We had Kelly Houghton and Ellis out. Three players who would do around 130 tackles if playing. Three young forwards in the same squad and had a bad half against Salford who has an exceptional half. No issues,just facts.

My thoughts exactly.not just the number of tackles they make but the technique were they dominate the attacker slowing the ptb down. Lose the ruck and you lose the game. Last night was a clear example of that.

So we have three key injuries and we can't cope, have not enough experienced players to make up some/most of the shortfall, that's extremely short sighted given how injuries/suspensions can happen in RL.
kirk Dixon summed it up perfectly on RH, youngsters with not enough experience.

We had an over the cap squad last year by loads only keeping under due to backloaded contracts hence we've had to offload players all over the place to stay under the live cap this year so we are having to rely much more on the youngsters.
And if due to a combination of signing outside players and not realising that non injured players need rotating, our youngsters that are on peanuts simply don't have enough experience/not good enough to step up to cover anywhere near as much as we are losing in those key areas, not even close.

it's a circular/cyclical problem that stems back to when Radford took over, bring in players from outside to gain success, last season he Radford (and to an extent Pearson too) really needed to win something or top 4/massive improvement + a final otherwise he'd be gone, so bust the cap with back loaded contracts to afford to have all the players like Taylor/Pryce/Sneyd/Manu/Fonua/CT/Ellis/Minichello/Pritchard etc to increase that chance and to a degree it paid off. However we saw what happened due to not having the balance and 1st XVII players completely knackered and too late introducing youngsters with even less experience than this year.
Try to address this in pre-season but it/they simply aren't enough and against a good team like salford we got found out, we are being found out mental strength/preparation wise too.

The youngsters hopefully can only improve but can they be good enough because aren't these supposed to be part of the building the team around the upcoming academy players ethos that we were sold and that pearson invested massively in?

As i've said a few times, since Radford took over the closest we have come to a player from the system getting a first team spot is jordan Abdull, there are no other players that have made their debut under Radford that are cementing a regular place.
We've got some good solid forwards from the academy but none are pulling up trees and aren't 1st XVII material or cpable of being near the players they are replacing down to inury or suspension, not yet.

it's this aspect - lack of bringing youngsters through, i spoke about before the 2016 season even kicked off and this is precisely why Wigan do so well with their youngsters, they are ready to throw them in and the players themselves are ready/well coached/drilled so the shortfall in experience is not so noticeable.

Radford has been the first coach in years to bring on young players. If Gentle was here, we'd be watching the likes of McDonnell and Youngquest turning out.
Not only are we a number of players down, they happen to be our best and most influential players.
Let's see how things pan out before turning the knife into the coaching team. Last time I looked, nothing was won in April. Let's see were teams like Cas and Salford are when they pick up injuries to crucial players.

Noticeable enough to lose their last three games

Have I missed something. Reading on here you would think were routed in the bottom four. It's been a steady start if not spectacular but having heard nothing but how it's important to peak at the end of the season and not burn the players out by using the squad isn't that what's happening. Like previous posters said nothing won in April.

It's not an excuse for the performance but for over half the match on Friday we had missing:

Both our first choice centres
Our first choice stand off
Our only hooker
2 of our 4 first choice props
Our captain and talisman

Add in losing our first choice scrum half and first choice full back for 10 minutes each and there's no surprise we lose but, as I say, the manner of defeat was unacceptable

I don't like back loaded contracts. It's robbing peter to pay paul and just stores up problems for later. I have to say I'm surprised we're doing it after one of the main criticisms of the previous coach was the lack of VFM on the salary cap and although we now have a good first 17, if that's using all of our cap then you're asking for trouble when your squad lacks any real depth of experience.

We just have to hope that the injury situation doesn't get any worse and we can get 3 or 4 back for leeds and keep the squad relatively fit over the next few weeks or we'll be scratting around at the bottom of the top 8 and the season will be over in July

Take the stand off, hooker and loose man out of any team and they will struggle. People are going on about our squad depth being under strength. Wigan with arguably the best youth set up have lost their last three matches playing three or four youngsters. We have lost two matches abd sit fourth. I am happy with how we are going. We are not playing particularly well and sit fourth. I'll take that any day

So Gentle never played Lineham, Crooks, Bowden, Green, Hadley, Shaul, Thompson, okay whatever, Genetle had to utilise what we had, he played youngsters all over the park through necessity, we got to the play-offs and a CC final with two shocking injury strewn seasons with a new coach or did you forget just how many players that came through under Gentle?

Gentle had only the beginnings of the new academy system, Radford has now had what 5/6 years worth of Pearson investment in the academy and yet no players have come through since he took taken charge, that's a fact and due to his lack of bringing players through and the academy not producing players good enough (the list of players leaving is growing ever longer due to being discarded by Radford).

I'm not saying the loss is the be all and end all for this season, I've not over=reacted but what Kirk Dixon said on RH is spot on, many on here can see the wide gap between our youngsters and the first XVII selections otherwise those very posters wouldn't be stating that we lost X,Y,Z, we didn't lose them, we still had 17 players, we just didn't have players with enough quality/experience on show. Compare to how well Cas and Wigan have done of late with masses of injuries our showings have being well below that.

Will those youngsters get better, hopefully, will they become part of the XVII on a regular basis, who knows but so far Radford hasn't brought anyone through in over 3 years to do so, unlike the coach before him.

Is this a crisis, no, we've lost 2 and drawn one, however if we cannot change what we are doing on the field to cover for injured/missing players and behind the scenes to change the mentality of the players and improve on the discipline and error strewn rugby we have witnessed so far this season then it's not ideal is it?

One season success that is bought at the cost of success further down the line is very bittersweet, I just hope that isn't the case.

Maybe the players "discarded" had a bad attitude?

Maybe not even that good. Rovers unofficial forum discussing sending us down in the MPG. TBH if that's the price for Wembley last year I'd still take it.