Re: Comparison : Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:35 pm
Blobbynator wrote:
We lack organisation with the ball and look completely rudderless and lack leadership.
That's because we don't have cunningham anymore and Pryce is out injured. There wasn't anyone else in our team who could lead. That was identified last season, and by people on here. Which leaders have the club recruited in the off season?
We don't seem to have any planned moves, don't use dummy runners effectively and our halves don't take the line on enough.
We do have planned moves. We had a beauty in the friendly against Hudds, which saw Wheeler sweep in an arc out of a scrum taking the Hudds defenders completely by surprise and he scored. A wonderful play. Have we seen that move since? No. We have only seen Wheeler once since!
I'm not sure, but the halves are doing the basic things wrong at the moment. They're not drawing defenders and creating space for the runners and they're not taking a great deal of responsibility for our attack.
Yup. Surely that is because there is no Leon Pryce there? He was positively masterful in our friendlies, untile he went off injured. We have seen him for five minutes since then. Meanwhile, we have Kyle Eastmond who for the first couple of weeks was getting back into the game after a long layoff and now cannot be bothered, and another halfback who has been thrown into the deep end without the benefit of an experienced and attentive halfback partner. On Friday we didn't even have Wilkin as a strike option or creative input. He's been very good at loose forward this season so far.
The forwards also aren't offering enough at the moment. We don't seem to be running at the defence hard enough, they're not offloading the ball and they're not winning the collision which creates half breaks and 2nd phase play for others.
Again, no Cunningham. He was a massive influence on our go forward. Remember how he used to lift the team when he came on? Now we have Jammer on his own out there in effect, as a leader that is. And he's taken to playing at halfback recently again, which is unfortunate. LMS of course was absent on Friday. We might have made more impact with him on the pitch.
Where is the support play?
Watching the highlights from Catalans, it was great. But it didn't fire at all at Widnes.
Defensively we look really poor.
We are poor, but no worse than last season so far as I can work out, but I haven't checked the stats. What Simmons wants is to go from shipping 20 points on average a game to 16, as he thinks that is the difference between a good team and a Grand Final winning team. I would agree with him. So far we have had two games I think where we have let only 16 points in. We could have included Salford in that had we not been lazy at the end. But what is the biggest score against us this season?
Maguire made Wigan play with incredible defensive determination last year.
Oh dear. Here's that Maguire thing again. We don't have Maguire as our coach. Why are you comparing?
I mentioned the team spirit because at the moment, we just look like a team that has no confidence and aren't playing for one another.
At Widnes we do, yes. But we didn't at Cardiff, we didn't at Salford and according to those who went there, we didn't at Perpignan either. We fought hard at Cardiff and Perpignan (we didn't need to at Salford) and held on well. Perhaps the problem is at Widnes, in front of the home fans?
The players need to show more and the coach eneds to show more. Saints used to be renowend for their flair, their fighting spirt, but at the moment we're showing neither.
We did in Cardiff and apparently we did in Perpignan. I think you need to stop panicking!
