Quote: Pie_Eyter "Sorry but if you have been a Wakefield fan for 38 years and today is the time you feel you need to speak out then you need to have a reality check. Today is the only time in those years that you have felt the need to vent your frustrations is because the internet hasn't been around that long. I'm sure before that you bemoaned your teams performance in a pub etc before that but you had no platform to do so. Yes you played poor today, very poor, but all sides do. You have hammered my team (Wigan) on your own midden on more than a few occasions and have had a lot more scalps along the way. You have gone from a second rate in the lower tiers to mid table to play off challenging side in Super League those 38 years and all i can see is progress. You have started in the last 5 years at least to bring through some very good young players and have recruited very well. All sides have bad seasons. I think you need a sense of perspective of where you have been and where you are now when you look at the likes of Widnes and Bradfoed, even the likes of Halifax. 38 years ago you would have been the underdog against sides like that and now you mix it with the best of them. Don't be so knee jerk, every fan of every club wants better for their team (mine included) but it's been a strange season, let's just get it out of the way and start a fresh next term and appreciate that you are a fan of a club that has made leaps and bounds over the years with limited resources and facilities.'"
Unless the Wigan fan has watched every single Wakefield game over the last two seasons then he cannot sensibly discuss the issues which I have raised.
For the avoidance of any doubt, I am not in any way, shape or form questioning that our club has made giant strides forward over the last 4 or 5 seasons and that is to testimony in no small part to the efforts and stewardship of Michael Carter. I have the utmost respect for Michael and what he has done to transform our great club from a very dark place, which has been nothing short of a minor miracle when you consider the financial constraints within which he has had to operate.
Beating a couple of understrength Wigan teams over the past two or three years on our home patch means nothing in the context of the deep-rooted issues I have identified. Although our team has put in some tremendous shifts over the past two years, particularly last season in the face of extreme adversity and an injury crisis which was probably the worst which any super league club has had to deal with, effort only gets you so far and the win/loss ratio for this period does not lie. Hopefully yesterday was just a blip which we will not see again and we can put it behind us. Who knows, maybe CC was luring Catalans into a fall sense of security and we are going to hit them in the Challenge Cup with a different type of performance - I sincerely hope so.
We were a mid-table side two/three years ago but we are not in that place now and have not been for quite some time. Last year it was us, Hull KR, London and Huddersfield at the bottom of the pile. London were relegated and ever since Sezer joined Huddersfield they are a completely different outfit. With Toronto now gone, the reality is that Hull KR and our club are the struggling teams at the bottom and unless we change things then there is a good chance that we will end up being relegated next season – you can only dodge that trap door for so long.
So what has gone wrong and how do we fix it. There are so many facets of the game which combine to make a team successful – fitness, mental health, morale etc but what I think we need to distil it down to are the fundamentals of playing the game – defence and attack.
I think on the whole, yesterday apart, our defence has been pretty sound. However, the same cannot be said for the other half of our game - our attacking play – which is cause for concern, and has been cause for concern for some time.
Our attack has been spluttering and faltering for 2-3 seasons now. I turn up to games and watch the lads warm up and the moves look good but come game time the lads very rarely seem able to replicate the quick hands / deepish line / running onto the ball at pace of the training environment – it all seems to disappear and you have to wonder what the hell the guys are doing on the training paddock during the week. We fire occasionally in some games but more often than not we are devoid of ideas in the opposition 20m area and our last tackle option i.e. our kicking, is telegraphed or poorly executed giving sides 7 tackle sets and allowing them to march us down the field.
I accept that there have been victories but a lot of the time those have been eked out, difficult to watch come backs or occasions when we have been treated to an outstanding performance from our talisman, Big Dave.
If anyone has watched us play week in and week out since John Kear left and does think that there are major issues with our attack then they must be watching a different Trinity team to me. I do not know whether the issue is because John was responsible for our attack or whether Chris has had to take on too much of the coaching responsibility but I pinpoint the gradual demise in the attacking side of our game to when John left the club. The injuries I have mentioned above have obviously played their part and I accept that it is difficult to develop consistency and fluidity when the team sheet is changing on a weekly basis but we cannot keep raising that as an excuse for poor attack management. We need to have a system of attacking play (along the lines of a Saints, Castleford, Huddersfield/Salford) which is ingrained into the training regime of the club at every level and which all the players have to buy into. It won’t happen overnight but we now have what is effectively an extended pre-season to try things out and put things in place to make sure that we can compete next season in both defence and, crucialy, attack. If steps are not taken now to sort out our attack then I really fear for next season.
For me, we need to be looking at the teams that have historically been in the same place as we are in i.e. Salford, Huddersfield and (going back a little further) Castleford, to see what those clubs have done to transform their fortunes and in particular their attacking play. At Castleford Daryl came along and introduced a brand of attack which was the envy of other Super league clubs – yes you can point to the fact that he has not won any trophies but I would give my right leg to turn up and watch Wakey play the way that Cas do – ouch that hurt but it is the truth. One of the reasons for their success was until recently, whether you like him or not, the Cas playmaker Luke Gale. If you look at Salford, a club very similar to ours in a number of aspects, Watson has had them playing decent attacking rugby for two/three seasons now and the current and former Salford Halfbacks of Tui Lolohea and Jackson Hastings have played no small part in that success. With Huddersfield, it took Woolford a bit of time to replace Broughy but he has introduced Sezer and has got the Giants to play some great attacking rugby.
The common denominators to the attack management adopted by these clubs are an attack minded coach and a midfield general who can work the team around the park. Looking at our club, it seems to me that we may have a coach who has too much on his plate to devote the time required to develop our attack and we have no half back who can control a game but frankly I am not close enough to the club so cannot comment. On the midfield general, I am not convinced that any of Milky, Ryan or Max are the answer but I suspect the club will use our extended pre-season to find out. The Gigot signing was a bit baffling because I’m not sure a full back come centre come winger come half back is the answer. Without knowing the financials and availability of players, it is difficult to say whether we can bring in what is required but you do not necessarily have to flash the cash – look at what Liam Finn did for us.
The likes of Castleford, Salford and Huddersfield have found an attacking formula that is exciting to watch and, crucially, also wins games. I don’t see why we cannot look at how they play then first replicate it and then try and improve on it.
There is also another very good reason to make sure that our attack is firing on all cylinders. Winning games is obviously key but fans want to see their team playing an expansive and open attacking team because it puts bums on seats which for a club like ours has to be a priority. I have talked about those games where we have eked out victories but on those days I have often left the ground thinking great we have the win but feeling really frustrated that we’ve done it ugly and there must be another way to doing it. I think there is and more importantly I think that if we don’t sort the attack out we will be facing relegation again next year.
