You think not replacing raynor is more of a gamble than pinning our hopes on a 34 year old playmeker?

How many passes have our wingers had this season? We could have offiah in his pomp on the wing and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference

Not quite. Our first choice back line is Calderwood, Yeaman (who was outstanding in 2006 but has not delivered as a class SL centre since), Hall/Whiting (undoubtedly Whiting has proven his worth and been borderline MOM playing all over the place, but you couldn't say he was a class SL centre pre season) and Tom Briscoe, a 19 year old centre on the wing.

Going into the season and assuming everyone was fit, that's not a proven quality SL back line in the same way that Donald, Senior, Delaney, Hall are, for instance. Long on the other hand is proven quality but the gamble was on his fitness, not his ability. Which is different IMO.

Agree. On the surface of it we seemed covered with Calderwood strong as fan's Player of the Season last year; Lyne & Tuffour coming through; Hall, Yeamo, Turner, Briscoe and Whiting leaving us with a centre debate... we were flush!

Just shows that an injury or 2 in the wrong positions leaves you horribly exposed when your back-up plan are inexperienced or not in their recognised positions. Was fine while Raynor was still here, but as soon as he'd went it was suicide not to replace him with another established back.

But no money left for a new one. Should we sacrifice another player to free up space?

3 of those have played for GB/England, one of the others has been our most consistent 3/4 this season and the other is probably the best attacking player we have at the club. The issue really is they never get any decent ball.

The leeds, wigan and wire 3/4's would look shat with our gameplan

If you look at the timeline posted elsewhere, events pretty much prevented Raynor being replaced this season. I guess also that since Briscoe had played well enough on the wing last season to earn an England call-up the club felt they had a plan B that would work. And TBH apart from his problems with the high ball Briscoe hasn't done a lot wrong - he just hasn't had a decent pass. Neither has whoever happens to be playing on the right wing.

I agree with JTP on this. Our biggest problem with our outside backs is the poor quality ball they get, when they get any at all. On the rare occasion we manage to get them something to work with they score tries.

Suicide? In what way? What games have we lost that we would have won with Raynor in the side?

Exactly! Finally, somebody seeing what I've been seeing!

AND HE CANT GET A START BECAUSE????
he is classed as a squad cheaper filler upper!!! not a starter

The backs this season would be sufficient if they included Raynor. The season so far has shown that without him we have to play people out of position - exacerbated more as soon as Calders was out. We would be coping much better with Calder's absence if we could rely on Raynor being on the other wing.

But I think that with Raynor gone (and I know you've explained the timings of the circumstances that led to this) with a month to the start of the season the other options in terms of experience and stability looked flimsy. And has proved so.

I think we would have looked less exposed at Wigan, could have won at Salford and would definitely have won at Crusaders if Raynor was playing. We'd still have lost on Monday though

Maybe Hull could not have helped the way things panned out with Raynor in the end, but I still think they should have grasped the bull by the horns earlier knowing the seriousness of the charges against him.

We have a few set plays that we seem to run over and over again, I think a lot of the blame is that we're slow and predictable with very poor execution of these plays, after all I've seen other teams run the very same plays and they've been carried out with aplomb.

See the hall try from the scrum against (admittedly poor) quins for a good example

Who are you going to pick on next week seeing as we're now onto the loose forward position?

You've burnt more players than Humphrey Bogart.

I said all along that however good a player Long is he was never going to be the magical solution to the huge problem we have had over the past few seasons with getting our outside backs on the ball, we needed a 7 to improve our kicking game and direct us around the field, but just as important was signing a player with real ball handling ability, in whatever position it could be incorperated, this didnt happen in my opinion, and still having Raynor or a replacement of suitable quality would have not made a difference.

[icough[/i coach [icough[/i

I think he has to take a large proportion of the blame to a degree, not necessarily for the poor execution, but for the personnel he has involved in these plays: The early passes are crucial to getting an edge time and space wise and this is where we fail miserably.