When the going gets tough, Ben puts his hand up and gets stuck in. He takes a lot of pressure off the forwards down the middle. As someone has mentioned, the fee we would likely to get off KR, would not cover Ben's value to the team.

This is exactly the problem. How many times have we seen both Ben and Foxy come inside and leave the opposing winger with a walk in try? I've lost count! Why do they do it? because there's a bloody great gap with no defender in it! If they didn't come inside and try and fill it the opposing centre would have a walk in. The wingers get the blame but you can't leave a winger exposed and expect him to defend against 2 and 3 attackers!
We have 2 wingers who may not be the best but they give their all. Leave them alone I say they are not the reason we have lost matches we should have won!

Excellent post.
I think Ben's kick returns are second to none, it takes it out of the defenders and gives our forwards a rest.

going forward the back 3 are great in general, get us plenty of penalties with quick play the balls etc. My issue is that we are absolutely exposed when defending a high ball on either wing, we dont compete for the ball, certainly we dont win enough in the air. if thats a defending tactic of waiting for the player to land I dont know, but IMO something needs to change as we lose too many games from not being able to handle this attacking option against us.

It's incredibly hard for a winger to see the overlap, get off the mark, come inside and hit the centre before the overlap takes place.

I know a lot of people say "stick with your winger, if the centre goes over then it's the centre's fault" ....but surely no 'team' should play like that. If you lose 48-0 but neither winger goes over, you'd not come off the field feeling smug.

Overlaps end where the winger is and start at the PTB - it's just the winger who in the end has to deal with the impossible 2-1 situation.

Leaving the centre to walk in is silly if you have even a 1% chance of hitting him and stopping the ball getting out to the winger.

I hate to say it, but loko at the Rhinos, they rarely ever get overlapped cause of their line speed being fast in unison - not casue they've got two good wingers (though it obviously helps)

I think a lot of teams wingers do come inside when defending, I think it is a trait that is widespread.

I seem to remember a while ago, maybe 2 seasons ago, on Boots n All where Paul Cullen was summarising on defensive lines. I think ironically it was our game.

He said that when players are defending, you have two at marker and a lot of the time he was seeing where if the centre for example had made a tackle, and was in at the play the ball or at marker he was out of his centre position. I f the rest of the line didn't adjust accordingly then this left a hole, which the attacker would run straight through or sometimes this causes the winger to come inside, and again leaving the hole out wide.

It is Mathers job to call pull left or right as and when.

This used to happen under Kear's regime and could well be still happening now

I think we should hold on to Ben and maintain the back row as it is. It is not Cockaynes fault that games have not been won when perhaps they should have been. Ben is not playing at 100% at the moment but you can bet he will eventualy rediscover himself and start scoring again. I think Agar and Eslon should make it their priority to hold on to the team we have now. If we can keep the squad they will have a better chance of coming off the starting bocks with a vengance next season. Obviously we do need to think about players that will leave for various reasons, retirement etc and that is why we still need to drip feed talent into the team like Agar has done by bringing Touson into the pack. You cannot keep making "fresh starts" like Wakefield have been doing for years after being a selling club. Just look at the starting line ups for most of the clubs in SL and there is a gaggle of ex Wakey players who, on the whole, are playing good football.

The art of the centre giving his winger some protection when the high ball comes over has disappeared. The winger can't do it all himself from a standing jump against a player on the run. His team mates need to give him some protection.

In defence of the wingers, for much of the season their inside men have been Lynn and L Smith neither of whom would fill me with confidence in their defensive capabilities if I were stood outside them.
Granted both have made individual clangers but the some of their parts over the course of the season probably balances out.

Remember when we played Wigan at home Lyne and Cockayne on one side and Collis and Fox on the other side, all the trys were scored down foxys' side - however its just the defensive way we play, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I think that is more a reflection of where Wigan attack rather than where we are weak.

^^ This ^^

I don't think it's disappeared though, other teams do it. I can't remember us ever doing it though.

Im just saying its not necessarily the centres such as L Smith and Lyne who arent as defensively strong.

We do tend play a very compressed defence which in turn leaves the extremes vulnerable, so I tend not to be too criticle of the wingers.

Although I think we could slide a lot better than we do.

Agree 100% with you I think players last year didn't give him respect so he was scoring tries. players have become wise to Charlie and giving him no space.