Read the article by Tim Sheens on Gaz Ellis.

A coach coaches, English SL coaches think once a player is a first team squad player they have the skills and ignore the drills.

A SL coach generally works on a game plan, and lives or dies by it. Ours is crap.

I did, it was a good read, and tbh you can see where it is coming from.

So how does a coach not affect the skill level of the players? How does a coach not play a game plan that aides the team rather than hinders it.

Three things happened tonight-

1-We were out classed-Burrow was a different class to anything in our halfs with the 40/20 and the control he had of the game.

2-We were out played or lost the individual battles-The match up's of say Hock vs Lauitiiti both big running, offloading 2nd rows, or front row vs front row. Roberts was out jumped and Imo out played by the young Leeds winger. We lost all the individual battles and in the end the whole thing.

3-We were out coached-Leeds had a game plan of getting up in our faces in defence especially early on vs Hock. You could see they had been told to get in put three in to tackle him and drive him back. Leeds executed this game plan excellently it must be said. They were offloading in the tackle and supporting the ball carrier which is what we did last week- they must work on this in training with drills surely? They also had a bench that could make an impact were we didn’t as we started our impact players???????

The first point was a major factor in why we didn’t win. Their star players had a big game when it was needed and our Star player Hock was snuffed out. We need Dobson back big time as he’s the sort of player who gets you 40/20’s, controls the game and makes the right decisions. It’s not something Tommy can do sadly.

The 2nd point is partly Nobles AND the players fault. Hock and Feka imo shouldn’t have started tonight against the best defence in the league. They can’t the make the impact they need to right from the start of the game when the opposition defenders are fresh. Also if the other team gets a high percentage of the ball someone like Feka is already knackered through all the defence we did. By the time he was ready to barge it up he was knacked and we brought Coley and Hansen on giving us zero attacking edge. It should have been the opposite way round get players like Coley knackerd and then bring Feka on.

The 3rd point is where Noble is seriously failing us. Why do we employ a defensive structure that invites players like Ali, Burrow, Mcguire or Peacock to run at us? We should have been up in their faces like Leeds did to us doing a number on Ali or Kylie Leuleui. Our bench again was wrong Burrow was given far to much time and it only really changed when Hansen was on and he started to rush up into his face on the last tackle. I think one of the underpinning issues is we aren’t fit enough to play a high tempo defensive game for 80mins. Seriously can you see Feka, Riddell, Hock & Bailey employing a ‘blitz’ defence for 80 mins?

Can the pro Noble people please tell me we weren’t out coached tonight with the team selection and defensive pattern?

It wasn’t all Nobles fault btw but this is a thread about him and I’ll pass comment on the players on another thread about them.

Against a team like Bradford who play a flat ball game it works, against any team that runs a deep backline like all but 2 have against us this year (both coached by Bradford scholared coaches, coincidence?) we are inviting teams to score points.