Your world is obviously black and white any you can only see improvement. I see some improvement but also some worrying stagnation.

Interesting choices of measures of improvement.

Best cup run since 2008. You mean we've managed to finally beat a SL side? Wakey at home is hardly a measure of success

Competitive with the top 4 sides? Lose on sunday and we'll probably take 4 points from a potential 16 - hardly competitive IMO.

Capture of gareth ellis - We made him the best financial offer of any of the teams he would have considered signing for

Massive improvement in defensive structure? Yet we've shipped nearly 90 points in 3 games, including 2 against sides outside the top 8. Almost agaresque

Like I said, there have been improvements but your claim that everything under gentle's control has improved is dog shiit as I said

I'm "moaning" about the lack of consistency and seeming inability to get the best out of his players regularly. If he'd won a couple of SL titles or the odd challenge cup or 3 I'd maybe consider it a blip but for me the blips seem to be the good performances, not the average or poor ones. We're not a top 4 team, but then neither should we be a 7th or 8th IMO.

But you're talking as though the seasons over, there's still a very good chance that we'll finish 5th.

Personally, i that happens i will question what is going on, especially considering that by this time last year we gone from having McKinnon at FB with Horne and Seymour in the halves to Horne at FB Heremaia playing in the halves for most of the time due to limited options and bringing McGoldgrick in to the team to end up partnering in the halves after Gentle tried him at FB. add getting rid of others and bringing others in it was a bit of an unsettled squad and still getting a home play off game, winning well (yes Huddersield were poor by this time but the manner of the performance was uneniable) gave a decent showing at Wire.

This year, although we have had injuries to key players its what you would call a settled squad compared to last year and looking at us, without sounding big headed, we are a play off team but we still got to earn that place and if we don't i will be very disappointed and not making the play offs would be taking a big step backwards

Whether or not you think i have 'Black and White' tinited spectacles you can be judge of that but this is my thoughts, I did stay to the end of the game but as soon as the hooter went i was out of there, unlike other games like Wigan where i felt the team earned the applause of the fans

There's a small chance if we see a drastic improvement in our form

I have to agree. Considering we'd have to win all but one of our remaining games to improve on last year's points total, I think our chances of finishing fifth are quite slim. It's still possible, but a lot of improvement is needed.

Have we though?

How many half back combinations have we used this season? And how often have we had a settled pack? While this doesn't excuse in any way the poor performances over the last 3 games it does go some way to explaining the lack of consistency over the whole season.

I think 30 points will be good enough for fifth, so we need to win 5 from 7. Also our points difference is better than the two teams above us.
I just don't see the need for the negativity, there's no doubt we've made it more difficult for ourselves than it needed to be, but it's hardly time to write the season off (not you specifically).

Even if you're right and 30 points is enough, when you consider that our win ratio under Gentle is around 50%, it's more likely that we'll win 3 or 4 of the remaining 7 games.



Well, I'm in between the two positions. I don't think the season is necessarily over, but I think it's overly optimistic to say we have a 'very good' chance of finishing 5th.

I meant the squad in general, we got to squad number 40 last season, getting players in mid season and moving players about to find something that works whilst getting players up to speed on the way we play. this year we have had 1 player leave having played twice and 1 come in and we are in pretty much the same position.

The halves, granted there have been several combinations but Richard Horne has been there for the most part of the season, done well, is missed, but was settled in that position. He can't do it all on his own but he was the difference in a lot of games.

The pack has been rotated but surley this what we should do with our squad, have experience like O'Meley, Lynch, Ellis, Whiting to go along with the younger guys like Hadley, Johnson, Bowden, Green. Balance it out by giving the younger guys experience and a chance to improve in the team whilst the old guard should lead the way. the change in players in the pack should in no way effect us trying to get on top of the opposition and making good meters

I like Gentle and want him to succeed but if for instance we didn't make the playoffs with this squad of players it would be a huge failure on his part. One slight glimmer of hope is that as badly as we've played in the last 2 games we could, and arguably should, have still won them.

Injuries or not part of the problem for me is chopping and changing. Left side for example after yrs of stability is different one week to the next-injuries played a part-but still been changed a lot. I'd like to tear through the team and change it up ideally this week but think we should pretty much stick, give a chance to build fluidity going into the cup game.

Anything less than 6th would be a failure, as far as I'm concerned.

So after countless pages on a thread bemoaning Yeaman's untouchable status on the left, he's finally dropped, now we shouldn't have messed around with that side?

We've used seven starting half back combinations so far this year (we used four in the first five games):

Holdsworth-Seymour (one game)
Holdsworth-Horne (eight)
Horne-Heremaia (seven)
Horne-Seymour (one)
Westerman-Horne (one)
Holdsworth-Heremaia (two)
Holdsworth-Miller (two)

Number eight coming up on Sunday.