Last week was a cold wet day and suited our game plan, yesterday was different. If you had been there you could have given an opinion. However I did go and blew my money to see an absolute dire performance and watch a team that looked to have less ideas than a pub team.

By the way you don't need top earning internationals to play open rugby, most championship sides seem to be able to do that better than us.

The squad is capable of doing more than 5 drives and a kick. We have shown it on a few occasions (Quins at home, Catalans away and the 2nd half of Cas away) I don't know whetehr it just looks like we have thrown the ball around because we have won these games but to me our results seem to improve when we throw the ball around.

I must point out that there is a time and place to play 5 drives and a kick as last week proved so I don't want us to over play when we are give licence to throw it about.

I haven't offered an opinion on yesterdays game as I wasn't there. I have been to the majority of other games this season so will offer my opinion based on those games.

We have already won more games than anyone imagined this season and we've done it with 5 drives and kick. Yes it's dull at times but then it has brought results. The Salford game was mind numbingly dull but it was no different to the Hudds game except we kept hold of the ball better and we won.

You criticised the person who recruited the players I was merely pointing out that given the options I think we recruited well and on the whole have picked up some really good prospects.

whoever criticises the recruitment needs their head checking, if you remember the recruitment budget was reduced a lot and we did well to recruit who we did. It's not as if we could sign an international australian HB from down under.

I suppose it was a big defensive effort against a powerful Shudds side and a lot of SL teams are guilty of being a bit flat after an emotional win. I don't think the defeat was due to lack of talent or confidence.
Knock-ons/penalties are a problem but our handling and discipline was exemplary last week. I think we might just need to work on conditioning maybe.

It seems to me that the group of players we have are mentally weak and fragile. When we lose they feel so sorry for themselves that it effects the next two weeks performances. When they win they fall in love with themselves and turn up thinking they are world beaters who just need to turn up to get the points.

I also think that once again we are at that time of year when agents start thinking about getting their men away from Belle Vue. With the RL expected to kick us out of SL the agents job is made easy ( just like when we lost Korki and Griffin some years ago ). The few good players we have, mostly our young lads, will be pressured to sign contracts for a new club now and the contract put in the agents draw until September. For example rumours abound that Griffin has already signed for Crusaders, Leeds Hull and Hull KR want Walshaw, Renaldi to Widnes etc etc etc. Then there are the players who are worried because no one has come in for them yet. They will be on SL money now and have to be concerned about their futures.

What about the coaching staff they must realise that if we are kicked out of SL then the club will not be able to keep them on the same money. Could that be a reason why the team so poorly prepared yesterday?

All these factors I think must be having a negative effect on the squad and that effects their performance on the field

You have to be able to adapt though. It is impossible to grind out a win from 18-0 down.

The question wasnt asked last week because the tactics were right for last weeks conditions. I have however raised the issue before in numerous threads, just not made it a specific poll question.

not really considering when we played cas we were 24-4 down and came out to win 28-24

And we did that by continuing to try and grind it out? Strange, cos I thought we threw the ball about and chanced our arm for a twenty odd minute period and that was what got us back in the game.

[uThe franchise issue has been known since the beginning of the season, and if anything off the field issues have made our case stronger in the recent months, so off the back of that renewed optimism, it would be hoped that performances on the field would improve - which is what Kear promised when he said we would be better by round 27 [/u

Last week we won because we kept hold of the ball and didn't give so many silly penalties away. Yesterday it sounded like our ball retention was awful and we were giving penalties away for fun. If you don't respect possession you wont win games regardless of the tactics. I would imagine Kear is as frustrated as the rest of us when the players keep dropping the ball or giving away stupid penalties. We have played more expansive stuff at times but only on the back of getting the basics right first.