Don't my stomach already hurts.

I find myself totally baffled by the Ratchford-baiting. He has had, in.my opinion, his best ever season at the club and over the course of the season has been one of the top players in the comp and alongside Barba, the best FB.

As lefty alluded to, he is unpredictable, off the cuff and that sometimes lends itself to errors. But guess what? I pay to be entertained and Stef on his game is thrilling to watch. He makes errors, so does Barba, and so did every player any poster has rightly lauded on here as a legend.

Hardaker? A busted flush, a liability, a bad inflence and pure poision in the club. Haven't you learnt anything from the signing of Bailey & Sandow?

If we have signed Olly Ashall-Bott. Where does that put Ratchford? I would think that Olly Ashall-Bott would play a similar role as Mitch Brown does.

Where has the Ashall-Bott rumour come from?

Quote: easyWire "Where has the Ashall-Bott rumour come from?'" Widnes forum. www.wissl.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8546

Quote: easyWire "Where has the Ashall-Bott rumour come from?'" Widnes forum. www.wissl.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8546

Personally I think ratchford is our second best player behind Darryl Clark. I wouldnt mind us signing a quality full back and playing ratchford in the halves with Austin. Can't be worse than what we have had this season, however if there aren't any quality fullbacks available then I'm happy to continue with ratchford at fullback and maybe bring in a new half back. Depends on who is available.

Dead right lefty. Ratchford is a good player. I think one or two must be short of something to write about on the forum. He does annoy me a bit by being a bit loose and too attacking minded but he's a plus. He could play anywhere apart from prop. I'm sure he'd go well at loose forward.

This thread has come about because we were beaten by a converted try at Wembley ,by a team that annihilated Saints on their own midden. That was Catalans big day & probably their only throw of the dice this year. In that game Ratchford seemed to be busy all afternoon helping out the halfbacks.

When we win you don't get threads like this. Such is life. It's a bit like to release a bit of frustration ... ah yes ... I'll go on the forum. Feel better now.

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Helping out the halfbacks do what?

This thread was started to discuss whether we have the players for the big occasion. The same players, with less pressure stuffed Hull the week after. If anyone thinks we played well at Wembley, they want their heads checking.

And when we don't play well in key games, it makes some fans question what went wrong.

Unless we should just say c'est la vie after every loss and focus on the positives?

We didn't play well at Wembley (and still could have won) but that wasn't just Ratchford's fault which seems to be the gist of what some are saying. Barba has been exceptional this year but is off back down under, Tomkins has started to play better as the season has gone on but there aren't any other FBs that have played better than Ratch.

I'm ore worried about why so many of our players didn't play well rather than blaming individual players - that is a systemic problem not just individuals unless the reality is that all of our team just don't have the right experience/mentality...

My opinion is that we went into the Wembley game too relaxed.
I'd want them going out there hungrier and determined with a belly full of butterflies.
The instructions that Briers kept saying pre the tunnel of 'say calm, relax and enjoy the game'go against the game for me.
'Get out there and get at em' is the signals I'd be sending.

There is an upside to being constantly critical. When a player has an off day you “foresaw” it, when he has a good day you can ignore it or damn with faint praise.
Somewhere on this forum someone was applauded for saying they didn’t want to see the game played by robots, forgetting perhaps that humans have frailties.
For me one of the joys of sport is that you can never be sure what is going to happen.

22 years of SL show that it's very, very, likely that the SL title will be won by Saints, Wigan or Leeds. I see no reason for thinking it will be different this season.

I think Leeds can be safely discounted.
But even within that grouping, how many times did Leeds win when on form they shouldn’t have done.
Wigan should have won against Saints bar Hohaia sacrifing himself for the good of the team.
As for us, least said soonest mended...