So we have three key injuries and we can't cope, have not enough experienced players to make up some/most of the shortfall, that's extremely short sighted given how injuries/suspensions can happen in RL.
kirk Dixon summed it up perfectly on RH, youngsters with not enough experience.
We had an over the cap squad last year by loads only keeping under due to backloaded contracts hence we've had to offload players all over the place to stay under the live cap this year so we are having to rely much more on the youngsters.
And if due to a combination of signing outside players and not realising that non injured players need rotating, our youngsters that are on peanuts simply don't have enough experience/not good enough to step up to cover anywhere near as much as we are losing in those key areas, not even close.
it's a circular/cyclical problem that stems back to when Radford took over, bring in players from outside to gain success, last season he Radford (and to an extent Pearson too) really needed to win something or top 4/massive improvement + a final otherwise he'd be gone, so bust the cap with back loaded contracts to afford to have all the players like Taylor/Pryce/Sneyd/Manu/Fonua/CT/Ellis/Minichello/Pritchard etc to increase that chance and to a degree it paid off. However we saw what happened due to not having the balance and 1st XVII players completely knackered and too late introducing youngsters with even less experience than this year.
Try to address this in pre-season but it/they simply aren't enough and against a good team like salford we got found out, we are being found out mental strength/preparation wise too.
The youngsters hopefully can only improve but can they be good enough because aren't these supposed to be part of the building the team around the upcoming academy players ethos that we were sold and that pearson invested massively in?
As i've said a few times, since Radford took over the closest we have come to a player from the system getting a first team spot is jordan Abdull, there are no other players that have made their debut under Radford that are cementing a regular place.
We've got some good solid forwards from the academy but none are pulling up trees and aren't 1st XVII material or cpable of being near the players they are replacing down to inury or suspension, not yet.
it's this aspect - lack of bringing youngsters through, i spoke about before the 2016 season even kicked off and this is precisely why Wigan do so well with their youngsters, they are ready to throw them in and the players themselves are ready/well coached/drilled so the shortfall in experience is not so noticeable.
