Re: Trying to think back...... : Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:24 am  

PopTart wrote:

Agree on every point.
And for those still blaming Chester for not doing something about it, there isn't a midfield general to buy. Certainly not in our price range.
To be honest you could probably put Finn in the team now and it would improve it a little bit in attack. (not suggesting we do of course)

That old chestnut.

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:30 am  

trin77 wrote:

I also thought it was bizarre. If he's a full-back then why play him scrum half, sign Gigot a full back also, who he said was an option for half back then play him centre. The recruitment money has been squandered on players we don't need. His tinkerman approach to team selection is shocking. I'd hate to be a fringe player at Wakey I'd be tearing my hair out.

Absolutely agree, we have far too many players who can cover about 5 positions between them, he has messed about with 1, 6&7 far too much.

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sat Sep 19, 2020 11:02 am  

PopTart wrote:

Agree on every point.
And for those still blaming Chester for not doing something about it, there isn't a midfield general to buy. Certainly not in our price range.
To be honest you could probably put Finn in the team now and it would improve it a little bit in attack. (not suggesting we do of course)

Let me ask you a question, if a team or a player isn’t going forwards, which direction are they going in? People are not Chester haters as you put it they see when we can only manage 5 wins from 28 that our performances are rotten to the core. They need some instructions, some guidance and above all some support not from someone who as chucked them under a bus. If you were coming fourth in the 400 meters every time you run would you still continue to train the same way or change things, things need changing in structure, in style of play and in personal, something Chester is incapable of doing. Also if it goes on and carter doesn’t pull the trigger then he solely will be held responsible and not Chester, he needs to grow a pair and do the deed

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sat Sep 19, 2020 11:17 am  

Wildmoggy wrote:

You make a lot of good points and I agree with you on certain things......but a couple of things, we didn't get to third place then suddenly had 9 men injured all at once! Tupou & Johnstone went for the season in March over at Hull, we lost 3 against Wigan at home in April, and others one at a time. The main problems started when players came back from injury, that second game at London was not a team of academy kids, it was good enough to have performed, but there's the whole problem, whatever team takes to the field have underperformed! Hence all the criticism!! Scraping a win every 6 or 7 games which we have done since last May is relegation form, it can't all be blamed on injuries, someone or more than one person has to take responsibility for the demise over that period, nothing has changed or generally improved, so that's why we are where we are, over 25 - 30 games it's not a fluke! Either as a group of players minus one or two individuals, they aren't good enough to perform on a regular basis........OR the coaching staff aren't getting the best out of them?!

Yes, on paper for many of those games we had what looked like decent squads but another of the big problems we had last year was rushing players back...Fifita was never right after the first half of the season where he was on fire...Brough, Ashurst, Arona and Tupou all seemed to come back and get injured again quickly...

Compare that to the year before where we had a dream run and continuity...we had a dream team left edge of Johnstone, Tupou, Ashurst with Miller inside and to complement that on the other side had Kirmond, Lyne and BJB...those were mainstay players and scored lots of tries and defended well together...

The disruptions last season had us try 20 players in the three left edge positions that had been so rock solid the year before and people wonder why we have looked vulnerable out wide and questioned Millers dip in form.

It’s carried on this season...Tom Johnstone summing it up quite nicely in that tweet he did...he gets injured, replaced by Kershaw, who gets injured, replaced by Senior who gets injured, then he goes back to Hudds and Liam Kay comes in and guess what...not even 10 minutes in he gets injured!

Someone mentioned earlier about Gigot playing centre...I’m sure when CC named him on the bench he didn’t expect to lose a winger for the game after 9 minutes and have to shuffle things yet again...

I’m not saying he hasn’t made mistakes because we can all see the problems we’ve had at 1,6 and 7 and the constant swapping and changing and having probably too many players on the books. To be fair though at the time Walker looked a decent signing...if I remember rightly Hampshire was stalling on signing a new deal and Walker became available so we snapped him up...then at the 11th hour Hampshire decided to stay on...under huge pressure from half of Normanton threatening to stop going to games if we didn’t sign him back on...

Then recently we’ve signed Gigot...with Brough out of the picture we seemed desperate for a spark in the halves but in Gigot I think we’ve signed the wrong player...probably brought on by the pressure of knowing we needed something and being the only available player at the time...a gamble in a way, one that so far doesn’t look to be coming off...

Think for the rest of the season we should try Jowitt at 7 as he seems the best from what we have available...

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sun Sep 20, 2020 9:16 am  

You ask who was available for our budget at the end of last season we could have got abdull or drinkwater both i suspect we could afford and both with a fairly decent kicking game and yes not of quality like sezer but at least have an idea what to do on last plays rather than panic like the ball is a hot potato

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sun Sep 20, 2020 10:31 am  

Maybe we could get in touch with JD in oz and see if he knows of any good southern hemisphere scrum halves that have slipped under the radar.

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sun Sep 20, 2020 11:09 am  

I'm sure the 4 players wages we bought in the off season would have paid for a decent scrum. Half the trouble is unlike other teams we don't prioritise what we need. Cas do it really well they don't waste money on buying players just cause they're available

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sun Sep 20, 2020 12:25 pm  

To be fair though we still had Brough under contract and before this season started he was first choice 7 and Hampshire I’m sure was signed back on with a view to gradually taking over from Brough, or at least being tried there...so with those two already signed why would we have signed another 7?

Whether people think two years for Brough was too much is another debate but even at his age he is exactly the type of player we now miss...just a shame he started picking up injuries...

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sun Sep 20, 2020 1:01 pm  

Teltry wrote:

Maybe we could get in touch with JD in oz and see if he knows of any good southern hemisphere scrum halves that have slipped under the radar.

I think MC said we are not going to bring in any players from overseas.

Re: Trying to think back...... : Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:25 pm  

charlie wrote:

I think MC said we are not going to bring in any players from overseas.

Same old mediocre end to sets then, that is on those rare occasions we complete a set