Quote: Jake the Peg "People are being too harsh on chester IMO. Does anyone have any evidence that he's the one who has chosen the players and squad make up? Did he hand out big contracts to kelly and campese? Was he the one who green lighted tilse last season?
Didn't rob crossland come out and say the other day you've purposely chosen younger, lighter forwards as you're making plans for reduced interchanges - wasn't that when he criticised the Hull pack for being too big? Seems to be a club policy to me and not down solely to chester. How much input have hudge, crossland, smith and peacock had in recruitment and retention?
Last season he got you to wembley and you were only 2 points off the top 8 despite a bad injury run including losing your best player for most of the season. You also went undefeated through the middle 8's.
What do people realistically expect? You're one of the smaller clubs in SL (in income/attendance terms) and have very few quality young players who have come through your academy meaning you've had to backfill from elsewhere. You're probably punching at your weight in real terms around 7th to 11th and there's only really cas who have bucked the trend to some extent although they're still spending at the cap.
As for your overseas signings, campese, sio and kelly are top quality players even if 2 are injury prone - you sometimes have to take a chance on these players which can blow up in your face but it's hardly chester's fault.
These things often seem worse when the team across the city are doing better. I'd say if it hadn't been for the derby friendly bumming and the fact we've started like a house on fire then most rovers fans would have been happy with a point from your first 2 games. I've no doubt you'll beat a woeful wakefield side on sunday and think you have a decent shout against saints as long as you don;t pick up any more injuries.
Can your club even afford to sack chester and can they afford the salary for these coaches on everyone's shopping list?'"
Pure crap and some of it a bit patronising, especially the smaller club analogy.
Hull KR is a team. RL is a team game. As a team, Hull KR is misfiring and underperforming in its current iteration and somebody has to carry the can.
Rewind 12 months.
Last season, we beat you in preseason and we beat you at yours. We never won away from home again in SL. We beat some other top 4 sides at home. We won 3 on the bounce over Easter and then it all dissolved to rats**t. At the same time the suicidal lemmings on the dark side of the chocolate divide were screaming for Radford's head. Then fortunes went in reverse. A team that could defend, suddenly found some cohesion in attack. A team that couldn't defend but could attack, lost its playmaker and on field game manager. The rest is history. We were consistently inconsistent in line with previous seasons.
So we got to Wembley but got hammered by a record score. We missed out on our target of the top 8. You beat us at Newcastle and at ours.
Fast forward to 2016. You fix up your 2015 weaknesses in the off-season by recruiting players who can compliment the talent you already had and take your performances up another level.
We fix our 2015 weaknesses and legacy by - failing to sign a half to play alongside Kelly and to provide cover for Campo and Kelly; failing to address our pack weakness and size especially in the back row; failing to sign a specialist fullback; failing to practice core defensive structures in preseason according to stand-in captain Graeme Horne; failing to increase the size of our squad and by the look of it, failing to practice offence.
There is a talent pool out there and we understand from our directors that it was our coach's responsibility solely last year to tap into it. This year he has had input in that regard from JP.
So as we see it, it is Chezzies team for better or for worse, hands tied behind his back or not. As fans, we expect an improvement and yes the more sanguine and realistic members of our fan base, myself included, would not act to get rid of him at this exact moment in time. That said, we do wonder if this current team has the capability to react. Despite the point against Cas, the team is performing at the level of skill and intensity of the middle 8s and worse than at this time last year. Things have to change to avoid a repeat of last year. Personally, I don't see it happening without a major shakeup, starting with the coaching set up.
