I wondered about that one, then I thought about the tricky position we are in with our half-backs and hookers!
We have loads of options - Lee / BJ / Rinaldi / Hyde / Harvey / Davey / Wildie / Smith - that's absolutely tons - but do any of us know who the first choices are? Are there really any stand outs in there, or do we have a collection of 'average' players who would be - at best - the back up players anywhere else. And do some of them feel that they are better than that? And do we upset any of them if we then suddenly pick a young player with no-first team experience, but one who just might, might, be brilliant?
I think there are some tough choices ahead for John and Beans - unfortunately that is probably one area where many people think John has a weakness.
I agree TRB. But are they options or just the case that JK stacks the team with utility players - because weve seen this before,that JK doesnt seem to have the courage of his convictions. JK SHOULD KNOW who is first choices are,that is the job he is paid to do. JK is paid to make the tough choices and if this means upsetting players so be it.But he never seems to make these choices. When i look at the team selection it seems too often to be "Jack of all trades,Master of none"
Firstly yes there was plenty of effort, can't fault that. But the simple fact is the team just isn't good enough. Johnson was our best, Rinaldi in his first spell was decent and Morrison & Mariano put in decent shifts. At the other end of the scale Penny was terrible, Lee not much better and the rest, though trying hard, more or less annonymous. And therein lies the problem. A team of triers just doesn't cut it the top division anymore, you have to have class to be competetive, its what gets people through the gate to watch. We all know why we have the team we do but seeing a team of enthusiastic young lads getting thumped every week will do just as much harm to the attendances as watching last years underperforming collection. Ultimately all that will be there will be the diehards. Kear has 20-odd players to pick from any probably only 3 or 4 would get a regular game anywhere else in superleague. The rest just are not good enough. Yes some of the young ones may come through eventually but getting soundly beaten most weeks isn't going to be good for their development and i'm afraid I can see us being on the end of some very embarrassing scorelines.
I am sure if the club had being run on a professional basis over the last 4-5 seasons JK would have being able to call on the likes of Solomona, Brough, Tronc, Atkins, Obst, Snitch, Grix, Ferguson, Wilkes, Moore etc etc yesterday. Unfortunately as we all know it wasn’t and here we have the results, a situation that will not be turned around in weeks or months and we must live with it, get behind Mr Glover the coach and the team. Is that John Kears fault?
Firstly yes there was plenty of effort, can't fault that. But the simple fact is the team just isn't good enough. Johnson was our best, Rinaldi in his first spell was decent and Morrison & Mariano put in decent shifts. At the other end of the scale Penny was terrible, Lee not much better and the rest, though trying hard, more or less annonymous. And therein lies the problem. A team of triers just doesn't cut it the top division anymore, you have to have class to be competetive, its what gets people through the gate to watch. We all know why we have the team we do but seeing a team of enthusiastic young lads getting thumped every week will do just as much harm to the attendances as watching last years underperforming collection. Ultimately all that will be there will be the diehards. Kear has 20-odd players to pick from any probably only 3 or 4 would get a regular game anywhere else in superleague. The rest just are not good enough. Yes some of the young ones may come through eventually but getting soundly beaten most weeks isn't going to be good for their development and i'm afraid I can see us being on the end of some very embarrassing scorelines.
Very unfair the ball never came to him and he came inside time and time again looking for work yes he made some errors but so did more senior players Forget the score lines that may come judge the lads over the coming weeks on commitment effort and improvement It will be a hard season we all know that the goal is SL
You can't knock the effort, and there were positive to take. If we hadn't been asleep for the first 10 minutes it could have been a different game. Although we certainly lack creativity near our opponets line. Smith albeit from the one game i've seen and those at Salford doesn't look like a halve to me.
We knew we were in for a long season, and unfortunately we can't give sides a 16-0 lead and expect to come back.
to be honest people are giving Jules Rinaldi so paudits and I personally think some of his decision making near the line, especially but not limited to, the first half was appauling. We should have had three or four tries under their posts be we kept either going from half back or trecking on the blind side which was stacked with defenders. That will be Wakeys biggest problem this year, someone who organises to our advantage when we get in the oppositions 20.
Very unfair the ball never came to him and he came inside time and time again looking for work yes he made some errors but so did more senior players Forget the score lines that may come judge the lads over the coming weeks on commitment effort and improvement It will be a hard season we all know that the goal is SL
He's a winger at wakefield, the ball isn't going to ever come anywhere near him. In our coaches setup what a winger needs to do is catch the ball, defend well and help the forwards out by coming in-field and making quick yards up the middle. He didn't do any of that. He cost us two tries from his handling errors alone. That in my book is a terrible game.
We put this festival on you ba****ds With whole lotta love We worked for one year for you pigs And you wanna break our walls down And you wanna destroy Well you go to hell
Probably going to have to get used to yesterday, I reckon we will see more of the same throughout the year - hopefully punctuated by one trick poney Kear getting them "up for it" against Leeds away, or Wigan at home or something daft like that and getting a result.
Reasonable amount of effort out there so you can't really be critical of the lads, but ultimately out muscled and outclassed by a Salford side that, whilst having a few "big names" in the side, didn't look anything other than a side that will struggle to make the play offs. It was probably the easiest fixture we could have hoped for given the state of the league at the moment, and we didnt have enough class to handle them.
We have an below average squad that seems to be heavily unbalanced and we are probably going to spend the majorty of the year on the back foot - but as long as the lads keep the enthusiasm up and the effort thats all we can ask for from them. I really do fear for us in the 2nd half of the season though if we get given the boot and we are basically going through the motions, there's only so long you can puch above your weight with average joe's, waifs, strays and rejects and I fear the worst this year. Sorry for being all doom and gloom, but its how I feel.
The first try from a Penny mistake was a slip in the mud, not a handling error as such. The second one was down to him, but as someone said next to me, if he wasn't prone to that, he would still be at Warrington.
George disappointed me more with the second try. It was obvious from ten yards out that the ball was not going to the winger, but he wouldn't join in the tackle, and one more man would probably have stopped it.
For all Rinaldi's plaudits, it was his errors near the Salford line that were damaging, because they kept on snuffing out a comeback.
I thought Penny came looking for work and I think he did okay. We lack a playmaker though, and with someone like Brough, I reckon we would have won. For the middle fifty minutes of the game I thought we were the better side, but they started better and took their chances towards the end.
to be honest people are giving Jules Rinaldi so paudits and I personally think some of his decision making near the line, especially but not limited to, the first half was appauling. We should have had three or four tries under their posts be we kept either going from half back or trecking on the blind side which was stacked with defenders. That will be Wakeys biggest problem this year, someone who organises to our advantage when we get in the oppositions 20.
Thats pretty much how i saw Rinaldis contribution.
He made more mistakes than Penny and at some critical plays,yet Penny seems to be catching alot of the flack which i see as been unwarranted.Yes Penny made two clangers,a slip for the try and dropping a high ball near the end.For my money Rinaldis errors were mainly down to taking the wrong options on some crucial plays.