I hope Cullen has him on play the ball practice all week this week. We lost count of the number of times he got away with just rolling the ball between his legs before he got penalised. The guys discipline is utterly slack.

His running is also shocking at the minute, im amazed as he's built like a brick house but collapses just before getting tackled. He's a shadow of the player we use to have and makes you wonder what on earth he did at his time at Leigh.


Come back the real Lee Doran!

Paterson and Banister are both playing for the reserves against Keighley tomorrow so competition is now hotting up.

Just to add a bit of balance to the Doran debate, he wasn't running in full pelt last night and half the time he ran in sideways on, but a lot of the time he was looking around for support players and wasn't really ever backed up.
I guess he and the coach know he is going to attract at least two tacklers but he wasn't helped last night.

Still a bit sloppy with the pens... I think we timed his first at 28 mins so he is getting better.

Lee Doran played well for Leigh last season. Interesting isn't it. Mark Roberts was very average for Leigh last season, but is doing very well for Halifax this year. He is commanding a pretty regular first team spot at Fax this season, whereas he would never have done that at Leigh. It is funny how certain players seem to play well for certain teams. I have read various Widnes comments on here prior to the Leigh match and they seemed to be saying that they felt Kohe Love and Doran were the difference between the two teams last year. Doran had good games against Widnes for Leigh last season. Maybe he is not as settled or happy at Widnes for some reason. Who knows? These things are sometimes hard to explain. There are about five ex-Leythers in the first team at Fax, who when I saw them play for Leigh were average, but now they are thriving. I keep reading that Leigh must have done something to Lee Doran. I cannot agree with this. I can assure you, that overall he played well for them last season.

his commitment just isnt thee at times
he doesnt do half the work that the other forwards do
flynn and gaskel must take it at least twice the amount of runs that he does
also thackery is being to get on my nerves
on during the first 20 mins of the second half i found myself constatly shouting pass the ball which got louder every single time he decided to take on the defence
paterson hopefully back to first team in a couple of weeks and get thackery out

If Thackeray had runners he's pass the ball, simple as that. The idiots that give Webster and Thackeray a hard time cannot open their eyes and see that the runners and dummer runners out wide are non-existant.

Thackeray has been one of our better players for the last 3 games and always tries to create something, there's only one player in our squad that won't pass the ball and it's not Thack.

Do you watch a different game to the rest of us?

and who is this player?
also whos fault is it that he has no runners?
the coaching staff of course

Wildbore, it's plain for anyone with a brain to see that.

The coaching staff is incorporating dummy runners into our game, if you went to Doncaster we had them all first half, and in spells against Batley in the first half. Alot more than McCormack's team did.

You seem to think there's a magic wand and world class plays just happen, we can't all play like Saints you know. I can see a steady improvement on the poor set plays (or lack of them) we had under McCoramack, it is currently April and the season runs til September, we have plenty of time to continue to improve, which I think we will. Remember the year Cas went up we ran amock for the first half of the season, just like Fax are at the moment.

i was pretty positive u was talking about wildbore
i agree we are improving
come the summer we could be playing alot better
thats when our status as full time will really shine through

Just a suggestion but maybe Doran just isn't as good as what people thought? In 2007 we were pretty dominant for a large part of that season and I'm sure it was a lot easier to play (and look good) in that team than it is in this one.

If I remember correctly Doran was going through a bit of a dodgy period just before we signed Tomkins, but then had his best game for a while and I think he scored a hat-trick. I think everyone had fond memories of Doran because he was then unfairly dropped in favour of Tomkins but it still doesn't change the fact that he wasn't always great for us last time round.

Not saying that is right - just thinking out loud.

tbh mate i'd be very dissapointed if we dont improve yet still far to much dropped ball and misplaced passes for my liking

i must admit i expected to see more from lee doranm he is such a huge player this year he has bulked up alot and he needs to go into challenges more heavily and play the ball right.

although i am not deluding myself into thinking that we( fax) are going to remain unbeaten all season cause i know there will come a time in the season we play bad and we come up against a side that beats us. i really cant see us losing that many though especially with arguably 2 of the most difficult away games in the league against whitehaven and barrow already gone past with maximum points.

Agreed Thacks & webster often don't have runners but on Friday we blew at least 3 over lap chances by them dummying or giving the short ball to Doran (most often)!

Doddy was flipping every set as he had space and a wingman at his side yet the ball never came! When we go wide we seam to score enough so why don't we do it more often? 6 dummies - try aint too good a ratio considering the overlap is an almost certain score!