One thing that has disappointed me about the last few years (particularly Sandercocks reign) is that we haven't improved players such as Omari Caro and Dixon. They both had/have potential.

Scoring tries at Brat-fud, would love him to get back into SL, could and hopefully will happen.

I just don't understand why people who watch the sport gain glee from players struggling, actually, I do.

It's because they themselves never even got a chance to give it a go, they were the third pick on the school playground, and on the off chance they got a go, they were the kid who threw the ball on the ground as soon as anybody looked like they might tackle them.

And then they accuse the like of Caro and Dixon of having no steel.

Well said Sandro

Leaving aside all the facial, head and body stitches and displaced patella from my Rugby playing days plus the numerous finger fractures, dislocations, impact scar tissue I got during 25 plus years of playing League Cricket, often fielding at short leg or silly mid off without helmet or shin pads, I won't take your none too subtle side swipe too personally, Goose.

I have championed Dixon in the past, but he values his looks too much imo. No improvement being shown and too often a liability, so he needs to go. Sorry.

But then I understand you less.

I apologise for calling your opinions into question through lack of experience, but I do not apologise for you calling people you have not played with or a game you have not played cowards.

The game is different now, and not for me, always in a good way. I think player welfare is of a horribly low standard.

When we got into SL, I remember thinking the collision was fierce. Much more than when I had played the game to a much lesser level several years earlier. It had moved on since then.

Dixon I estimate to be about twelve and a half stone, everytime he plays and takes an exit set ball he is met by about fifty (at a conservative estimate) stone of force.

Is that cowardly?

3
Not cowardly using your above analogy. You make a fair point overall, but I still think he tends to bottle certain types of contact as a means of self preservation and his defensive positioning and reads are poor and at best arbitrary. I don't think many would disagree with that.

It's not an analogy, it's the game.

I find it stunning that you purport to have done something and then question anothers commitment.

Poor defensive reads and plays do not equate to cowardice.

Last week at Leeds, Dixon, in a very cowardly fashion ran down two line breaks.

I think is big problem is he does not concentrate enough and when i say problem it seems to be one that will not go away, he will be like it all the time one minute he is switched on the next he is not

So 12 stone being met by 50 stone is not an analogy then, but Goose logic.

Read my last post again, especially the bit about him bottling certain types of contact as a means of self preservation and I think that fits the overall context of our discussion better than the adverse defensive reads or positioning you have lifted for the above.

FWIW, as a mortal I was guilty of missing loads of tackles playing regular and occasional rugby until the age of 24. Unlike Dixon, I was unpaid, strictly amateur, had limited coaching and was average at best, but looking back I think I was more committed and aggressive defensively.

Perspective is needed here. He is a professional sportsman for our team in arguably the toughest physical sport in the world. He came here and wanted to be fullback and we indulged him. Flashes of brilliance, coupled with embarrassing and very costly errors. Wembley proved his Waterloo in this pivotal position. For me, he needed to show more defensively aggressive intent from the get go, run his red and white blood to water and bely his small stature in defence like John Boudebza currently and Roger Millward historically.

In my view only, I now regard his time in A Rovers shirt as a litany of silly errors and persistent defensive frailties, interspersed with the odd flash of magic brilliance. He is a liability and an asset in equal measure. When you don't know which Dixon will turn up from one game to the next, he is a risk too far for me in what may possibly be an uncomfortable dogfight in the middle 8s come season end.

Would you class Sam Tomkins in the same mould? He too dodges the odd high ball, he's pretty rubbish in defence and avoids direct contact by dodging elusively with ball in hand.

I'm being a bit contrary in the above statement as I do agree Dixon looks a worse player this year than he did in his spell at FB last year. But in essence Tomkins is an attacking FB in a very similar manner (admittedly he's better at it), great going forward, gash in defence and scared of the bomb.

At this moment in time I wouldn't pick Dixon, which is a 180 turn around from my earlier viewpoints but he looks a bit shot to me, not cowardly just lacking the confidence he once had.

I always thought Dixon throws himself into tackles never bottles it and isn't scared of catching a high ball the problem is he does drop a few and gets steamrolled in the tackle because of his size but I've watched him chase down a few players for try saving tackles and on the flip side we had caro who had the size that Dixon didn't but was half the player plus the nightmare he had at Wembley he kept looking for the ball he didn't hide and IMO deserves credit for that

I think you have hit the nail on the head there Barham. Dixon is the very definition of a confidence player and at this moment in time his confidence is shot to pieces. In your comparison with Tompkins I can see where you are coming from, but for every error that Tompkins makes I would guess that he would make 3 times as many good plays resulting in tries or his team winning the match. I would say that Dixon is completely the other way round and for each good thing that he does he costs us three tries at the other end of the field.

For me I think Dixon needs to learn how to relax and to play under pressure, he tries to do everything at 100 miles an hour when he makes a mistake he often tends to try too hard and then compounds this with error upon error. He needs to learn from his mistakes, good players learn from their mistakes and correct them and reduce or eliminate the errors.

I said in the pub at Wembley before the game that we needed to play Dixon rather than Cockayne because he could win you the match and I also said that he could lose us the match, as it turned out the latter was true and he had a shocker. You can see at this moment in time why Chester (whose job was on the line) and Poching (who was trying to create an impression ) didn’t pick him early in the season.

For me I would not bin him. I would take him out and put Oakes in for the next two games to give him experience. I would then take Oakes back out because I think that young player like him needs nurturing, he can the go back to the academy and put it to practice the skill he has learnt by player for the first team. I would then give Dixon a game to prove himself with the added incentive of additional games if he performs. I would keep rotating Dixon and Oakes this way, that way it gives both and incentive to play and takes each one out of the firing line from time to time.

Dixon needs to work on the flaws in his game. I would still however use him in the Middle 8s especially against the championship teams where his speed and footwork would be deadly and hopefully by then he will be a more confident player.

Tomkins has also played in a far better team than us, this makes a massive difference, Dixon makes an error for us and its a try, in a better team they defend it and it goes without incident.

With Dixon, it might be a balance between over confidence and lack of confidence that is affecting him at the moment, with the former delivering style and substance interspersed with needless risk and the latter dishing up errors, positional issues and defensive lapses.

I see small similarities between Dixon and Sam Tompkins but I suspect the latter's time in the NRL will have improved him. We shall see in due course.

That said, there is an olive branch opportunity here for Dixon in the Renaissance of a recent Rovers fullback of similar inconsistency. Name = Greg Eden. Unwanted and unloved by us. 4 appearances to date on the wing for Brisbane under the tutelage of allegedly one of the best ever coaches in RL and now at the helm of England.

So daft and incongruous as it might seem, maybe a spell in Oz trying get an NRL gig, just might be the tonic needed to kick-start Dixon's all-round game and iron out his weaknesses.

This is about right.

This and the Hull Fc internet loop have cheered me up.

Calling a player a chicken or spineless is instantly wrong. They are on a rugby field. His confidence is shot. He takes an easy option to avoid missing tackles at the moment. Silverwood destroyed him with that awful knock on call first touch and he fell to bits.