It's was hear breaking for me, watching on Friday, but I'm going to try and grab some positivity from it, hoping desperately that Brown does have a master plan.
All things considered, we're not quite as bad as when Royce was sacked IMO. When Rush took over we immediately improved, but they did so by employing a game of short passes around the ruck, which was simple but effective in the games where our forwards would gain he upper hand. However, against the bigger/better teams at the end of the season games, we were sometimes a little ineffective if we weren't completely dominant up front. There is a possibility that Brown has stripped us right down in order to rebuild us ingrained with a better catalogue of attacking rugby.
Now, for those who didn't see the match, he played Ashe as a first receiver in the centre and split Wellens and Turner left and right in stand off roles at the expense of the extra forward. This approach, to have 3 attacking pivots is an exciting idea and if we got it to work could see us, with our exciting young backs, have the ability to pierce the league's best defences.
The moving round of players, especially the likes of Greenwood and Jones between the back row and centre, may be with the aim of teaching players to play with their heads up and "play what they see", instead of robotically running moves. This is some thing that separates the great final teams from the pretenders.
Unfortunately, the major problem we have is that our ball handlers in the middle are of such desperately turgid ability for that role, that we are struggling to get anything right. Two new half backs and our returning hooker and full back would make a universe of difference.
The reservations I have are as follows -
Why's the defence and general effort of the forwards so lacking? Perhaps the defence, like the attack is being rebuilt from the bottom and will take a while before we click?
Why, if we're building to the future, are we playing Wellens at 6? Surely he won't be here next year!?
Wellens and Howarth are crap with the ball and poor in defence, there is no way the likes of Charnock and Speakman could have done any worse than these two IMO.
Two massive positive from the game are as follows -
Luke Thompson. He's been covered in other posts.
Jose jones. Had the unenviable task of marking Gareth hock and did a good job on him.
