What troubled me most yesterday was not only the abject display, the meagre crowd, the taunting of the opposition supporters, an ashen faced Tony Rea on TV, the total absence of any discussion of the team on SL Full Time - no I can just about cope with all that, it was that diehard supporters are now almost without hope, and starting to question their sanity. What has happened to the great little club we all loved, where we were all in this together, players, coaches, staff and fans, most of whom were on first name terms? I appreciate that is the preserve of a small club, but we are still a small club and it has disappeared! Once that has gone, it has gone forever. I realise the CEO is criticised for being out of touch with supporters and doesn't appear to understand what makes Rugby League special, but I think it goes deeper. I had the chance to speak to David after the game and he was critical of certain players ( I won't name them but they are the ones you would expect) and said a lot of them are here next year as well! Why were the team so flat in a must-win game? Tony blamed complacency ( which is my interpretation of "not dealing with the emotion of the game "icon_wink.gif after the Widnes game. You would have thought when it was only 6-0 at half time and Syko missed a sitter in front of the sticks that the players would believe this is their day after all. But no they were even worse in the second half. Why is this? I work as a Business Performance coach and underperformance from people who have the technical skills and experience to do their job well is invariably a result of attitudes and beliefs about yourself, others around you, your employer, your boss etc. So it strikes me there is an obvious lack of respect and a lack of trust in each other, particularly when under pressure. Perhaps the challenge of Wigan away will bond the team, you never know.

How can any Broncos team in the past 5 years be complacent against any team- thats utter tosh

They are not good enough.

The forwards were taken apart, the right side of defence was deliberately attacked and taken apart time after time(The first signal was the first try), when we had the ball we were pressured and struggled with our last play kicks.

Our 'two minute drill' to borrow an NFLism (well rehed plays that need little communicating in order to create as many chances for the team in position) was a joke.the final ptb of the first half was a panicked toss to Jamie O who then proceeded to run straight at his opposite number.

Clearly clueless and clearly underehed.

Agree with wire. How on earth we can be complacent against any team is a joke.
And given the 'fear of god' expressions on the face of our right side defence whenever they attacked, suggests that rather than being over complacent. They are utterly terrified.

You know what you're on about. Do we have too many spot players in the squad? Is the squad too shallow after a couple of injuries? What can we do?

We were very poor yesterday, we've actually gone backwards since the Widnes game, where we looked like we had little in the bag come the fourth and fifth tackles. Wakefield were well organised and disciplined and well worth the win.

I do think Bentham was very, very, poor, yesterday, and it's been a long time since I've seen a genuinely bad refereeing performance like that at The Stoop, he certainly didn't cost us the game, but I think some poor calls hindered us when it looked like we just might spark some cohesion, and that was important because even if we were never going to win a bit of cohesion might have helped confidence.

I quite agree with your analysis, so will most people. How would you interpret "not dealing with the emotion of the game"? I took it to mean that as Widnes were below strength all broncos had to do was step onto the field to win. What was the emotion they took into Sunday? I saw little resilience.

Isn't the coach at least partly responsible for that?

Anyone who saw the game yesterday will know the issue right now is not the coach. Absolutely disgraceful performance, probably the worst I have ever witnessed supporting the club for 15 years.

I fully agree! there was only one player who looked to have any enthusiasm in Dixon! some manager will soon be touting him in the North! Of course the coach has to take some of the can! he prepares the team which clearly was not done well for yesterday, he has half time to lift them, which didn't happen! We all got a little carried away perhaps art the end of last season with the little success we had.

Bentham was completely out of it as many referees seem to be these days in sport.

I will never miss the stoop come the end of the season, hope we do not try to negotiate another season if it is going to be the last one for the Broncos, we would be better playing anywhere in London!

Why put Witt a known poor defender up against Lauatiti(SP) on the already weak right side of defence

They hammered us there all day as did Widnes
Stick a strong defender there like Bailey or Rodney who can also control the youngsters around them

Agree with much of what's already been said.

I don't think I've ever seen a rugby team look so totally lost, and lacking in ideas, as we did yesterday. With ball in hand, we were hopeless - we didn't make Wakefield work at all. There seems to me to be an inherent laziness with some of the playing staff. Gower is left to do everything in attack, which just won't work. People aren't backing him up or reading his plays, and we become ponderous and predictable.

In defence, it's just shambolic. Wakefield were disciplined and organised but most teams would have been able to comfortably deal with their attacking threat (that said, whoever was kicking for them, left-footed fella - Sykes? - kicked tactically extremely well). Players like Kaufusi amble about, looking slow and out of condition.

Even under Powell, scoring was not a problem, it was defence. Now both seem to be broken. I just can't see how, with the benefit of a full pre-season with a largely unchanged squad, Rea hasn't been able to organise the team better than how it finished at the end of last season. It is baffling and upsetting.

Prepare for the attendances to get worse, by the way.

I apologise for my earlier misjudgements.......Witt is a better model than RL player and Dorn was indeed dropped! Hard to imagine why Teffers would drop one of our (only) 2 strike players!

It's getting harder and harder to sit through this torture....and it's not the Stoop that is the problem, jaybs, its the rubbish that's being played on the pitch!

Jeez, we thought we had hit rock bottom last year....our only success so far has been finding a new all-time low!

All kinds of problems.

I'll focus on one. Player recruitment/squad management. It was very clear where last year's squad was weak - no settled centres, defenders at third man in who either avoided contact (Howell/Witt) or shot out of the line too aggressively (Gower). Broncos were very easy to coach against.

Now, there was little room to manoeuvre with many contracts running through to 2013 but a grip should have been taken and players like Howell, Witt and Randall should have started this year outside the 17 with a clear indication that they either pushed hard for a place or were left to wither. Sadly, Robertson should never have been re-signed - I like him but this was yet another emotionally easy re-signing (Randall over Ellis anyone?) - when a top-class right centre was required. Instead, we start the year with tried-and-trusted failures all over the place - individuals and combinations.

A massive fail so far for Rea IMO - I'm struggling to think of any difference in personnel/combinations between Powell's Broncos and his. We are almost shot in terms of centre options whilst we have plenty of options at full-back/wing - get this addressed for 2014! The odd thing is that Rea went with Dorn and Gower at the end of 2012 but seems to regard Witt and Gower (zero points against Widnes and Wakefield with these two running things!) as the way to go.

All change for Wigan next week - Dorn and Lee starting please; Witt and Randall watching. Witt, especially, is like Seymour at Hull FC; the team go better when he's in the stand.

Very difficult to argue with that (i saw my first game in 1997 the wembley year) or any of the other comments on the post. I was utterly deptessed, i spent a small fortune in getting to the game - money and time, bought another shirt (god help me) and then had to sit through a totally pathetic display. Dorn dropped? on what basis did that happen? As lots of others have commented, our right side is wide open - widnes used to and any team will. Lovell may be a lovely led, may make it as a second row at some point but a centre he is not. in attack we were equally witless. in truth Wakefield could/should have been 24-40 points ahead at half-time and could/should have won by 60+, we were that poor

Apart from Dixon - everyone looked either unfit, uninterested or out of their depth. Gower is a great player and could move the team around, but he needs some support and some go forward from the pack, none of which was evident today. Dixon will be gone at the end of the seasdon at this rate.

Actually - the club might as well wave the white flag and sut up shop if this is waht is going to be dished up as entertainment - no defence, no attack and much worse no real passion. the atmosphere is awful, i despair....................................

An as i am from the North, fish rather than coal - lets stop the flat caps, whippets and pits jokes, they are not funny and they (rightly) annoy people. And they do us no favours.

i really feel as low as i have ever done about this team, worse than last year! our decline since our last couple of years at Brentford has been steady and painful to watch, team getting poorer year on year, experience worse, crowds smaller.............................................. Luckily i have a house about 45mins from Perpignan and i think i might start brushing up my catalan/French and turn into a dragon.................................