State Of The Club

It's amazing what a bit of bad form will do. 5 games in and the club could do no wrong.

We don't need a "major shake up of the board," we are a Grade A club, but because the players are making errors and not playing well the "board is a joke".

The fact that they won't spend money is a myth, in recent years we've seen them sign Crocker, Berrigan, Dykes, Sing, Blacklock, Swain, Smith, Barnett, Kearney. All of them are/were on massive wages. However the money isn't necessarily spent in the right areas, it's clear that need a top 7 and although Crocker is a great player he was a luxary purchase and the money spent on him would have been far better spent there. However, surely it's the coaches job to identify the targets and then the board go and see what they can do?

As for on field, there's a lot of talent out there, but for some reason they just aren't firing. We've seen what Thorman is capable of against Bradford, but at the moment he is just going through the motions, he doesn't attack the line and when he gets the ball he just gives it straight to the next man, or if close to the line, puts in a poor kick straight to the fullback, is it the coach that tells him to kick all of the time or is he doing it because he doesn't think he's capable of doing anyhting with the ball in his hands?

We have a pack that tries hard, but with the exception of Manu we don't have anyone who can consistantly bend the line and put us on the front foot, but thats fine, theres plenty of teams who have packs like this, however these teams don't try to play straight down the middle like we do. Look at Castelford for example, they don't have a pack that can particularly boss a game, but instead they look to get out of dummy half quickly and get the ball wide, and they have a lot of success from it. We just go straight down the middle and get bitched time and again. We need to change our game plan to suit. Another thing I noticed all last season and it's creeping in again is how poor our line speed is. Even if you're not the biggest there is no excuse for not being the most enthusiastic, we need to get off the line quickly and stop giving the opposition 10 metres before they reach our line.

I think alot of the things I've mentioned are down to confidence. We weren't blowing teams away early on but we were comfortable, and then we came up against Castleford and it was a game that we probably didn't deserve to lose and so to have the game snatched away from us as it was really hurt the players imo, it was like a throwback to last season, and today the side really looked as though it was lacking in confidence. We just need to find a win somewhere and we will do okay. We are certainly good enough to make the playoffs. I fancy our chances on Friday tbh, but I just hope the players react well to todays disappointment and that they want to put things right, I hope today hasn't hurt their confidence even further.