lilley : Mon Feb 17, 2025 12:13 pm  

The 2nd half against Cas & Huddersfield and the full game yesterday we reverted back to the Bulls of the last 10 years.
Our forwards are much improved as are our outside backs.
With Keyes Being very injury prone I personally think we need an equally as good half back option as back up.
It seems we will never be able to resist the temptation to "Just stick Jordan in at 7" so I think its time he moved on.
Great lad, very enthusiastic but there is no room for sentiment in professional sport and as far as it goes with Lilley in at 7 he does more harm than good.

What's everyone else's thoughts?

Re: lilley : Mon Feb 17, 2025 12:21 pm  

Lilley was poor yesterday particularly his kicking. Wasn't great against Cas with his usual erratic moments. But Cas were always going to come back in that.

I think Lilley interchanging at hooker with Souter works well. As much as I would like 3 top halves, they're like hens teeth. Toulouse starting half back options are a scrum half and loose forward or full back which just shows how hard they are to come by.

[Bullseye]

Re: lilley : Mon Feb 17, 2025 12:37 pm  

Lilley is backup at halfback let's face it. We're not made of money so we're not going to get a ready made pacey halfback with a good kicking game to sit on the sidelines.

I agree that Lilley is better coming on at hooker, even then I'm not sure about the quality of his pass off the ground. In the plus side he's pretty quick around the ruck and is as tough as they come.

Our main issue is that without Keyes there is no running threat at halfback. Also our kicking game was just awful yesterday apart from a couple early on from Meadows. I'd like to see us use Lilley less when it comes to the last tackle kick unless it's the short grubber for Gill to run onto - Lilley's short kicking game is decent - it's just the rest of it that is poor.

II'd like to see a bit more of Sam Ackroyd. I think the plan was to loan him out to begin with.

Re: lilley : Mon Feb 17, 2025 1:24 pm  

Maybe we should be giving Ackroyd a go in the halves - isn't that the point of having an Academy and Reserves?

Re: lilley : Mon Feb 17, 2025 3:14 pm  

He needs to get some experience from somewhere.

Re: lilley : Mon Feb 17, 2025 3:19 pm  

bowlingboy wrote:

He needs to get some experience from somewhere.

Well he was on loan at Whitehaven last season, I believe. And we are now DR with Dewsbury so he could play a few games for them.

But at some point, you have to throw these guys into the team

Re: lilley : Wed Feb 19, 2025 7:10 am  

I think Jordan gets a bit of unfair criticism at times. We know he isn't the quickest or flashiest of players but I still feel he is an important part of our current squad.

He covers hooker/halfback, reliable kicker, decent defenders and doesn't seem to miss games through injury.

We know Keyes will need managing through the season to try and keep him fit for the key games in our season. So whilst he might not have had his best game on Sunday I'm sure there will be plenty of games this year where we will glad to have JL in our side.

[Bullseye]

Re: lilley : Wed Feb 19, 2025 8:07 am  

Fair enough but with kicking game in particular there's a drop in quality when he's doing it and that will tell against decent sides.

Re: lilley : Wed Feb 19, 2025 12:29 pm  

Bully_Boxer wrote:

He covers hooker/halfback, reliable kicker, decent defenders and doesn't seem to miss games through injury.

If he played for Wigan that would get him an England SH spot.

[Bullseye]

Re: lilley : Wed Feb 19, 2025 12:47 pm  

He's not Deacs that's for sure.