sounds like Sandercock

]

A first team player told me that he thinks Radord is a " I'm unsure if radford is naive or arrogant. He has yet to shoulder any blame for our losses but has been keen to blame players and even the fans'"

He has previous for having digs about the fans. I remember an away game at Castleford on sky when he was captain at the time. He was interviewed on the pitch at the end of the game and when asked about "the fantastic away support" his response was that we are great when were winning but not so good when were losing.

Now that may well be true but its not something the captain of the club should be saying when a few thousand of them have just travelled to an away game to support him and the team. He may not like the media game but he has to be willing to play it sometimes.

The fans I covered above but I would say the players are mainly to blame for our losses. I also blame them for being nilled at Wembley and embarrassing the club beyond anything imaginable just 12 games ago.

It doesn't work in modern sport anymore. You have to take the route of inspiring everyone from the cleaner to club captain to wanting to achieve to their absolute potential by creating a atmosphere of group pride.

I like his honesty. Players have been looked after for years by previous coaches.
Don't buy into this man management thing either. He's obviously got something about him in that department. Was managing men at local level yearsago when still not much more than a kid
People saying crooks getting rough ride and radFord killing his confidence. Not really sure what else he could of done with him, he's had more time and dealing with crooks than any coach from doing the academy and now. Cooks can only ultimately help himself.
Unless it gets dramatically worse he'll get this year and into next. Until he can get in what he wants to do what he asks then rightly so. A basic solid 7 would of got us home on Sunday!
Everyone after this kind of game tears down and slates every thing and every1 but this team halves aside is decent. Backs at full strength when Sa arrives are good, really good. Forwards at full tilt are a great and balanced unit of size power impact and nous. I've always refused to believe the sun shines from Houghtons back side but now think it's gone too far the other way. He's got limitations but still more an asset than a hindrance.
For me the whole problem revolves around the halves.
If we had Walsh for example we win Sunday, win against widnes,probably beat rovers and beat Salford and probably still in the cup.
Squad needs a quality half then just some tweaks. Too much average players on too much money. A more experienced coach may eek out a little more from the same group but will still end up coming unstuck without the tools. Look at wire. As perfect an example i can think of!!

Another thing ive noticed about FC going forward is that, when we drive it in, we only have one player going forward, making it easy for the defence to put 3-4 players into the tackle, which means winning the collision and turning the player on his back, resulting in a slower play the ball.

Send 2 players running forward, the defence has to think, is player 'A' driving it in or passing it off to player 'B' etc, so the defence only putting 2 in the tackle, making it easier to win the collision and staying on his front resulting in quicker play the ball, which is when we play well.

Exactly.

That does sound like bad man management to me. I'm sure some players will respond well to being bawled out but not all of them will and different approaches need to be taken. I know I personally have always responded better to a quiet word in my ear rather than been pulled up in front of everyone and criticised.

Of course man management is an issue in sport as in any other business. This is 2014, not 1974. Maybe the coach should try a different approach for different players rather than this blunt one size fits all approach which obviously doesn't work?

Interesting how people see things differently. Whilst I find Radford's honesty in the media about the players refreshing some of his other media talk leaves a lot to be desired. I can only base the man management talk on what the player has said to Diogenes but simply shouting and bawling at the players is not good man management in my eyes. There needs to be more to it. If that approach has destroyed Crook's confidence then it shows that he needed to be handled in a different manner. Crooks obviously knows there's areas of his game he needs to improve on but it's down to our coach and the coaching staff to help him improve. It's not just down to the players alone.

It's far too easy to say that we only need a 7 to improve the team and then just make a couple of tweaks. A 7 would improve the team without a shadow of a doubt but I think there's still plenty of other areas in the squad that are questionable and need improving to go along with that 7.

He knows this. Was after the Castleford game I think. Said himself the jobs mostly about managing men. Said he knows the players who need a rocket and those that need an arm around them! Was a good interview and impressed me. Working with some of these players he probably knows that neither works and that they need replacing.
Which is why i think he'll get the chance to bring in the players he wants to be able to do the things he asks.

I guess that ultimately the players are always responsible for their performances but surely it goes beyond that? 2 coaches could get completely different performances from the same players so the coach has to have an influence. I'd say the better the coach the greater the influence so if radford is having little influence either way then maybe that says a lot about his coaching capabilities.

If he is bawling players out in front of others it confirms one of my concerns about him pre season

And one coach can get two completely different performances from the same players. Does he tell them to play cr@p one week and really go for it the next ? Or even tell them to go 16-0 up then chuck it all before the end of the game?

Of course the coach has influence but many on here want Tony Smith who was relegated with a poor Hudds side, did great work with Leeds and to start with Wire but is suffering this season because he's lost some serious talent particularly his general. Brian Mac didn't pull any trees up at London but is the main man now. I wonder what the difference there was ? Maybe he couldn't 'influence' his London players.

1 shaul
2 lineham
3 crooks
4 Sa
5 talonoa

This is as good as most teams barring Leeds
The forwards are pretty up there too with lots of youth in it with plenty of improvement in them.
Think tweaks along with some young players to come through and hopefully make the grade then we'll not be far off a good team pretty soon. But a 7 a good 1 ties it altogether. At the very least two average 'organising' halves. We've a runner in rankin and Miller doesn't really appear to be either without a particularly good kicking game between them. That leaves Horne but he's short term and always likely to miss games.