitude which rubs off. Sparking fresh enthusiasm in players like Currie and Clark.

The professional attitude should come from within the core of the club and be ingrained. Like I should imagine it is at Saints, Leeds, Wigan etc.

As it stands you are saying our fortunes are dependent on 2 aussies at the twilight of their careers.

That’s not what I said. I expressed my hopes. As for the “core” of the club, assuming DP was accurate then close to half the squad has changed. There is no “core”, unlike Saints and Wigan who have kept a stable squad.
I’m not sure why me expressing what I hope the new signings will bring could be considered controversial?

Never said it was controversial, I was just countering with my thoughts the professionalism should be ingrained in the club and not subject to the whim of a few overseas signings - but I share your hopes too.

However, as a thought exercise, if you imagine Wigan, Saints and Warrington all started with a squad size of 0 now and had to rebuild, who would you bet to be the first to win a GF again? Warrington?

I am putting forward the argument that there is something in the fabric of the club, staff, ethos that demands success and standards and that lies outside of the playing roster.

I’m not worried about Clark or Currie. The thing with players like that, they can be 10/10 at their best, and their worst is (objectively) 6/10. To get them into 9’s and 10’s, they need momentum and space.

What we need to is move the gap from the worst to best up, but players like Holmes, Matautia, Ratchford, Bullock, Wardle, Mikaele and Harrison haven’t demonstrated that they have a 10 in their nal. Or a 9. A plucky 8 maybe, and Ratchford might get a nostalgic 7 with extra credit for goal kicking. All while their worst games being absolute horror shows.

If you look at the best teams, Saints of late, the Leeds team, Saints of 2006 ish… even those on squad filler salaries, just making up the numbers, they were all 6/10 every week at worst. Ablett and LMS for example, neither are world beaters, but they just crack on and do their job, nothing more nothing less. We need to be more robust with with what we want from them, solid defensively, don’t turn the ball over, get out of the way when we’ve got field position and momentum…

I admit to being swayed by the DP interview. Most impressed by the way he didn’t once cite disruption from injuries. Half a squad off contract at the same time does sound bonkers, I wonder what the thinking was behind that.
As for Currie, he was way off his best last season.