Quote: Schunter "It still baffles me how little we try to get him into the game in attacking positions at the minute, we barely even kick to him in on the 5th when in their 20 half the time, against Hudds I think a forward got tackled in their 10 on the 5th tackle twice possibly 3 times. Alternatively we have been hammering it into touch to get a breather rather than giving him a kick to attack.
Surely we can come up with some ideas to try and get him on the outside sometimes but we don't even seem to try. He's the best player and yet half the time he's reduced to being used to bring it out of our 20. I don't get it.'"
Up until Hull 2919 we did get the ball to him at every opportunity then it stopped.
We know why it stopped because the main architects Miller, Bill and Ashurst got injured at roughly the same time along with Tom.
It was clearly going to be at least 12 month before this machine could come back on line.
However this imho is where CC failed. Although it was never going to be as effective without all four there was no need to abandon the attacking down the left policy completely as we seemed to do. Especially when those players started to return.
Instead we seemed to panic and opt for one up rugby. As I say it wouldn’t have been as good but I seriously doubt it would have been as bad as what replaced it!
Now I’m afraid it’s lost. Miller doesn’t get quick ball, Ashurst has decided to plough on down the middle, Tupes when he plays is starved of ball and so then is TJ.
Hampshire can pass and kick to the left, we’ve seen him do it, yet now he kicks and passed exclusively to the right! Why? Even BJB our excellent second best winger doesn’t have the ability Tom has.
BJB was at his best when the opposition expected the ball to go left and then it went right and suddenly there was space a plenty for this talented winger to exploit.
Even if we aren’t up to supplying TJ the killer passes there is absolutely no reason why we can’t send him plenty of kicks, another top notch part of his game.
As I say we might never get back to what we had but that doesn’t excuse the woeful misuse of such a talent. I mean you’d swear it was malicious it’s that bad. I don’t think it is, I think it’s incompetent and that’s just as bad.
We have the skills, both Miller and Rocky have shown that. We can win up front as shown on Thursday. We need to get out of the negative mind set we’ve been in these past 18 month, stop feeling sorry for yourself Chester and co and unleash the beast!!!
