Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing.

Back when we were selling our best players to stay alive, Kirmond was "not for sale" and every other "decent" player went over a 4-6 week period.

Where we are now and with Kirmond's injuries and lack of form, it would have been a good move but, at the time, the club did the right thing.

The following season all of the players sold became injured at pretty much the same time so it turned out to be a shrewd bit of business.

Having said that we look desperately short of game breakers.

Smith, Lauititi and McShane gone, we just don't seem to have much in the locker, although it's hard to create anything if you are not going forward.

as a matter of interest, what has been the penalty count(for and against us) in the opening two games

That could've been that Cas were just more disciplined?

I think it's hard to look at a one-sided penalty count and just assume that the ref has hammered one team and let the other get away with everything

If Wakefield earnt a penalty on the first tackle what's the ref supposed to do? Let them go 3/4 more before giving it?

Perhaps the push in the first half was a key point in the first half, but is that to say it was the wrong decision? Like I said - I can't say either way.

I think BS has put a lot of emphasis on the decisions in a lot of his post match interviews to protect the players really - to come out after 2 games and say "we lost everywhere on the field" would be fairly detrimental to the cause. It's much more sensible to say "we were beaten by a side playing well and key decisions going against us". Which is quite smart, as it is not the same as saying the ref got it wrong...

FWIW I think Wakefield will get better and better, although perhaps the boxing day friendly has given some fans a false marker as to where the team really are.

That being said, god knows where Leeds are....

Apparently we have the 3rd highest offloads according to the super league website. We are also not top of the penalty count. So maybe our players and structures are poop.

We do have the lowest metres per carry and the lowest amount of clean breaks whilst being quite high in the amount of tackles we've had to make. This suggests to me an application problem rather than anything else. When I watch our players run with the ball I only see determination and tenacity from a select few i.e. annakin, simon, england - 2 of whom haven't been playing. A lot of the others seem to get put on their harris faster than you can say 'tackled'. No surprise that England is leading the metres made and tackle busts - its because when he runs a ball in he does it like he means it. The same can't be said for a lot of the others.

I actually think the defense has improved. I've seen enough in the friendlies and against Widnes to suggest that. I think with ball in hand we seem to have a lot of problems in both guile and creativity.

Think it's essential that Trinity's best two props -England and Simon start against KR and the bench has a couple of genuine props on it plus Tupou and Sio...early to suggest team is poop but the KR is a must win...

KR are decimated with injuries and Trinity are near to full strength...this Sunday will be the big indicator..

Positives???
Well, it's stopped us arguing about Council Cuts and the stadium being up for sale!!