Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:25 pm  

Or thane wrote:

Last years semi-final against Salford, Ratchford played at 13 the week before and had an amazing game, and made shed loads of tackles. Then the week after Price weirdly decided to put Blake at 13 for some unknown reason and he was awful. Completely out of place, missed loads of tackles and was compmetely lost. But to be fair it was Prices decision to play him there for whatever reason even though we'd never played him there before, and Ratchford had already played there and was amazing. And Austin only played that 1 game at Loose and has never played there again as far as i know.

I don't think Austin played at loose forward vs. Salford.
He did score a very good try in the first half playing at Stand Off.
As far as I can work out Ratchford played LF with Ashton at FB.

[Fantastic Mr Catpiss]

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Sun Jul 11, 2021 7:15 pm  

He was named at loose, played in his normal position, defended as normal

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Sun Jul 11, 2021 7:39 pm  

Fantastic Mr Catpiss wrote:

He was named at loose, played in his normal position, defended as normal

Yep ... we have done that sort of thing a few times.

[Fantastic Mr Catpiss]

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Sun Jul 11, 2021 8:13 pm  

In fairness to my comment on his defence, he wasn't this bad in the previous 2 years, and on our winning run it improved somewhat.

But it was absolutely dreadful for that period of 4/5 games

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:02 pm  

Spend his money more wisely on other players

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:09 pm  

Smiffy27 wrote:

I reckon you have gone a bit over the top here. It's called tackllng ... easy (but painful) when motivated.

Leeds Rhinos would disagree, when they played Burrow at 9, he defended 3 in on the right edge. And he was a “motivated” individual.

The skill of defending in the middle is underrated. The difference between decent defenders and great defenders, which he would need to be if he wants to play 13 for a club trying to hunt for a championship, is highly technical.

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Mon Jul 12, 2021 10:25 am  

we shouldn't be offering him a new contract.

Thanks for your efforts and all the best.

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:15 pm  

morleys_deckchair wrote:

we shouldn't be offering him a new contract.

Thanks for your efforts and all the best.

Agreed, in a salary capped sport Austin isn't someone we can keep a hold of. We have Ratchford (and Dean) to cover half back with Thewlis dropping into full back.

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:55 pm  

For this season i would be bringing him off the bench to run at tiring defences. I cant see us offering him what he would want for a new contract, and it isn't a priority unless Widdop goes and even then I personally would not be looking to keep him.

Re: How do you solve a problem like Blake Austin? : Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:16 pm  

I think Austin is a good but limited player. He does a few things well but other teams have worked him out and after a great start in the first half of his first season, opponents have been able to keep him in check.

He hasn't sulked or moaned or wanted to go home, his attitude has been good, he's embraced playing for Wire, so fair play to him.

I see Austin as another example of us being done a bit by overhype from NRL agents, similar to Tyrone Roberts. In both cases we were led to believe we were getting a blue chip player who would separate us from our rivals, maybe we ended up paying a contract to reflect that too. When Austin arrived there was all that hype about him being Man of Steel before he'd even started playing.

This has probably contributed to why Austin gets a lot of stick on here. He was overhyped as a signing (not his fault). Whereas someone like Nat Wood, who had been a bench player/understudy to guys like Lam and Stacey Jones in the NRL, came over as a relative unknown, and wasn't saddled by expectations.