I think if people look at the win-loss record and nothing else, then they won't see the full picture. Look at the scores we've lost by. We've always been with two scores of winning every game, and we've played some of the hardest away games already. We aren't far off. Radford has got something right to keep all the games as close as he has (something Gentle failed to do).

Radford's biggest issue so far appears to be how quickly he will change the team if someone under-performs. Maybe it seems a bad short term solution to some, but it may have long term positive effects for all we know (players actually realising they need to put it all in the pitch every game). He needs time and support, and so far I think he deserves as much.

Couldn't agree more, exactly what I said in earlier post on a different thread. As for the "knee jerkers", what do we expect it was Rovers at KC Lightstream for god sake. We lost by 1 point to a team that had just beat Warrington away, these whining FC fans really need to get a grip. Leave Rankin and Miller at half back!!!!!

I shall also say great post. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Excellent! Great minds think alike

I think marrow makes some good points but we don't have the luxury of a year or two giving young players a chance in key positions to see if they're actually good enough. What if we play rankin and miller every week and end up finishing 11th? Is that acceptable for the club? What if we do that then persevere next season and realise they're just never going to make it but by that time we've finished out of the 8 and then have a battle on to retain our SL status for the year after?

My view is that 1 inexperienced half is enough for any team to risk a season on but 2 is really asking for trouble

At the risk of repeating yourself for the umpteenth time???????
To quote pmarrow's opening gambit " Where is this fabled half back?" or the famous coach you're always espousing about?

Always espousing about? I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.

I don't know where the half back is, in Australia probably but I don't have the time or the contacts to find him but I'd hope someone at the club would.

What's your answer then? Go with rankin and miller irrespective of results until we're either world champions or languishing in the national leagues?

Both may well go on to be good quality players but can we as a club sit around waiting to find out? I don't think so and I don't think the club do either, hence their attempts to offload miller

The pack alone should be more than good enough to see us make the top 8. Give the half backs time to gel.

Results to date would tend to blow that one out of the water. Already 5 points down on the same games last season with widnes, cas and salford all in with a chance of the 8 (and all 3 beaten us already this year)

I agree with Jake, Two rookies is way too much so we have to go with experience and that means Horne who atm is a better player than both Miller and Rankin

Still don't get why Horne gets the bagging he does. Granted hes not as creative as someone like Chase but hes a good solid half back who needs a creator next to him, who that is who knows but for me I don't think it will ever be Miller or Rankin

With regards the thread title though im still open to Radford as I think we have shown improvements. What would help him though is an experienced assistant. Id love to see Kear back here or even Noble if he'd take the step down in order to nurture Radford. As it is the whole coaching setup is too green and that needs changing for us to move forward

People seem to be working on the assumption that if we persevere with miller and rankin for long enough they'll come good which is by no means guaranteed

We are where we are because of our past failings. We have tried the short term quick fix patching up with so called experienced players, Holdsworth, Seymour, Long, etc. and they failed.

If we can beat teams like Huddersfield with this inexperienced half back pairing, then I think we will do ‘ok’ at the least.
We don’t have the so called ‘luxury’ to do much else at this time.

If we keep killing off players, then who is going to want to come to us?

There's two issues here and has been for some time. Marrow has summed up perfectly the current position and essentially what the coach has to work with. The other issue is recruitment and retention. It's been poor for years and we can't put that at Radford's door. We've been looking for a scrum half for years , we knew that Tickle was going for ages and needed a goal kicker , we somehow allowed Briscoe to leave , we allowed Manu to go and even Turner hasn't been replaced by a better player. We were told that there were no halves available yet Saints knowing they have good but inexperienced halves just go out and get Walsh who also kicks goals. I think that McRae and our reputation from the previous regime did us a huge amount of damage and we ended up signing far too many players who were/are not good enough or past it and couldn't go anywhere else rather than what we needed. There's still an element of that as seen from the type of signings we've made where they can be said to be inspirational - Feka , Talanoa , etc or desperate depending on your point of view. AP and Radders have got to keep looking for the player that can manage the game on the field and in general for players to replace some of our aging forwards and Horne , Yeaman , Hazza , etc. To expect these to simply come from within our junior ranks is living in a dreamworld. Certainly develop our own but it's got to be I conjunction with a much better recruitment regime than we've had for many years. In the meantime we've got to get the best out of the guys we have and frankly we shouldn't expect miracles.

No point beating teams like huddersfield if you then lose to teams like rovers and salford.