Yes, incorrect usage. But being in the spotlight position and main controller of the game he will always fall into the scapegoat category if the team doesnt win. I personally can't see anything in him that Wildie can't do.

I watched him play a few times last season for the Sharks in RESERVE GRADE and he was absolutely garbage, i was surprised when he got another contract in SL.
I shouldn't be surprised really though should i ?

On Friday, we played in the spirit of an end of season game where we were safe from relegation and looking forward to our holidays.
There was no intensity in defence whatsoever and the final score flattered us due to their missed conversions.
Why did we have such a lightweight bench ? Playing Johnson in the 20's is ridiculous when we are so short of props.

During the close season when we were signing a player a week, the season looked really promising and when you look at the league table
with Warrington and Catalan riding high (two teams that we played well against), why have we been so poor in so many other matches, most notably
Cas and London ?

Friday night was depressiong. Ok Saints are an excellent side and Roby ripped us to pieces but, we just didnt look bothered.
Completion was poor, discipline was poor and the sets that we did manage to complete we got caught in posession on tackle 6 without getting a kick away
Now Agar isnt the best SL coach but the players need to take a look at themselves individually.
Confidence is a major issue at present but young kids can set up a last tackle play better than the Trinity team managed on Friday.
Smith is not good enough(or maybe bothered enough) to be the midfield general in our team.

If I live to 100 I will never see a worst performance from any professional team than the one I saw against London enough said

Now we've have played everyone once I decided to go all Phil Clarke and have a quick look at last seasons results against superleague sides (i left out the cup game v donny) compared to this season at very similar times of the year. The extra game last year is due to kicking off the season against Cas at Millenium Magic. As we haven't played Leeds in the league yet this year I included the cup game.

2011 - 13th May
Played - 14
Points for 246 - ave. 17.6
Points against - 397 ave. 28.4
30 points or more scored - 2
30 points or more conceded - 6

2012 - 6th May
Played - 13
Points for - 224 ave. 17.2
Points against - 376 ave. 28.9
30 points or more scored -3
30 points or more conceded -8

So going by the stats for all the extra investment in supposedly better quality players our points averages are marginally worse than last year up to press and despite not getting a tubbing yet (although if you take fridays missed kickes into it then thats a tubbing in my eyes) we have conceded 30+ more often. Of our own high scores this year we haven't got past 32 yet either. And just as last year we are down the bottom three of many of the key stats, meters made, clean breaks etc.

Now last year tailed off badly in the last third of the season, something that has affected us for the last two or three years. We have to hope that the reverse is true this year otherwise there will be a lot of disgruntled fans about.

Serious question, not just aimed at you.

I've seen a fair few people on here make reference to the 'fact' that we're spending significantly more on players this season than last; what is that opinion based on? I haven't seen it confirmed anywhere, apart from John Kear having the odd dig on Sky.

No I don't think we will, probably around 7 but I also don't think we'll get the spankings we got that year as well. I said at the start of the year that we'd finish 10th and I still reckon that's about right.

I've wondered the same as well.

James Elston has said that this year we are running with a 1.3 million salary cap, rising about 200k a year to the end of the franchise period. It was part of the application. I believe by the time we exited administration our cap was just under a million and didn't rise much through the course of the season.

Its not just the wages though but new extra investments things like team meals, improved training equipment & aids, improved player welfare through medical staff, massage & sports psychology etc. Overall the costs have increased by quite an amount and i'm not sure that the performances have followed suit.

Well at the moment 7 is a figure i pray for, i never really thought we do much better than 10th myself but up to now i feel a little let down with most of the performances.

Fingers crossed it improves.

But did he also say what the spend was in previous years?

He only mentioned that it was under a million for last year, seasons prior to that i'm not sure. I'm seem to remember a figure of 1.2m for those but could be wrong. The cull came when the financial difficulties came to light at the back end of the 2010 season.

I read somewhere that last years spend was between 700/800k.

If this season tails off in the last third like it did last season and worse still the previous season, I dread to think what some of our performances and results will be.

There is a need for us all to stay positive as the squad won't change until the end of the season and we know we have weaknesses in the halves and the front row.

Next week we'll field our best 17 (except for Wilkes missing) with Lauititi & Kirmond in the second row and a fitter, stronger Southern on the bench with Mariano,Wood and James.

John will be back at 6 with Smith and we'll turn the clock back a few weeks for inspiration when we nearly beat Warrington away and remember that we have the ability to compete! Warrington also have quite a few injuries and we've got them at home