Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 1:52 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

A sure sign that the players are a special breed sometimes. Take a tap and take a minute plus out of the game, which in turn makes it impossible for Cas to score twice or take the 2, give them a short kick off and increase their minimal chances of a win by offering them the opportunity to go back to back with try’s.

Yeah, I wondered. So, who decides that? The captain on the field? Tommy?

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 5:25 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

A sure sign that the players are a special breed sometimes. Take a tap and take a minute plus out of the game, which in turn makes it impossible for Cas to score twice or take the 2, give them a short kick off and increase their minimal chances of a win by offering them the opportunity to go back to back with try’s.

We can't defend short kick off's must loose the ball 75% of the time so keeping the ball in their 20 and not giving them the chance of good field position was priority imo .

I wasn't coincidence either that things started to go pear shaped when "Wee Tam" went off . Game management went out of the window right then

EW

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 6:49 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

There are questions there, so we’ll see how he goes. His talent is huge. I’d be worried more by a possible lack of mongrel in him than I would injuries tbh. I just worry he’s a bit nice but that might change with time, age, confidence, the right coach etc.

I look at Byrne this season and he looks much improved and I think if they can get that out of Havard, he could kick on multiple levels.

Does it matter if he’s nice if he can play big minutes, easily get over 100m and put in the required effort in defence?

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 6:53 am  

jonh wrote:

As daft as it sounds we are not far away from being a very good side in my opinion.

Holding us back, I feel, is our lack of ability to consistently maintain the intensity of our play. I still believe there is an attitude issue where arrogance overtakes performance and we switch off.

Saints are the marker and they are ruthless they don’t switch off.

This year is our last transitional year in my opinion. I do believe we have poorly managed contracts, Isa and Smith for example.

Isa has been a wonderful servant to the club, but he’s a declining force and any attacking play is stunted when he gets his hands on the ball. He’s also very similar to the edge forwards we have we desperately in my opinion need size in the secondrow.

Tommy/Smith.

Not even close to a debate. We must sign a half when Tommy retires. Smith to be fair put in 2 good kicks, but once again was anonymous and also came up with the now standard pass to the floor and pass into touch.

How can you honestly say we are not far off being a very good side when you look at the last 3 games?

Field carried us last night.

Our winger / centres combinations is atrocious
Cust blowing hot and cold
Still feel weak in the props
Bateman stealing a marquee salary
Isa offers too little in attack to play long minutes

Imo we are miles off being a very good side.

That being said I still expect us to finish 3rd this year but that doesn’t make us a very good side. The league standard is very poor.

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 6:57 am  

sergeant pepper wrote:

As a side note, if anyone thinks this is the same situation as last year - go and watch Peet break down the game with John Wells. It's on the Sky Sports app and is a great snippet into what we're working towards. You can see there's a game plan and, apart from last week, we're scoring points.

He spent half of the timing pointing out the errors we made.

That doesn’t make it a “game plan”

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 7:30 am  

nathan_rugby wrote:

How can you honestly say we are not far off being a very good side when you look at the last 3 games?

Field carried us last night.

Our winger / centres combinations is atrocious
Cust blowing hot and cold
Still feel weak in the props
Bateman stealing a marquee salary
Isa offers too little in attack to play long minutes

Imo we are miles off being a very good side.

That being said I still expect us to finish 3rd this year but that doesn’t make us a very good side. The league standard is very poor.

I agree

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 7:56 am  

We are nowhere near we want to be, I think everyone would agree on that. We are 30 points behind Saints nine times out of ten played unfortunately.

I like Matty Peet and do think he's going to need a couple of years to put his stamp on things and we should support him on this where we will hopefully be genuine contenders.

One of the difficulties is that Saints seem even stronger than last season, but sport is cyclical with us and them swapping around for success historically.

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 7:57 am  

nathan_rugby wrote:

Does it matter if he’s nice if he can play big minutes, easily get over 100m and put in the required effort in defence?

Tough to say. If his aim is to be a good Superleague player, who can knock out 100m + in games against Wakey and Toulouse maybe not but if he wants to be doing that against Catalans, Saints or for England verses the Kiwis and Aussies then I think he does need to find a bit more of an aggressive side. That’s not aggressive in terms of kicking off with people but being aggressive with his defence, with all his carries and generally just upping his intensity.

I’m not criticising him, it’s a sign of his class that he can breeze through a game and knock out 100+ metres. I just hope we see the upturn in intensity and aggression that we’ve seen in Byrne this season. If we do then Havard could be anything. I think the world of the lad and would be showing him tapes of a prime Stuart Fielden as what he shouid be aiming for.

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 8:53 am  

MattyB wrote:

8 points up with minutes to go against 12 men and we take a penalty goal. Peet didn't look happy as he'd signalled to play the ball.

That clearly indicated to me that no one on that pitch in a Wigan shirt was thinking. If we hadn't reclaimed the ball after the short kick-off, which is always a lottery, we could still have lost that game.

One of several things we are desperately in need of is a real captain.

Re: Cas Game : Fri Mar 18, 2022 9:06 am  

nathan_rugby wrote:

How can you honestly say we are not far off being a very good side when you look at the last 3 games?

Field carried us last night.

Our winger / centres combinations is atrocious
Cust blowing hot and cold
Still feel weak in the props
Bateman stealing a marquee salary
Isa offers too little in attack to play long minutes

Imo we are miles off being a very good side.

That being said I still expect us to finish 3rd this year but that doesn’t make us a very good side. The league standard is very poor.

By very good I mean one that can consistently win trophies. As I mentioned I think this is a final transitional year.

Our forwards are moving in the right direction. Mago seems to be the current player to be thrown under the bus but 2 weeks ago most people we raving about him, I am confused by how he was used last night. Ellis is a cracking signing in my opinion, Havard is class Byrn, Patington, Singleton and Smithies are all very useful although probably could do with finding more consistency. Not having a natural 13 is damaging us and I would like to see that addressed in the offseason. Isa, Faz and Bateman are all too similar. Moving KPP back into the pack helps with that but we still miss that link at 13. Faz and Isa don't have that in them and Bateman looks like he is trying too hard to be that player. I would be taking the 13 shirt of Bateman in 2023 give him back the secondrow shirt and let him get back to basics. A secondrow rotation on KPP, Faz and Bateman is more effective than we currently have.

I would be comfortable to see Ellis move to 13 but if we were to look at that we would need to recruit another Prop.

We are likely to be losing from the team Hardaker and Tommy. Both need replacing with like for like ie a centre and a half. We are also more than likely going to be losing one of French/Field so we should have the finances to bring in a Prop also.

I think with 3 replacements ie half, centre and Prop/Middle this team will be there or there abouts.

I see most of our issues can be resolved with the players we currently have, however the squad is a little out of balance in certain positions and we will have to wait to see contracts run down to resolve that. Our recent history isn't good when it comes to letting declining players go and I hope we have learned from that. If we have then I genuinely see us becoming a very good side in 2023 with only a few minor adjustments.

In regards to last nights game I also think Bibby was a big miss. He is another player that I think is very underrated by some of our supporters because he isn't a big name signing.