Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Mon Feb 22, 2016 7:13 pm  

St pete wrote:

He totally embarrassed himself.

Agree, but KC is a half decent coach. Suffers similarly from Chester's ability to be hit and very miss at talent spotting.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Mon Feb 22, 2016 9:21 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

You are talking about a purely aesthetic and highly subjective question to which there is no right or wrong answer. Ultimately it's results that matter. Let's not forget that playing better football we LOST five Grand Finals whereas we are 1 from 1 playing the most conservative gameplan ever seen at Old Trafford.

Whether we like it or not Cunningham will see this as significant. Whether we like it or not Cunningham will NEVER be sacked because of conservative football but he certainly will if he loses too many games.

This is the price you pay for a fully-professional game. If you don't like the ride - don't buy a ticket.

Cunningham might have wanted his signature - but we really don't know what he knew about Burns' condition leading up to him signing. It's entirely possible that Cunningham didn't know. But those involved in scouting him as well as the medical team have no excuses.

Given the balance of our squad I really don't know what justification you had in even THINKING we'd suddenly start throwing it about. From the above it appears that you were relying on Sean Long to sprinkle some fairy dust because I can't see any other way it's happening.

Sean Long can't turn Jordan Turner into Paul Newlove. Nor can he make Travis Burns play like Tommy Martyn. And if he does have any fairy dust my guess is he will need all of it just to get Lomax & Walsh back to full fitness.

I'm not saying we can't play more entertaining football. But whilst we are strong in certain facets of the game we just don't have that many good footballers. You can't do one without the other.

Early results mean almost nothing. Sure, it's great if you can get plenty of points on the board early. But Huddersfield were abysmal at the start of the last campaign and yet finished like a train toward the championship rounds.

In terms of our personnel, the current Widnes team and even more frustratingly, the Salford team who's attack long coached, are far more entertaining than us with the ball in hand yet they don't have super stars. It's not like what everyone's demanding is a crazy Leeds type offload style; a more entertaining way of playing that doesn't involve 3 drives and kick isn't too much for this group of players.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Tue Feb 23, 2016 12:28 am  

Starman wrote:

In terms of our personnel, the current Widnes team and even more frustratingly, the Salford team who's attack long coached, are far more entertaining than us with the ball in hand yet they don't have super stars. It's not like what everyone's demanding is a crazy Leeds type offload style; a more entertaining way of playing that doesn't involve 3 drives and kick isn't too much for this group of players.

Again, this is a subjective judgement which has no meaning outside individually derived frames of reference.

Whilst I'm sure most people can arrive at some broad definition of "entertaining football" - the moment we switch to specifics consensus goes out the window and the subtleties of individual preference hold sway.

Perhaps if people spent more time explaining what they think constitutes entertaining football rather than expecting everyone to know intuitively what IT is we might get somewhere with this question. But I wouldn't bet money on it.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Tue Feb 23, 2016 9:56 am  

Mugwump wrote:

Again, this is a subjective judgement which has no meaning outside individually derived frames of reference.

Whilst I'm sure most people can arrive at some broad definition of "entertaining football" - the moment we switch to specifics consensus goes out the window and the subtleties of individual preference hold sway.

Perhaps if people spent more time explaining what they think constitutes entertaining football rather than expecting everyone to know intuitively what IT is we might get somewhere with this question. But I wouldn't bet money on it.

Anything that deviates from the unimaginative, 3 one out drives and a kick straight to the fullback would be a fine start. I wouldn't mind if we played an effective forward game with little tip ons, dummy runners and running in pairs, but we don't even do that.

As I said in my post, it's not the Leeds style I think people want, it's a less painful one than 3 one out drives and a poor kick.

While you can't put a concrete definition on 'entertaining rugby', you would have to be some optimist to think what we're producing at the minute goes anywhere near anyone's individual definition.

I hope it changes on Friday.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:16 am  

Starman wrote:

Anything that deviates from the unimaginative, 3 one out drives and a kick straight to the fullback would be a fine start. I wouldn't mind if we played an effective forward game with little tip ons, dummy runners and running in pairs, but we don't even do that.

This isn't very helpful - not least because one of the first criticisms which pops up in the wake of any run of bad form by any club you club you care to mention (after "incompetent"/"cheating" refs) is "unimaginative play".

I'd argue it's more a function of psychological stress than any specific gameplan. When faced with challenging circumstances human beings are genetically pre-programmed to behave more conservatively. It's a survival mechanism which given our position as the dominant form of life on this planet it seems to work.

Why exactly our players have gone into their shell so early in the season is an interesting question to which I don't know the answer.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Tue Feb 23, 2016 11:12 am  

Mugwump wrote:

This isn't very helpful - not least because one of the first criticisms which pops up in the wake of any run of bad form by any club you club you care to mention (after "incompetent"/"cheating" refs) is "unimaginative play".

I'd argue it's more a function of psychological stress than any specific gameplan. When faced with challenging circumstances human beings are genetically pre-programmed to behave more conservatively. It's a survival mechanism which given our position as the dominant form of life on this planet it seems to work.

Why exactly our players have gone into their shell so early in the season is an interesting question to which I don't know the answer.

It's odd that our players suffer this 'psychological stress' A) more often than most teams and B) when we're winning, losing or drawing.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Tue Feb 23, 2016 12:24 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

This isn't very helpful - not least because one of the first criticisms which pops up in the wake of any run of bad form by any club you club you care to mention (after "incompetent"/"cheating" refs) is "unimaginative play".

I'd argue it's more a function of psychological stress than any specific gameplan. When faced with challenging circumstances human beings are genetically pre-programmed to behave more conservatively. It's a survival mechanism which given our position as the dominant form of life on this planet it seems to work.

Why exactly our players have gone into their shell so early in the season is an interesting question to which I don't know the answer.

Nonsense. It is our pre-determined tactic and gameplan, as confirmed by both Jon Wilkin and Sean Long last week. Ultra-conservative is our style of play, regardless of opposition or position in the match.

It wouldn't be such a bad thing if we were actually any good at it, but 8 defeats in our past 12 games show that this tactic isn't working.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Tue Feb 23, 2016 12:29 pm  

Starman wrote:

It's odd that our players suffer this 'psychological stress' A) more often than most teams and B) when we're winning, losing or drawing.

It's a perfectly recognisable phenomenon we see repeated in the workplace each day. It's possible that the players are afraid of making mistakes because of the way the coaching staff responds to them making mistakes. I'm not saying this is the reason for them keeping things so tight because there are other possibilities. The point is - we don't know.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Tue Feb 23, 2016 12:33 pm  

EHW wrote:

Nonsense. It is our pre-determined tactic and gameplan, as confirmed by both Jon Wilkin and Sean Long last week. Ultra-conservative is our style of play, regardless of opposition or position in the match.

Playing conservatively and playing no other tactics than five drives and a kick are not the same thing. I can believe Cunningham prefers the former (for several reasons) but you are going to have to provide significantly more evidence to prove to me that he only wants the latter.

Re: Huge test for McManus coming : Tue Feb 23, 2016 12:38 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

It's a perfectly recognisable phenomenon we see repeated in the workplace each day. It's possible that the players are afraid of making mistakes because of the way the coaching staff responds to them making mistakes. I'm not saying this is the reason for them keeping things so tight because there are other possibilities. The point is - we don't know.

In that scenario, the coaches would be to blame. I'm just happy you've accepted that there is a conservative style on show. Even if you are putting it down to a psychological fear that for whatever reason doesn't seem to affect most SL sides as badly as us.

For me either play more expansively our really work on our forwards game and turn it into an effective one. The longer he sticks with this current non-effective style, farcically trying to state it's similar to the saints of old, the more criticism he will take.