one thing that peed me off a lot this year, was the usual suspects at right and left second row, not doing enough tackling, mopping up from the middles.

i've mentioned it a couple of times and others have as well, if you look at some of the tries we've conceded more often than not you'll see currie or holmes not even trying to effect a tackle.

thats whats annoyed me more than anything else with the pair of them, thats why i was demanding they be dropped, that isn't a 'play themselves back into form' situation, thats a lack of effort and most definitely a CBA.

Dare I say it, that we may have missed all the tackling Hughes did?

Quote Captain Hook="Captain Hook"Dare I say it, that we may have missed all the tackling Hughes did?'" on one side possibly, have a look at this set of 'highlights' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv41WfDrg7Y look at the salford tries and the lack of involvement from currie and holmes in most of them

Quote Captain Hook="Captain Hook"Dare I say it, that we may have missed all the tackling Hughes did?'" on one side possibly, have a look at this set of 'highlights' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv41WfDrg7Y look at the salford tries and the lack of involvement from currie and holmes in most of them

same thing in this game as well, i know other people have mentioned currie's lack of effort on goal line defence, but in most cases you can see the pair of them, sort of just there in the back ground on a lot of tries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2il9psYquw

same thing in this game as well, i know other people have mentioned currie's lack of effort on goal line defence, but in most cases you can see the pair of them, sort of just there in the back ground on a lot of tries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2il9psYquw

Quote Fantastic Mr Cat="Fantastic Mr Cat"on one side possibly, have a look at this set of 'highlights' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv41WfDrg7Y look at the salford tries and the lack of involvement from currie and holmes in most of them'" The striking thing for me in this is how blatantly obvious is that the players aren’t trying to do the same thing. Look at the Cross try scored at 24-8, critics will blame Currie on this for leaving Ratchford exposed, but if you look back further, there is an intention from Currie and Walker to get off the line and cut down space/time, which isn’t matched by Bullock or Harrison. Bullock is a yard or two behind Walker’s position, meaning Walker can’t move off and slide until the hall has passed him. Currie sinks in to take the ‘lead’ who should be Walker’s man which leaves the space outside him, which Ratchford is slow to close down, so he has to hold off and buy time, resulting in a passive legs tackle and ultimately allowed to offload. Similarly, the next try, Matautia has gone up fast, Holmes hasn’t, huge gap behind Matautia for a walk in. There isn’t necessarily a right answer (in my opinion) about whether to shoot out or slide on your try line, but you all need to do the same thing.

Quote Fantastic Mr Cat="Fantastic Mr Cat"on one side possibly, have a look at this set of 'highlights' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv41WfDrg7Y look at the salford tries and the lack of involvement from currie and holmes in most of them'" The striking thing for me in this is how blatantly obvious is that the players aren’t trying to do the same thing. Look at the Cross try scored at 24-8, critics will blame Currie on this for leaving Ratchford exposed, but if you look back further, there is an intention from Currie and Walker to get off the line and cut down space/time, which isn’t matched by Bullock or Harrison. Bullock is a yard or two behind Walker’s position, meaning Walker can’t move off and slide until the hall has passed him. Currie sinks in to take the ‘lead’ who should be Walker’s man which leaves the space outside him, which Ratchford is slow to close down, so he has to hold off and buy time, resulting in a passive legs tackle and ultimately allowed to offload. Similarly, the next try, Matautia has gone up fast, Holmes hasn’t, huge gap behind Matautia for a walk in. There isn’t necessarily a right answer (in my opinion) about whether to shoot out or slide on your try line, but you all need to do the same thing.

This is why I am sceptical of Powell. Fair enough blame 1st May, blame out of contract players, blame culture, blame whatever, but surely there is no excuse for not looking drilled defensively in the basics?

And this is also why he only has 6 games IMO and blooding youngsters in them wouldn’t mitigate an excuse. The reason being I expect to see an enthusiastic and coherent defence from the get go and seeing one or two youngsters make individual defensive mistakes would have no bearing on the overall picture….as it didn’t last season.

I actually think 1 game would be enough to see if he has even tried to address those issues.

Currently I am mainly wearing… the pack will be a completely different outfit next season. The 2 Aussies come with quite a pedigree and while that is no guarantee, I’m hoping that they bring a professional attitude which rubs off. Sparking fresh enthusiasm in players like Currie and Clark.

The professional attitude should come from within the core of the club and be ingrained. Like I should imagine it is at Saints, Leeds, Wigan etc.

As it stands you are saying our fortunes are dependent on 2 aussies at the twilight of their careers.

That’s not what I said. I expressed my hopes. As for the “core” of the club, assuming DP was accurate then close to half the squad has changed. There is no “core”, unlike Saints and Wigan who have kept a stable squad.
I’m not sure why me expressing what I hope the new signings will bring could be considered controversial?

Never said it was controversial, I was just countering with my thoughts the professionalism should be ingrained in the club and not subject to the whim of a few overseas signings - but I share your hopes too.

However, as a thought exercise, if you imagine Wigan, Saints and Warrington all started with a squad size of 0 now and had to rebuild, who would you bet to be the first to win a GF again? Warrington?

I am putting forward the argument that there is something in the fabric of the club, staff, ethos that demands success and standards and that lies outside of the playing roster.

I’m not worried about Clark or Currie. The thing with players like that, they can be 10/10 at their best, and their worst is (objectively) 6/10. To get them into 9’s and 10’s, they need momentum and space.

What we need to is move the gap from the worst to best up, but players like Holmes, Matautia, Ratchford, Bullock, Wardle, Mikaele and Harrison haven’t demonstrated that they have a 10 in their nal. Or a 9. A plucky 8 maybe, and Ratchford might get a nostalgic 7 with extra credit for goal kicking. All while their worst games being absolute horror shows.

If you look at the best teams, Saints of late, the Leeds team, Saints of 2006 ish… even those on squad filler salaries, just making up the numbers, they were all 6/10 every week at worst. Ablett and LMS for example, neither are world beaters, but they just crack on and do their job, nothing more nothing less. We need to be more robust with with what we want from them, solid defensively, don’t turn the ball over, get out of the way when we’ve got field position and momentum…