Re: Swift : Mon Aug 20, 2012 5:08 pm  

It's back to that old chestnut of Pete's. Recruitment and more to the point recruiting the right guys for the right places. I think we have recruited good players but not nessasarily for the right slots.

Re: Swift : Mon Aug 20, 2012 6:42 pm  

bewareshadows wrote:

It's back to that old chestnut of Pete's. Recruitment and more to the point recruiting the right guys for the right places. I think we have recruited good players but not nessasarily for the right slots.

Its correct though in part, I just don,t think our priority is replacing Wellens at the moment. Our nightmare is our half backs, thats were it wants fixing first.

I remember at the beginning of the season quite a few on here were moaning, slagging off Wellens, Meli, and Wilkin when in actual fact they are the ones holding the team together to a certain extent at the moment.

This season I,ve mentioned we have had many false dawns, and this will continue when we come up against aggressive teams with decent half backs. Leave Wello were he is at the moment, we can,t afford to experiment with a full back. We,ve had nearly a full season to sort out our half backs and we are no further on than round 1.

Re: Swift : Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:01 pm  

Judder Man wrote:

Its correct though in part, I just don,t think our priority is replacing Wellens at the moment. Our nightmare is our half backs, thats were it wants fixing first.

I disagree that our nightmare is our half backs. The halfbacks we had last year were doing fine, developing nicely. The mistake has been to put Hohaia in there and mess it all up. What we really need is a couple of feisty props. We miss Jammer massively. TP and LMS are both lazy by comparison to Jammer and neither has anywhere near his level of skill either, which makes things worse. We have been bullied out of some games which makes our halfback situation even worse.

I remember at the beginning of the season quite a few on here were moaning, slagging off Wellens, Meli, and Wilkin when in actual fact they are the ones holding the team together to a certain extent at the moment.

Meli? He scores some tries and people think he's fantastic. He is thoroughly lazy in defence, as was again seen on Friday night with the ball bouncing over his head (good job a Cas player wasn't quick off the mark or else that would have been a try for them). He hardly ever looks for work either (and I've seen many on here criticise Makinson for that). We have functioned in spite of Meli more often than not for a good few years now.

Wilkin and Wello I will grant you (although both have had mixed seasons and Wello is often undermined by his tendency to have unseemly strops).

Re: Swift : Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:23 pm  

St. Etrigan wrote:

I think it was time about 12 months ago to find a replacement for Wellens - but the method to do that wasnt to remove him from the team, but more about getting his replacement up to speed so any transition is smooth. So Wellens works with him on the parts that only he can teach, but working with the coaches and the half backs to enable the team to also change their style.

I think that had that happened this year, with Wellens being rested like Hodgson has been at Wire at times, then there would have been far less criticism of the situation.

Re: Swift : Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:54 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

He hardly ever looks for work either

Can I just make sure that I have got this right you are saying that almost all of the 257 times he has carried the ball this season have been passes/kicks to his wing - that seems an awful lot of ball going over to his side of the field - but you would have to admit that with him making the most metres of any back in the team with 2364 that we should be grateful that he does get so much ball - perhaps teams should start to not target him as he is such a dangerous person to have carrying the ball.

Re: Swift : Tue Aug 21, 2012 6:31 am  

St. Etrigan wrote:

Can I just make sure that I have got this right you are saying that almost all of the 257 times he has carried the ball this season have been passes/kicks to his wing - that seems an awful lot of ball going over to his side of the field - but you would have to admit that with him making the most metres of any back in the team with 2364 that we should be grateful that he does get so much ball - perhaps teams should start to not target him as he is such a dangerous person to have carrying the ball.

He's also mean to dogs, kids and old ladies.

Re: Swift : Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:50 am  

The Half Back situation is a massive priority for Nathan Brown as is the front row in my opinion. Without question we need a organising 7 that can guide or team around the park. Ever since Longy departed we have been lacking alarmingly in the department. As I have said on numerous occasions before Laffranchi should be moved into the Back Row, preferably at Loose Forward in role that Jason Hooper did so well in 2006. Puletua into the front row would fix this problem up without having to go into the market place.

Re: Swift : Tue Aug 21, 2012 12:48 pm  

on_the_charge wrote:

The Half Back situation is a massive priority for Nathan Brown as is the front row in my opinion. Without question we need a organising 7 that can guide or team around the park. Ever since Longy departed we have been lacking alarmingly in the department. As I have said on numerous occasions before Laffranchi should be moved into the Back Row, preferably at Loose Forward in role that Jason Hooper did so well in 2006. Puletua into the front row would fix this problem up without having to go into the market place.

I think the moving around of players would help this year, but for a team to be challenging I think you need 5 props.

ie Cayless, Fasavalu, Baloo, Graham, (was it fozzard?)

But we had 5 props on rotation in 2006, if we where caught with injuries one week it meant at worst we had 3 damn good props with a couple of 2nd rowers filling in on the bench.

Re: Swift : Tue Aug 21, 2012 12:54 pm  

bewareshadows wrote:

I think the moving around of players would help this year, but for a team to be challenging I think you need 5 props.

ie Cayless, Fasavalu, Baloo, Graham, (was it fozzard?)

But we had 5 props on rotation in 2006, if we where caught with injuries one week it meant at worst we had 3 damn good props with a couple of 2nd rowers filling in on the bench.

Yes it was Fozzard. I doubt you will ever get 5 props of that class again in the same squad tbh. Perry, Puletua, Clough, McCarthy-Scarsbrook are up there with the best props in Super League when they are on fire which they havent been for the big games granted. If we can add a s***house prop to that Ill be happy.

Re: Swift : Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:38 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

I disagree that our nightmare is our half backs. The halfbacks we had last year were doing fine, developing nicely. The mistake has been to put Hohaia in there and mess it all up. What we really need is a couple of feisty props. We miss Jammer massively. TP and LMS are both lazy by comparison to Jammer and neither has anywhere near his level of skill either, which makes things worse. We have been bullied out of some games which makes our halfback situation even worse.

Meli? He scores some tries and people think he's fantastic. He is thoroughly lazy in defence, as was again seen on Friday night with the ball bouncing over his head (good job a Cas player wasn't quick off the mark or else that would have been a try for them). He hardly ever looks for work either (and I've seen many on here criticise Makinson for that). We have functioned in spite of Meli more often than not for a good few years now.

Wilkin and Wello I will grant you (although both have had mixed seasons and Wello is often undermined by his tendency to have unseemly strops).

I think the priority is to get the half backs into some decent play making roles they have had nearly 30 games to sort something out. We,ve got Wello and Wilkin helping out which seems to be the only option at the moment, which is not good enough.

Our front row is looking decent Perry, Roby and LMS are a handful now, everyone will be lazy compared to Jammer, but LMS has one of the highest metres gained in the team and will probably finish the season on 3000 metres. TP has not been as good this season, do we know if he is still carrying that shoulder injury.

For Meli, I.m not sure which season you are talking about its certainly not 2012. Meli has been pretty decent this season loads of trys, loads of metres, loads of tackle busts, loads of offloads. And with the amount of carries he does it suggest he does a lot of work. Yes he is a liability in defence at times, but we have never really had a winger 100% bomb proof.