Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Tue Jan 10, 2017 8:09 pm  

Cas will make the top 4 with ease this year imo.They have been on an upward trend for a couple of years or more now, play some lovely rugbyand would have coasted it last year were they not hampered with an injury list as bad as ours. I agree with Gotcha, Zak looks a good bet for MOS a big point to prove aswell as a fresh start. A good time to be a Cas fan right now.

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:56 pm  

Lets hope he's learned from his NRL experience in that, far from being a 'strong defender' he looked like a kid amongst men at times (including being run over by the not-so-enormous Ben Barba). Judging by his comments he's in complete denial about how well he went. Unlike Wayne Bennett.

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Wed Jan 11, 2017 5:18 am  

Biff Tannen wrote:

Cas will make the top 4 with ease this year imo.They have been on an upward trend for a couple of years or more now, play some lovely rugbyand would have coasted it last year were they not hampered with an injury list as bad as ours. I agree with Gotcha, Zak looks a good bet for MOS a big point to prove aswell as a fresh start. A good time to be a Cas fan right now.

Cas el win nowt if their defence doesn't improve big time. Were they the worst in the league? if not the worst, they were pretty close to it

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Wed Jan 11, 2017 7:10 am  

sgtwilko wrote:

Cas el win nowt if their defence doesn't improve big time. Were they the worst in the league? if not the worst, they were pretty close to it

2nd worst after the regular 23 rounds, only the Wildcats conceded more and that was only 14 points. Even our defence which was dreadful so many times conceded 64 points fewer and Cas conceded around 200 points more than the 3 teams who ended up winning silverware. You don't win anything or even get top 4 with that defence. Less injuries will probably concede less but I doubt it'll be to a figure to match those teams at the top. Think they kept the top 4 teams to under 20 points in only 2 out of 9 games, even Leeds did that 4 times. I think people enjoy their attack so much they forget that defence brings you success.

Even taking Leeds out of the equation I think it'll be tricky for Cas to get top 4 ahead of Wigan, Wire, Saints and Hull. All more experienced and much tighter defences than Cas.

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Wed Jan 11, 2017 7:11 am  

sgtwilko wrote:

Cas el win nowt if their defence doesn't improve big time. Were they the worst in the league? if not the worst, they were pretty close to it

Wakefield were the worst, we were third worst. But then when Cas are scoring more than 200 points more than us (2nd highest in league), the defence but wasn't really an issue in comparison. They will certainly be a lot closer than us to winning anything.

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Wed Jan 11, 2017 7:32 am  

Gotcha wrote:

Wakefield were the worst, we were third worst. But then when Cas are scoring more than 200 points more than us (2nd highest in league), the defence wasn't really an issue in comparison.

Clearly is an issue if you can have the 2nd highest attack and never be close to catching the top 4 last year, they were 9th with only 2/3 weeks remaining of the regular season and only jumped up the table because Catalans, Widnes and Wildcats took the last third of the season off.

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:02 am  

Gotcha wrote:

Wakefield were the worst, we were third worst. But then when Cas are scoring more than 200 points more than us (2nd highest in league), the defence but wasn't really an issue in comparison. They will certainly be a lot closer than us to winning anything.

The point was purely about cas winning trophies it had nothing to do with another team. Including our own. Cas won't win trophies without a total transformation in defence.

If Gale was out as much as McGuire they would have been in a similar position to us.

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:08 am  

sgtwilko wrote:

The point was purely about cas winning trophies it had nothing to do with another team. Including our own. Cas won't win trophies without a total transformation in defence.

If Gale was out as much as McGuire they would have been in a similar position to us.

They did have their starting half back out for as much as McGuire was out last season. That's more the point, people want to rewrite history to suit a point they have, rather than what was the reality.

Both sides at full strength and they were miles ahead of us last season, and have only gone and increased that distance by the looks of things for this coming year. And yet, both same squads with a different coach each, and I would bet there would be little difference between them.

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:17 am  

Gotcha wrote:

They did have their starting half back out for as much as McGuire was out last season. That's more the point, people want to rewrite history to suit a point they have, rather than what was the reality.

Both sides at full strength and they were miles ahead of us last season, and have only gone and increased that distance by the looks of things for this coming year. And yet, both same squads with a different coach each, and I would bet there would be little difference between them.

Again, the debate was more about whether they'll be good for top 4 this time. I think most posters recognise McDermott has shortcomings - but does Powell? If his side don't defend well this time out then for me he doesn't have anywhere left to hide with regard to this issue. Fluent, attacking side? Definitely. But we've all seen ultimately unsuccessful teams that embody that great attack/poor defence template.

Re: CONFIRMED | Zak Hardaker to Castleford Tigers : Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:23 am  

Gotcha wrote:

They did have their starting half back out for as much as McGuire was out last season. That's more the point, people want to rewrite history to suit a point they have, rather than what was the reality.

I'm not re-writing history. You are in fantasy land if you think Ben Roberts a running 5/8 (and a bang average one at best) has the influence over the Cas team as McGuire does at Leeds. Gale is The main man at Cas as is McGuire at Leeds. That's the comparison. Don't change the comparison and argue a different point.

If you don't agree that's fine but dont change the goal posts and move the discussion away from the point I made. And start arguing about a point I didn't make.