In my opinion all opinions on Mathers on here are correct! He's one that really does split opinions. I like him coming in to the line in attack where he can be like an extra half back but when he needs to put his body on the line in defence by dropping on a loose ball with boots and arms flying about then for me he tends to bottle it where s the likes of Cockayne and Fox will go that extra yard for their team mates. Mathers is also very good under the high ball and is a great communicator. I'm happy to have him but wouldn't be majorly disappointed if he wasn't with us. His vast experience in playing at the top level for so long can also only be good for the squad.

Why are we still having a go at Mathers ?????
The guy did an excellent job for us, especially towards the back end of the season and quite rightly he has the no. 1 shirt for 2013.

Together we are stronger ??

Without a ball being kicked or a tacklle made some folk just want to have a go, WHY

Support the players, support the team, they might appreciate it.

Correct! Coaches far better than the ones on this forum see quality in RM so get off his back and get behind him!
I was as surprised as anyone when we signed RM but his general play last season added to the teams performance! We'd all like Geoff Wraith, Sam Tomkins etc etc rolled into one but that person doesn't exist. He's committed himself to us so let's have the same commitment to him!

I dare say he committed himself to us when there were no other SL options available, coaches far better than the ones on here have let him go.
To say he's committed himself to us is all well and good but he needs to be capable of playing the position as a whole not just the bits that he enjoys.
If at the end of this coming season we can compare his stats and he's on the plus side for tries scored/created against tries conceded due to planting his feet on one on ones, making no atttempt to tackle and not being in the vacinity when tackles need to be made by the fullback then I will be happy with him, but although I don't have the stats I'm pretty confident that he didn't achieve that last season.

and to your point exactly, a pretty good coach is keeping him despite having at least two players in the team that could cover his position in Cockayne and Sykes.
I assume Agar sees more positives than negatives.

As I said on an earlier post I think that Sykes as a defensive f/b would be the one player that would be worse than Mathers, unless we have no other options on the wing I can't understand why Cockayne hasn't been given the chance at f/b because I think he would be a better option both in attack and defence.

If Sykes is worse in defense than Mathers then I must have seen the wrong player getting back and stopping some certain trys against us will have to watch the DVDs again.I would keep Sykes at 6 as when he moved to 6 it made it so Smith could play his natural game and thats when we started to tick as a team.Mathers can win you a game and just as well give one away as I have said before the plus side outweighs the minus but only just and who else is out there thats better and available.
Lets be honest we aint a club that can say we want and the player will come running.

What about these two Aaron Murphy and m.dailymercury.com.au/news/hard- ... s/1700655/

What about these two Aaron Murphy and m.dailymercury.com.au/news/hard- ... s/1700655/

Looks like 2013's scapegoat has already been chosen.

It baffles me that some people still think they've got a better eye for who should play where than the Head Coach; given that he's paid to do this job and that his success is very much results driven, why on earth would he insist on playing someone in a given position if he knew that there were better options available? It just doesn't make sense!

Mathers is the best fb available to us at this time - if he weren't, why would he be playing there?!

I wouldn't dispute that Sykes covers back when breaks are made, but some of the breaks made are players going through his weak online defence, if that were at f/b it would have the same result as Mathers, and as I said earlier it would be madness to take him away from stand off anyway because that might unsettle Smith.

For goodness sake give it a rest everyone.