Quote Scarlet Pimpernell="Scarlet Pimpernell"On the face of it we have a reasonable squad that should be competitive in games however once again I sense that it’s all about money, it isn’t we have produced successful teams with a weaker squad and a lot less money. It is currently more to do with coaching and attitude both of which we lack.'"
This for me is the biggest misconception.
We don’t have a reasonable squad that should not competitive.
We have an ageing squad, past its sell by date that badly needs freshening up.
You could have Wayne Bennett as coach but with this set of players they are not going to trouble most sides.
Clearly there is always an anomaly, but within that you need to look deeper.
Salford had Hastings who was by far the best player in the comp along with some real quality in the spine like Lussick and Evalds, interesting to see non of those playing for Salford now...but it isn’t about money.
Trinity when we over achieved had age wise a squad at its peak and a player like Fafita who was the best prop in the league. We also had the likes of Finn who was the perfect foil for Milky with Willians as cover (which thinking back now is ridiculous) and players like Ashurst and Lyne pushing for international selection with Toupu proving to another player who came without much fanfare but over achieved initially.
Our key player now seems to be a wingman and Joe Westerman 31.
Fafita is 31 and had 2 years with injury clouding his career, Ashurst, Topou, Arona, Wood, Pitts, Green are all a similar age bracket.
We’ve upgraded and stayed loyal to players who once proved good value, but now more than likely have inflated salaries in relation to what they bring to the team. We have yet to unearth a few gems that overachieve and that is what is hurting us especially with such a small budget.
To a certain extent I believe we are paying the heavy price of overachieving several years back.
I’ve seen Cas mentioned as a club who seem to do ok despite not having big a huge budget to play with.
That’s probably true of late but again it only takes a few players to over perform. It will be very interesting to see what happens next year with a core of important players need replacing as they move to “bigger clubs” and other key plays notch up another birthday.