Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 11:06 am  

St. Rughead wrote:

For me, it went wrong when Daniel Anderson left. I think this season's a write off already, but I'm optimistic for next season with Perry and Laffranchi leaving, and with us being linked to Broughton, to replace Gardner/Meli and Dobson. At least it shows we might be starting to replace players leaving.

I hope you are right.

If I remember correctly, last year was supposed to be our re-building year.

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 11:09 am  

saint at wire wrote:

I hope you are right.

If I remember correctly, last year was supposed to be our re-building year.

Me too, I think and hope, this'll be our last transition year IF we pick up the best OOC contract SL players and use our 3 quota spots that will become available.

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 11:25 am  

Poor recruiting, especially to replace Jammer and Eastmond.
Signing Lance Hohaia as a half was ludicrous. Signing Laffranchi as prop was poor.

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 12:13 pm  

Offside Monkey wrote:

Poor recruiting, especially to replace Jammer and Eastmond.
Signing Lance Hohaia as a half was ludicrous. Signing Laffranchi as prop was poor.

i thought hohaia was going to be a decent signing then he arrived and well you know how the story goes. Last season i think we over achieved in a sense and maybe certain people thought we werent in such bad shape but this season has been a big reality check surely theres going to be loads of ins and outs this off season there needs to be.

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 12:17 pm  

We've got a half decent tent, we've just got no pegs to hold it up.

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 12:43 pm  

We need 2 halves. Desperately. And for whatever needs to be changed in our conditioning to stop so many of our players being ****ing well injured so often. There's not a long wrong with the squad by contemporary quality standards otherwise and a hell of a lot more right with it.

By far and away the biggest mistakes we've made in the last few years were committing our future to Eastmond and Wheeler and dumping Smith (although I still maintain that anybody would have made exactly the same decision at the time) and offing Pryce for Hohaia (was a strange move at the time and just keeps getting stranger every week). Some of the other big signings haven't worked out (Shenton, Perry) but they were signings anyone would have made at the time and you can't really level too much criticism at them either - **** just happens sometimes.

Our recent coaching appointments haven't been great either (jury's still out on Brown), but in modern SL you can't sign a top-quality proven Aussie coach and there are few suitable British candidates so taking a chance on a lesser-known quantity is just a fact of life. Sometimes it works (Maggie at Pies) and sometimes it doesn't (Potter and Royce) - again, hard to criticise the board too harshly.

Basically, our management dropped a huge, massive, unforgiveable clanger over Pryce/Hohaia that we'll be paying for for another 2.5 years. Otherwise it's been a bit unlucky with a few critical decisions. It needs to stop being unlucky and soon...

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 1:07 pm  

Isn't it more to do with us being head and shoulders above everyone else and it being impossible to maintain that? I know some will say "well, we recruited and coached suitably well enough to get us that fantastic side to start with....why couldn't we repeat it?"

An earlier poster said we had four players that were irreplaceable and although we could argue that we may have done it with the hooker, the others we haven't. Even if you think this estimate (four) is close....which I don't.....then that's a quarter of a team. Add to that other quality players we had (Long, Martyn, Gleeson, Iro, Newlove, Smith, Fairleigh, Anderson), its clear that we (or any club) couldn't sustain that run of recruitment.

I think its also a pointer to our sport in general. I'm not pointing fingers at clubs, governing bodies, television companies, fans or anyone but when our sport's bread and butter players are earning less than me and I'm just a stiff with a normal job, then this must impact on the quality available. If you were as athletic as they obviously are and had some talent (which even the squad players do), then surely there are much better paying opportunities out there. The first and obvious one being Union but even just getting regular jobs.

Northampton's comments about the signings we've made that have failed to fulfil their potential is valid. I think most of them looked good at the time but for reasons we don't know (but will continue to guess about), they didn't work out. And lets not get misty eyed over Pryce. Not only did he miss nearly a full season for us when we let him go, he's missed considerable matches for The Cats too....although he did have a good game against us.

Anyway, we're having it tough and in no small part some of it is down to a run of injuries in the last two years.

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 1:47 pm  

By not replacing the likes of Long, Lyon, Graham, Pryce, this list goes on... Especially Graham, as our forward pack (besides Walmsley and Sia) must be one of the weakest and least driving in Super League, and without field position made by our forwards, it is near enough impossible for our backs to produce any attacking threat

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 2:14 pm  

@SuperLeague18 wrote:

By not replacing the likes of Long, Lyon, Graham, Pryce, this list goes on... Especially Graham, as our forward pack (besides Walmsley and Sia) must be one of the weakest and least driving in Super League, and without field position made by our forwards, it is near enough impossible for our backs to produce any attacking threat

Nonsense, plain and simple.

Long: replaced by Eastmond, the best and most sought after young half talent in the country by a mile. We couldn't possibly have found a better replacement. RU luchre and a little naivety on our part has left us with a mess subsequently but you can't argue we didn't produce a good enough replacement for Long.
Lyon: replaced with Aussie legend Gidley (who was at least as good for us as Lyon for a time until age overtook him) and then current first-choice GB centre Shenton. I can't see how anyone could argue about the ambition or suitability involved in signing those 2 players as successive replacements for Lyon.
Graham: replaced with 2 Aussie international props. Again: how could we have signed any more suitably or ambitiously?
Pryce: He was replaced with a world cup winning pivot on big money. Ambition there by the bucket load. No sense, but plenty of ambition.

Every player we have lost in the last decade has been replaced by the best practically available replacement at the time. Too many of them haven't worked out it's true, but that's life. Replacing the likes of Lyon, Scully, Long, KC etc. 100% like-for-like quality-for-quality is completely impossible in the current climate and we've done as good a job at the time as was practical.

This revisionist nonsense about us constantly losing players and never replacing them with suitable quality needs to be smacked squarely in the mush once and for all.

Re: Where did it all go wrong and how long ago? : Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:10 pm  

Northampton_Saint wrote:

Nonsense, plain and simple.

Long: replaced by Eastmond, the best and most sought after young half talent in the country by a mile. We couldn't possibly have found a better replacement. RU luchre and a little naivety on our part has left us with a mess subsequently but you can't argue we didn't produce a good enough replacement for Long.
Lyon: replaced with Aussie legend Gidley (who was at least as good for us as Lyon for a time until age overtook him) and then current first-choice GB centre Shenton. I can't see how anyone could argue about the ambition or suitability involved in signing those 2 players as successive replacements for Lyon.
Graham: replaced with 2 Aussie international props. Again: how could we have signed any more suitably or ambitiously?
Pryce: He was replaced with a world cup winning pivot on big money. Ambition there by the bucket load. No sense, but plenty of ambition.

Every player we have lost in the last decade has been replaced by the best practically available replacement at the time. Too many of them haven't worked out it's true, but that's life. Replacing the likes of Lyon, Scully, Long, KC etc. 100% like-for-like quality-for-quality is completely impossible in the current climate and we've done as good a job at the time as was practical.

This revisionist nonsense about us constantly losing players and never replacing them with suitable quality needs to be smacked squarely in the mush once and for all.

There are a few holes in your argument I'm afraid.

1. Gidley was never as good as Lyon , at least not for us and Shenton is worse than both. I understand though that replacing Lyon was near impossible. You have forgotten though that we let Talau go and didnt both to replace him until we sign Soliola who is more of a backrow. Impossible situation for right centre , unfathomable call not to replace a left centre with nobody coming through in the youth to fill either

2. The Ea$tmond scenario is pretty much down to p!ss poor planning, look at the Goons getting cash for Mossop because they saw his contract wnding down , established he wasnt going to sign another then did the smart thing by offloading him and they can now plan a replacement. Poor planning by the club

3. Graham - Perry was signed to play alongside Jammer so is hardly a replacement as was LMS. I accept Perry should have been far better than he has been so nothing we could do about that but Lafranchi (sp) who we did sign as a replacement is a second row convert and never a top class prop in a million years. We replaced one of the top props in the world with an old aussie second row ... hmmm. a gargantuan downgrade

4. Pryce - we replaced him with a bloke who had never been a first choice halfback in his senior career and had won a world cup playing fullback. A massive downgrade

The quality in general of the squad has been slipping downhill for years and is made worse by our dreadful recruitment.

p.s. I've not even mentioned the fact Scully retired and we never even tried to replace him