I saw Kevin Sinfield shopping in Oldham and he nodded at me which to me indicates he knew I was a Salford fan and he's definitely coming !!

Was it a red one?

I watched an old academy game when Sinfield was 17 the other day. He looked down the camera and put the thumbs up, as soon as I saw that I knew he'd be a Salford player next year

Sinfield . . Salford





Both begin with an 'S' and end with a 'd' and they both have an 'f' four letters in and an 'L'. Sin? Devil? are you reading me? Now add up the number of letters in both names and add 1996 (First year of Superleague) to it and what do you get? Forget what it says in the newspaper it's got to be fate!

sinfield would of been the final peice of the jigsaw ,its only a pity he wont be playing for us next season , with him a feel we could of gone on to possibly challenge for silverware , i feel it is only a matter of time before we are up there where we belong being a rugby giant again ,the future is looking very bright indeed ,and i for one cannot wait for next season to start ,





keep the faith

I've stewed on this for 24hrs before replying Optimist mate, and can only hope that one of the following was the inspiration behind your post:

A: the baby is still keeping you up all night and lack of sleep has clouded your thinking.

B: you consumed far too much ale shortly before posting.

or

C: you were just having a laugh.

If that's your idea of watching quality RL, I can't ever see us standing side by side on the terrace applauding.

Five drives and a kick do nothing for me whatsoever, infact it's a bigger turn-off than hairy armpits on the female species.

Let me ask you a question.

Our beloved Salford are 8 points down with 7 mins left. What would be your opinion of a comeback gameplan ?

Keep driving it up the middle through the forwards and hope for the best ..... or .....

Throw the ball around the backs, go for broke and chance letting in another try.... or....

Settle for the marginal loss ???

I know what I would rather see.

No offence meant mate, I'd just rather see free flowing play than an arm wrestle any day of the week.

Col

In that senario your reaily playing against the clock, your opponents if they have any sence are making you play out of your 20 so 2 scores in under 10 minutes is a big ask so yeah you have to chance your arm, push the pass in that situation but i wouldnt be looking to turning the ball over early in the tackle count do that and your 7 minutes turns into 4 and if your lucky not to be coming out of your 20m's now your in 5th tackle bomb to the corner last chance salloon get as many men round the ball as you can and hopefully under pressure your oppontent will cough up the ball and it might land in your hands ,



Get the message out Perhaps 3rd tackle look overload a side of the field looking for a bad read ,4 tackle if we still have the ball and not thrown it in touch you'd hope our pivots make themselves available and arnt hiding salford being salford tho the ball would land in jewitts hands rather than holdsworths, keep the ball alive hopefully a few dummy runners (depends on the players attitude if we get any) might give us some space 5TH and last kick to the corner or dink over the top depends on where we are in the field, id have drummed into my players earlier that a kick is only as good as the chase so id hope we'd get there in numbers salford being salford Rachford would be the only chaser and barring some magic which he is capable he'd get swallowed up.



Jim same senario say 20 mins to go, we've traded sets then they've turned the ball over say we are on our 30m, scrum our head and feed where do you go, what do you do what do want to see?



A) Play the set out try and get down their end of the field, find touch and try and pin them in their 20 and force an error



B) Put a expansive move on, which may result in a try or may result in you coughing the ball up on half way



C) a nothing set of 6 just used to give your forwards a rest after kicking on the last with a medium chase you end up on their 30m back in the arm wrestle

Id Go for A, you've took advantage of their error

I'm with the Optimist on this one.



In an ideal world our beloved team would play faultless open Rugby and leave us all oo-ing and ahh-ing, and maybe 5 or 10 years ago, the 'caution-to-wind' style of rugby was a valid option. The reason it doesn't really work in the long term is because the way the modern game has developed. Defense and tackling have completely changed, players roles have completely changed, focus on error-free rugby (As it statistically shows fewer errors = winning team) and a multitude of other reasons.



The opposition play the stats and pressure game, constantly trying to force you on the back foot, and make you play in your own half. Playing any other type of rugby apart from trying to do the same to your opposition and 9 times out of 10 you will lose. Especially as we don't have a team of international stars. That isn't to say that open rugby doesn't exist, there is just a time and a place for it.



If you want to see Salford rise as a club again, I'm betting that you will have to witness more 'tactical wins' than 'caution-to-the-wind' victories. At the end of the day it's about those 2 points, and most fans would be happy with that regardless of how the team come by them.



I understand your argument JJ, but for a team like Salford, atm, anything but trying to match your opponent tactically will result in defeat. I'd rather see Salford compete than throw the ball around like a hot potato and get battered.

I think this is brilliant we are now changing tacktotally to keep this thread going strong.



I think most Salford fans would like to see what I call hot potato rugby where we throw the ball about and confuse the opposition into mistakes but in todays game that isn't going to be much good. I think all of us would settle for making the top 6 next season with regimented rugby in a game up until the point we have the game in the bag and then the players of the likes of Reg, Patten and Smith given a free hand to cut loose.

Great replies fellas.

I appreciate what both of you say.

I know that my thoughts are idealistic, and probably unworkable thru most games, as yes we'd get mullered more often than not.

I just love to see rugby played that way (no doubt we all do).

I obviously belong to a different era and am showing my age



Anyhow, I'm glad I asked the question and have got decent reasoned answers (not that I expected anything less)



Something to discuss further during the off season ?

cheers

Col.

BTW Optimist, knowing me, I'd go for option B, make a complete hash of it, then switch to option A ... bomb that and settle for option C

Never been to Blackburn then I guess..











Yes there is , The place for it is the Willows , and the time will be Fridays at 8pm.

5 drives and a kick won't get the crowd unless the 5 drives result in the prone broken bodies of our opposition



The emphasis of our signings have altered from ' workhorse ' to attck minded , we have gifted standoff(s) a winger who can score from 90 metres out and an agenda from the club to make every home game a special occassion.

So 5 drives , or attack , attack , attack ...