Over complicated, daft and now surly.
I'll let you crack on, go and get Greg and I'm sure adrian Lam will love having him involved. We can always go and get Gary Schofield as well?

PS
If you think Madges rugby was off the cuff then I suspect you may be trying to shoehorn something into fit into your argument.
Madges team were so good because they were far more organised, structured, stronger, fitter etc. They then used those advantageous and played off the back of it.
If you think they sat down and watched a few videos of the old days and then just copied then then your in a stranger world than I thought. There were "Moves", and tactics Madge employed allowed Roberts/Tomkins to play off the back of it when the time was right.
If they werent so dominant in the other areas of the game they wouldn't have been able to do that.
That's what this team is missing, the dominance and structure in lots of other areas in the game to demoralised the opposition.
The attacking part of the game.will improve off the back of that.
But if you dont tackle well, defend well, kick well, hold onto the ball well, run harder and stronger than the opposition then you'll find trying to play rugby under the backdrop of that is far far harder.

I have been Christmas grocery shopping all day in Barrow, I apologise for any saltyness

Show me where i said Madges team played off the cuff. I didnt, you are trying to put words into my mouth. I said they ran set moves. Whether or not it was around Roberts or Tomkins makes no difference, they had set plays which involved various ways of confusing defenders and creating openings rather than this single idea of swinging the ball left to right along the line.



I have never said dont have structure and dont try to dominate the opposition with the basics. I have merely argued for some entertaining set plays and more variety to our attack at the right times. The easy way to do that is look at some of the stuff teams of the past used to play and shoehorn them in to the modern game. Since Andy Gregory was a master at pulling off set plays then it would be a good idea to have him try to recreate some of them with the current team which they could then use when we are stuck on the opposition line and the usual left/right ball swinging is not working. You seem to be comparing apples and oranges and coming up with bananas. Your argument seems to be that nothing will work other than what we are doing now because most teams play the same way.

I accept i used the term off the cuff instead of set plays incorrectly.
Point still stands, it was done within structure and after gaining dominance in other areas of the game.

As for me trying to put words into peoples mouths I think you need to have a look at your own posts first.

Let's get back to the initial point.
You think watching DVDs and implementing plays from the 80s/90s in tandem with getting Andy Greg back to oversee some of this is the way forward.

I dont

Well leave it at that?

Kenny, Lewis, Daley, Langer, Fittler, Johns, Lamb, Mortimer, Raudonikis, Stuart, Lyons and Sterling....think you'll find I win

Some good points taken onboard and I think we broadly agree. I think we're we probably don't entirely agree is that I think we have gone way ott on fitness and structure at the expense of individualism and skills.
Could it be that improving players skills other than defending is a lot harder and more time consuming than fitness work etc? Do coaches take the "easier option"?

In a nutshell I just want a bit more excitement from the game ideally with fast open competitive rugby. I don't want 42-38 games I love a tight physical game but a tight physical game with the odd moment of genius or superlative skill that you wait to get back to the pub to regale about.
As I've said on previous posts the game historically works in cycles so I'm hopeful the day of the wrestle and incessant 5 drives and a kick won't last forever. I'm not convinced about LM but more than happy to be proven wrong that he can instill/allow a more attractive style into our game

Don’t forget I was told that it was all about super league and the English game. So while you’ve dipped into the NRL and albeit some of the players on the list had minimal time playing here; you’ll need to revise your list.

Ps I love how you end your post with ‘I win’ my 5 year old nephew would do exactly the same.

Don’t forget I was told that it was all about super league and the English game. So while you’ve dipped into the NRL and albeit some of the players on the list had minimal time playing here; you’ll need to revise your list.

Ps I love how you end your post with ‘I win’ my 5 year old nephew would do exactly the same.

First things first
A Number of times this thread has mentioned that the games not as exciting - I've said it numerous times I agree - But that's a different subject.
The issue I have is that simply saying we want the game to be more exciting isn't going to stop the coaches from looking for that winning edge and Winning comes first - Also because the game isn't as exciting it's too simple to equate that to less skill, the Skills may be in different areas than they used to be but it's like saying that players of yesteryear couldn't tackle, they could, the emphasis though just wasn't on them defending as well and as structured as it is now.
The players of today are skilful, they just have to be skilful in ways that fit into the structures being coached.
With regards to going way OTT on fitness that's the issue though, We can't stop teams getting Bigger stronger, faster etc.
I feel the game needs to tweak the rules to assist us in Opening up the game more, reduced Substitutions, shot clock and quicker restarts will go some way to doing this by bringing in more of a fatigue factor leading to more space for "Flair" type players and attack to exploit it.

What I will say though is the interesting point you make about :-
"Could it be that improving players skills other than defending is a lot harder and more time consuming than fitness work etc? Do coaches take the "easier option"? "

I coach in a different sport, a sport that IMO has a better balance between Fitness & the Core Skills of the game (Cricket - With players U20 down to 7/8yr olds).
I've coached for 15 years now and learned a lot in that time and I do think that "The Coaching Manual" tends to teach coaches how to do things By the Book so to speak. That in itself can lead to a stagnant way of doing things and occasionally it needs innovation or outside the box thinking.

I've already Bored the pants off people too much so don't want to go on too much but Many years ago A player of mine was struggling in certain areas Batting. He had gone from being a free flowing/natural type player into someone who just looked so out of place at the crease he looked like a different person. Now he'd gone through a few issues "off the field" and my natural reaction was to talk "technique", Basics, focus on what he was doing wrong and work on those errors in his game and to be honest for a month or so we weren't getting anywhere fast.

I was going to look at some more intensive coaching from better/more qualified coaches than myself when an experienced guy I spoke to said he'd gone through something similar with a player a few years earlier.
His answer - Go into the nets, throw a hundred Balls at him and forget everything, forget technique, forget detail - just hit them, enjoy hitting them
We did this for a couple of sessions and the old player came back, started the season well, remained in the representative team and performed as well as he had ever done previously if not better.
I've used that 2/3 times more with players who seem to be struggling and it's amazing how if you remove all of the technical stuff and free up their minds to "Just Play" it can help.
The paradox is that you can't just do that in isolation - Because the game will expose other weaknesses that you have to work on and invariably those who work the hardest and focus on other teams weaknesses, and work on their own structures etc. invariably win.

So I do think that coaches do often "Take the easy option" although I would word it more along the lines of they get Stuck in their world, focus on the textbook too much and the problems they have they look for the answers within the same structures and working harder on those when that got them into those problems in the first place.

It's very complicated with everyone looking for that 1% winning edge and the answer for each player/team/coach isn't always the same, what works well for "A" may not work as well for "B" and that's what separates the winners from the Losers.

I'm not Lam's biggest fan and I do believe he spent the 2nd half of the year putting things Back in place defensively that had been overlooked early on in the year for the idea of playing a more "Open" type rugby. It was only when we got things defensively better that IMO we could start to play with the ball a bit better.
Ultimately it wasn't good enough and I think it took too much out of the tank catching up on the bad start but it showed to me that you can't just decide to Play more open, you still have to have the structures and systems that sit behind it.

So stick to your own rules.
Merry Christmas son. Have a good one

schofield, edwards, paul, gregory, goulding, kenny, sterling, lewis, lyons (all played in the uk), Hulme, Martyn, Briers, Anderson (chris), Harris, Fox are all classier and more skillful than anything superleague has seen in the last decade

merry christmas