Re: Changes for Thursday? : Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:17 pm  

Every dog has his day, some players keep their pace into their 30's (like naiqama) some lose it early and Peats is definitely in that category which is why he was in the lower division. We are just so imbalanced in terms of the quality in the team. If he was a backup and a non quota player on a short contract it would be ok, But hes a quota player, playing week in week out on a 3 year deal, nice little retirement package for a player well past his best, he should be seeing his career out with Toulouse, instead he's in a team trying to go for honours, Go figure

Re: Changes for Thursday? : Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:53 pm  

well that wasn't our worst performance but in truth it was more of the same, Maybe with Conner back we shall improve, I agree about Russell he is just not good enough, if we are serious about competing with the top teams we have to find better but listening to Watson he seems quite happy with the way things are going.
we only lost to a penalty tonight but we had enough ball and field position to win it, the pack continue to get us up there but we just don't have the skills to do the business. I got the feeling when Luke Robinson was talking that he was aware of the problems but that may just have been me hearing it wrong. It may be that when we get a couple more wins and with Conner back we start to fire but i just dont see Watson changing his style some how . He seems confident we have it right and it will all come good in due course

Re: Changes for Thursday? : Thu Mar 23, 2023 11:27 pm  

Hangerman2 wrote:

SO frustrating watching our toothless spine waste chance after chance after chance after chance. Russell is like a rabbit in the headlights , that kick he TELEGRAPHED through on the 3rd tackle right at the end sums up his ability under pressure, When will watson realise he will never be superleague standard!?!? Made me laugh when Watson said he didn't need leeming because he is hapy with our spine we have the WORST spine in the whole competition (bar possible Wakefield). How long before our forwards get utterly sick of putting us in scoring positions only for our halves to take the wrong option AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN!

Sorry but the fault lies with waston here, you could see this at the end of last season and he should have looked to sign spine players as a priority. Instead he blew money on YET MORE forwards when we already had just about the best pack in SL. All he will achieve is some of them will want to leave soon due to not enough game time, and we will still be stuck with Russell and Peats gobbling up good ball and pi**sing it out.

How much impact did 'better all round game than Levi' Peats have on the back of our go forward. That's right ZERO!

Again total nonsense suggesting we have the worst spine in SL.
Wigan’s 6,7 and 9 are not great and Hull and Cas have terrible spines.

Re: Changes for Thursday? : Fri Mar 24, 2023 8:20 am  

I, for one, was left much happier by the way we performed last night.
Yes we lost at home again and by the same frustratingly close score, but at least we had a good 'go' at them.
We can argue the toss about the personnel brought in since last year, but the reality is, that's not going to change now.
Some serious work needs to be done to turn possession and pressure into points and I'm hopeful we can do that over the next few games.

We have a tremendous asset in Kevin Naiqama, but have yet to find a way to bring him into the game and unlock his obvious potential.
I can see the half back permutations will continuing for a while, but get there we will given time.

Perhaps the bookies got it right weeks ago and we are only really middle 4 contenders?
In which case our hope (pointed out a few times on this board) has to be, that we bring everything together for the play offs.

Salford next, how ironic!

Re: Changes for Thursday? : Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:16 am  

I thought both sides were pretty similar in terms of ability last night, Saints just that bit more grit and were ruthless with the small chances they got.

Think Huddersfield are nailing the Watson tactics, stay in the wrestle and complete high. Just missing that clinical execution at the top end of the field but I'd expect that to come with a first choice spine playing regularly. Fages, Connor and Lolohea all missed a few games already and you'd have to have Pryce involved somewhere too, he has that bit of unpredictability and keeps the defence guessing. Marsters had some nice touches aswell albeit in an unfamiliar position, plenty for you guys to get excited about if you can build through the season.

Re: Changes for Thursday? : Fri Mar 24, 2023 11:17 am  

the stella kid wrote:

Again total nonsense suggesting we have the worst spine in SL.
Wigan’s 6,7 and 9 are not great and Hull and Cas have terrible spines.

Cas spine is Niall Evalds, Jacob Miller, Gareth Widdop, and Paul McShane, which I would suggest is better than yours.

Re: Changes for Thursday? : Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:27 pm  

newgroundb4wakey wrote:

Cas spine is Niall Evalds, Jacob Miller, Gareth Widdop, and Paul McShane, which I would suggest is better than yours.

Do me a favour
Mcshane is decent and so is Evalds.
Widdop is well past his best and Miller is poor.

Re: Changes for Thursday? : Fri Mar 24, 2023 10:06 pm  

We are the 2nd worst side at converting possession in the opposition 10 into points, and that is the job of the spine, hence our spine is 2nd worst in the league. We have zero pace off the mark from any of our spine players bar Pryce, which makes it very very hard to take advantage of quick play the balls. We also seem utterly incapable of executing any kind of passing skill , miss out passes, long balls (without getting intercepted) to create overlaps. Even if your assertion is true that Hull and Cas spine are worst (i disagree, i think both are better overall) that would make us have the 4th worst spine in the league. You think we are going to win anything with that? Watson has blown Ken's cash on the wrong players, and the worst thing is he saw our problems at the end of last season and hasn't done enough to rectify it (signing Connor is a plus negated by signing Peats to replace Levi)