I agree.....losing to Saints and Wire isn't embarrasing, they will be in the top 4 come seasons end.....the bad thing is the inability to stop tries going in. We aren't improving within defence, I hope that once the players realise they all speak the same language they can then communicate with eachother and work out some defensive structure.

We need a good show against Hull on Sunday.....this is vital....it's our first Sky match and we need to attract new supporters to the team. If we ship in 9 tries against them, then all the marketing etc is blown.

Dont get defensive, i'm merely pointing out facts, you have actually answered the question. The problem is not about how we perform against the big teams, obviously we want to do well, but the strange thing is players and supporters are usually up for big games, and need very little motivation on and off the field.

The problems come in the run of the mill games, as you suggest last year Crusaders, this Widnes, Salford, HKR and Wakefield, these have to be the focus, get the mindset right for these and you are halfway there. Its being able to motivate and organise players to beat teams like this that gets you moving up the table, they are your rivals, the big team wins are terrific but are a bonus. No good beating the good ones and then losing to the team three places below you, because you got it wrong tactically or they are still up in the clouds from last weeks win,

Its about doing the basics correctly, and for 80mins that wins games, being consistant and making yourself hard to beat, Its still two points for a win whether you beat Wigan Saints or Warrington or Widnes, Salford Wakefield.

To be fair you defended better than the last couple of times you came here

DEFENCE OR LACK OF IT !!!!
This is the major factor that brought about our defeat yesterday.
Having travelled up for the game yesterday, myself & the other away-day supporters were pleased with the way Bronocs started the game.
We competed well, showing some good moves going forward & seemed to be surprising Warrington. I've no complaints with our early performance.
After 25 minutes, we just seemed to run out of steam & only got back into the game in the last few minutes of the first half with Robertsons try & I was pleased that the team were still up for giving Wire a game & was looking forward to a competetive second half.
Unfortunately, this did not materialise.
Missed tackles, dropped ball, silly penalties & an inability to complete our set of six absolutely killed us.
We will not be the last team to have fifty points put past us by a Warrington team this season but I hope we have learnt from this experience & work ourselves to the hilt in training to improve the defence, otherwise I will have a disappointing day out at Hull next weekend.
There were a bunch of Manly supporters who came up to watch the match who enjoyed the first half but were amazed that we failed to compete in the second half & said we ought to rip in to the fitness coach, as our players, especially Kafusi looked unfit. (Their view as neutral supporters )
Highlight of the day, watching Kafusi dump Adrian Morley on his backside in a thumping tackle.

84 points conceded in 2 games……it`s hard to be anything but depressed. Everyone seems to have latched on to the `5 games in scenario` when suddenly everything is going to be ok and overnight we become world beaters, let`s hope Salford buy in to this also.

OK we had some late arrivals and the squad were not all together until early Jan, but that is not true of everyone and on paper we have some quality signings who should be showing their class, but judging by the radio commentary Rodney seems to have forgotten how to catch a ball since he played in the NRL Grand Final and the same old defensive frailties were very much evident. As positive as the BBC commentary team tried to be, after 20-25 mins (when Kaufusi went off) we had used up our best efforts and reverted to type.

If we are to come good `x` amount of games into the season we should expect to see improvement week on week, whereas Sundays thrashing is a big step backwards from what looked a promising effort against Saints. It`s all very well RP making the same old statements about recognising problem areas (i.e. defence) but nothing seems to change. Carry on like this and we will ship 150-200 points by the time we meet Salford and it will be a bitter blow to any efforts to build crowds. I know, I know it was Warrington, but we have got to do a whole lot better than this or the season will be over before we have even got started.

There's been some geniunely interesting and insightful comments made on this thread in the last few pages - welcome to the board wisezola. You've raised some issues around Powell's experience and background that I think are valid, but looking at it another way, 'everyone has to start somewhere' and he is the same person who was presumably able to motivate his players in early victories over the likes of Leeds and Saints last season. So it could be argued both ways.

'progress' is a nebulous after two games IMO. There were encouraging signs last week, and yesterday less so. As has been said, we were never going to win these two. Hull next week a much better indicator of 'progress'.

It feels very odd being the one telling everyone to stop being negative

What makes a good coach-I suspect there isnt a one fits all criteria.

McRea, McGuire, Kear were all teachers at some point- Does a coach need "industry" experience to understand and be able to work with people

Bellamy, McGuire etc all did a long appreticeships working under top coaches

Playing experience- do you need it?

I have questioned from Day 1 if RP can buck that trend in that he hasnt worked in industry, hasnt played the game and has only worked under Mac-Does he really have a chance? I hope so but wonder.

OK `progress` over a 2 week period may be pushing it, but given the change/improvement in players compared to the last season, can you honestly say that RP was able to improve matters last season or whether there is any noticable difference in the defensive qualities that RP has been able to instill in his new charges?

I always thought that RP was a poor choice and I have no faith in his abilities as a coach.

Regarding fitness, a few seasons back we had a reputation for being a 40 - 60 minute side and Bill Pedan was brought in to raise fitness levels, he managed to do that even if we were crap on the pitch. We now seem to have deteriated and at present can only compete for 20 - 30 mins, which does not bode well.

We have a new fitness guru who has worked under John Lang for 15 years!!! arent all things Aus in this game great

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ue7Ub7U ... ideo_title Some quality tries from Wire. The speed and width they use is tremendous The young lad on the Broncos wing was targetted

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ue7Ub7U ... ideo_title Some quality tries from Wire. The speed and width they use is tremendous The young lad on the Broncos wing was targetted

I didn't expect us to win. However I was expecting us to be more competitive. To concede 50 points is embarrassing particularly if we have any pretentions to a top 8 place. Wire did not in the regular season last year post 50 points on any club getting into the top 8. In facd they lost to both the Hull clubs who finished 7th and 8th. Out of the bottom 6 only Salford didn't concede 50 points at Wire, in fact they won.

Just back after a long weekend up north. First half wasn't too bad, the second half was depressing. I thought Wire were excellent for much of the match, but thought they knocked off a bit in the second half to my eyes - something Wire supporting friends agreed with. If we are correct that makes the second half capitulation even more embarrassing.

Our inability to keep ourselves out of penalty trouble was only ever going to hurt us, throw in the knock ons etc and we were making it rather impossible for ourselves. Our style at times seemed to be a little too much like the Tony Rea spoiling tactics of old. I didn't much like it then and still don't like it.

Our attack did worry me a little. We seemed to be a bit too obvious today and rarely looked like scoring. In fact we rarely looked like posing questions never mind scoring. Hopefully that was due to Wire being just too good and not a problem for the whole season. There was certainly a contrast between Wires offloading and our lack of offloading.

I spent Saturday evening watching my ice hockey team lose 9-1 in Manchester and my football team lost 5-1 at home to their local rivals on Sunday. All in all a weekend to forget on the sporting front for me.

Didn't travel to Warrington so can't comment too much, but if fitness was a problem then I'm concerned. The new fitness coach was at Huddersfield last season so should know what he's doing.

I'm a believer in letting fitness improve over the season rather than hitting round 1 at peak and failing to sustain it. I'm happy to leave the new guy - someone with 15-20 years' experience with elite athletes - to get on with preparing the players in whichever way he see fit.

That said, I don't think we should be making life harder for the forwards by opting for a back on the bench and using just three props.