Rod Tai has been the unsung hero of this season. He's defensively very sound, makes hard yards and wants to promote the ball when opportunity allows. He's been a great addition to the squad. Yates reminds me of Danny Nuttley, who was another grafter and grinder. He does the grunt well, usually, but everyone has an error or two in them. Drinkwater is another in that mould, but I just want to see more from a half back, and his kicking game isn't as good as Walker's. It really is a great advantage to have someone who has the ability to pinpoint a kick on the final play of a set of six, at Old Trafford. I don't see Drinkwater as that player. That's opinion, not hate, before I get labelled by anyone on here.

Tai has improved since the start of the season and is still improving.
He is as hard as nails and brings the ball out well.
Makes the odd defensive 'error' read.
Doesn't pass to the wing often enough or draw a defender and put his wing away, and too often takes the wrong attacking option.
Much to work on, but progress good.
He can learn a lot from Gleeson.

Ewe wouldn't be in trouble at all if we lost Drinkwater. His kicking game is bang average. All his kicks go straight to a fullback or winger. He almost never makes a break. He sometimes gives a good pass but don't ever remember him delivering any balls to anyone but the man next to him. His defence is terrible. I'll look at the stats next week but I'd bet he's got the highest ratio of missed tackles per attempt made. It's every single game I see him get shrugged off. I think we could stick ratchford or currie at 7 and we'd be in almost the same position

Agree with this. He reminds me of Tyrone Roberts, in that I can count on one hand the things he's done that deserve plaudits. Kicking a bomb on the last tackle to the same place, ad nauseum, isn't memorable. It speaks volumes that he was overshadowed and pushed out by a youngster like Leon Hayes.

DING DING DING DING

Tyrone Roberts got Wire to a Grand final and Challenge cup final.

Without being argumentative do you think he actually got us there or was in the teams that went there?

For me Tyrone is up there with Royyyyy!!! as our recent, poorest, overseas headline signings and on reflection probably a bigger disappointment as he might have had something to offer, but was fed up from Day 1 and didn't look like he wanted to be here that he rarely contributed.

Drinkwater might be limited but he doesn't seem to be a sulker even when he lost his place to Hayes.

And that is my point , and has been when this comes up every few years, people disliked him from the off, from his attitude and his comments when he reluctantly signed.

But we got to 2 finals that year, who got us there?

7 Roberts? As already discussed
6 Brown? Past his best/not good enough, and wasn't a very popular signing at the time.
1 Ratchford? Again another that has been dismissed as not good enough.

So, who got us to two finals that year?

It's OK to dislike someone based on how they are and still accept they've contributed to the side.

People have been complaining about drinkwater's kicking game again since the kr game. Kr swarmed us from start to finish rhat game, we didn't make any yardage, we were kicking off the back foot under pressure.

If you look at the entire league, I'd say drinkwaters long kicking fame is equal to about 90% of other teams, the only exceptions I'd give is sneyd(though you saw last week even he has off weeks when he's shut down and useless) and it seems mikey Lewis,

Just to say, that's not aimed at UR that's a summary opinion

Depends on where you are in the field, Mike Lewis did this repeatedly in the most recent kr game and it came off lots for them

I hope that you answered your doorbell FMC, and took delivery of Nathan Clearly.

This says so much of how the standard and quality of SL has dropped.

Quote: MorePlaymakersNeeded "This says so much of how the standard and quality of SL has dropped.'" Dropped in 2018 or dropped now? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Su ... gue_season We beat a pretty good saints team that finished top to get to rhe gf

Quote: MorePlaymakersNeeded "This says so much of how the standard and quality of SL has dropped.'" Dropped in 2018 or dropped now? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Su ... gue_season We beat a pretty good saints team that finished top to get to rhe gf

No “Duckie” wasn’t!

duckie was on the case of Vaughan because of his poor discipline and his ability to find himself sidelined at the times we needed him most.
In contrast to what you said, the games that he did play, enhanced his meter making averages, because he didn’t get to dazzle against the likes of the big guns or the play offs.

Imo, he let his teammates down.
And that’s because he IS one of the games best props on the pitch..
Nobody is bigger than my club, and his poor choices cost us heavier while he was off the pitch, than when he was on it.
This season I’m not on his case, because he is making better choices.