Didnt Brian Smith say the best form of attack is defence.Agree about last points...would love to see more dummy runners and support play though...Watts can get his hands free but no bugger there.

Excellent post.

Think it's a tad harsh to say that Miller has been gash. And Yeaman has had more chances to play while in bad form than any other player at the club.

Having said that, I'd like to see us try a different HB combo in the first playoff game. The problem is with our injuries. If Horne comes in for one of the halves, who plays centre? If we shift Whiting there it weakens the pack and I can't think of any other candidates off the top of my head.

I might be wrong, thought it was 'attacking defence;, where the defence attacked & smashed the ball carrier.

I remember when Phil Windley couldnt pass to the right, Smithy put a truck tyre in his garden,and attached the tyre to a tree,

He said,Practice passing ,until the ball goes through the tyre. -so he practiced ,until he perfected it.
Lee Jackson played under a few coaches,said he Smith was the best coach,he's played under.

Totally agree with this, our pack is poor and lacks any impact what so ever since Moa left. The offloading from the tackle seems somewhat impossible for most of our squad, I would hazard a guess that Whiting has offloaded more than the rest of the team put together. IMO , offloading the ball is an essential part of the game, it creates momentum, and while I appreciate you can't offload all the time, well we just go set upon set and don't do it once. Are the players being told not to offload, or is it they don't have the skill factor to do it?

Know what you mean about centre unless we can get one back.Maybe gash is the wrong word...trying too hard to impress but dont think he has been helped by Holdsworth going missing...think Miller/Horne would be good combo.

Just out of interest I've just had a look at the stats, our top 10 for offloads are
Whiting 33
Westerman 28
Lynch 21
Briscoe 20
O'Meley 18
Watts 18
B Crooks 17
Houghton 14
Yeaman 12
Tickle 12

Think Miller and Horne would be a good partnership ball in hand, but we'd be back lacking a good long-range kicking game. Although both Azza and Houghton aren't too bad in that department. Worth a try IMO if we can get a centre back.

id sooner have our halfs creating and taking the line on than worry about a long kicking game.

I'm not necessarily defending Holdsworth here but without him we wouldn't have got to Wembley. The 18th man played its very best game this year at the same time Holdsworth won MOM. He has become the uber scape goat and his inconsistent performances probably merit that to a degree. Personally I think his head injury has reduced him as a half.

Incidentally I think the 18th man is rapidly becoming one of our worst performers.

I would agrea on that last night aside from 5 minutes after half time

Good post. Pretty much how I feel about things.

I could go with all of that if we had some structure in our play but we're a disorganised rabble with poor basic skills, poor backing up and a distinct lack of dummy runners.

brian smith was way ahead of his time when he was at hull. (remember the crows nest in the best stand so he could get a better view of the play?) nowadays others have caught up obviously.

to widen the debate a bit should the club bring in a couple of new assistants to help him? especially on the attacking stuff, working with individuals on technical stuff, specialities etc. andy hay left and nobody really replaced him

Part of me would like to see Gentle given next season but I also wouldn't be disappointed if Pearson made the decision to get rid now. I'm torn as I really I like the improvements we've shown defensively, although how much credit does Radford get for that? Also Gentle has not been afraid to give young players a shot and we've seen the benefit of this with some of the players that have come through and our now seen as first teamers.

The problem is simply our attack, it hasn't improved in the slightest, we still lack structure and any real kind of gameplan. Our forward don't offload, we still don't support enough and we still don't have consistent dummy runners as part of our attacking structure. We still don't get the ball wide often enough and players in the main seem quite dumb when it comes to making decisions.

I also don't think he has done enough to improve the established players games. Yeaman has shown no improvement and Watts has gone backwards. This maybe the players but I don't see his influence and players showing enough if any improvement.

Also his recruitment has been patchy and this idea of a smaller mobile pack has really backfired. Every team needs some size especially in the forwards, it's a must.

I can remember 3 league games where I have been genuinely pleased and impressed and entertained with our performance. Wire away, Wigan at home and Leeds for an hour. The rest has been fairly miserable and over a season it's just not good enough.

Downside to a new coach is how long it takes to get his team, if the rumours are right and Radford is in line for the job then that transition might be a bit easier.

Either way for me we've not improved this season, we've actually gone backwards and I don't see AP accepting that.