Apologies for the misread. I'm already hired out as a salary cap compliance officer though



Brown needs to send a message - even if we disagree on where the required levels of motivation should come from, if Brown lets anyone feel comfortable as an automatic choice, hes doing his job wrong - I cant see how he cant drop players next week...



So for Bradford:

Wellens (with the knowledge McDonnell is now here and breathing down his neck)
Makinson
Turner
Jones
Dawson
Charnock (Wilkin deserves a week off for the penalty not finding touch!)
Hohaia
LMS (good yards but 4 missed tackles put him under pressure)
Roby
Masoe (up his number of runs though)
Soliola (same as lms)
Manu (statistically was probably our mom yesterday)
Thompson

Walmsley
Ghostmont (Got through the last 2 games and has said hes hopeful to get a game)
Laffranchi (Been given the all clear)
Greenwood? Were short on backrowers imo

I think Brown has been disinclined to drop our underperforming forwards because he's afraid of picking a small pack. If it's true that Boof, Beaumont and Amor are close to all being available then I suspect/hope we'll see a bit more of players being dropped when they're not performing.

I didn't see the game yesterday, but if the stats and the last few games are anything to go by then I think that we need to break up the Percival/Swift partnership, perhaps bringing McDonnell in.

What does Wheeler have to do to get a game when Lance plays a stinker?

I wasn't at the match so all I have to go on is the stats and the radio commentary.

Although our right edge isn't much better, it is our left that seems to be perceived as the weak side and so I'd drop Swift and Percival, put them on extra tackling tuition, and bring in Jones and Dawson for Bradford.

I think we have to be careful about making too many changes all at once. It's only Bradford, although they clearly put up a good fight against the Dragons and so cannot be taken lightly, but we need a win again and so we don't want to be causing too much disruption, and yet attitudes need to change.

Shame really that McDonnell wasn't up to speed. We could do with dropping Wello and replacing him with an attacking option as we need it against a less structured team while Walsh is missing.

Sounded to me like both our halves had poor games. Do we drop them both?

Wheeler was hopeless in France, in attack anyway. But I'm sure Brown will drop Lance. He seems quite happy to drop certain players but not others. I would imagine we will see Wheeler in the halves against Bradford, but I'm pretty sure we won't be any better in attack or defence as a result!

I don't think tackling is really the problem (not with Swift, anyway; Percy does miss the odd simple one-on-one). It's more to do with positioning and communication; they're missing a lot of tackles because they're making bad reads and having to try and make tackles from impossible situations. There are more instances that won't count on the missed tackle list because the misread has been so complete that the attacker hasn't been touched (e.g. Charnley's tries last week). I think the best solution would be, for the time being at least, to only play one of them at a time, partnered with a more experienced player who can do a lot of talking and help marshall the defence in that channel.

I was just about to post something very similar.

It has nothing to do with tackling technique, it's ALL about positioning and communication, as you have said.

The single most frustrating part of watching rugby for me is when wingers come in off the wing to "help" out their centre and leave the winger with a stroll into the corner. It's ridiculous how often this happens at all clubs yet it's really really simple to rectify.

As the great Gordon Tallis said -
"The only reason wingers scores tries is because they're marked by other wingers."

We seem to be excelling at the minute at this - if our winger marks his opposite number 1 on 1 - then rely on his inside men to 'get there'.
If the centre then strolls in then so be it - it's our centres fault , plus the full back has about 5 yards less ground to cover to help out

Would you play McDonnell wing or centre (or just either)?

I've just seen swift shoot out the line. Wtf was he doing?

Fully agree with this, its difficult to rectify at the moment because our "backs coach" might not be role playing this scenario.
Dawson is similar to Swift and gets out of position as well, leaving Percival to cover a 2 man play.

I'm surprised that GW hasn't been blamed for yesterday yet.

Does any players need to be rested this week?

Bradford at home and Landan away we should batter them both?

Wellens
Makinson
Turner
Percival
Swift
Wilkin
Hohaia
Walmsley
Roby
Richards
Manu
Flanagan
Soliola

Bench

Jones
LMS
Thompson
Greenwood

I think the right edge is being targeted more than the left. It's easier for the opposition to pass that way and I also think they try and work Luke Walsh in defence to hinder his attack. I know he didn't play Sunday but teams do target our right.

I also don't think Percy is a bad tackler, he's not great but if players are lazy moving across it's causes the edges all sorts of problems and let's be honest, we have some half hearted lazy players.

The whole defence structure needs sorting

Agreed. We dont even have a defensive coach do we?

It sounds as though we just have a forwards coach and a backs coach, don,t know how that is supposed to work and whats its purpose.
Is it possible that half the team don,t know what the other half is doing instead of working as one entity and responding to whats in front of them, hence the Jeckyll and Hyde performances that keep popping up.

I can understand maybe different fitness regimes for the backs and forwards, but surely defense and attack have to be worked on as a team???

Saints have just tweeted that Kyle Amor is likely to be back this Friday and Laffranchi has a chance. Walsh likely to miss another week.

Not really the right thread, but considering you brought it up.

Recently on BBC Radio Merseyside Try Time, there was an interview with Jamahl Lolesi and Alan Rooney asked him how the coaching set up works. This is basically what he said:

Browny deals mainly with defence and makes all the big calls.

KC does all of the attack and looks after the forwards.

Jamahl does some defensive stuff (e.g. wrestling) and he looks after the backs.

Kc needs to crack on!

And so does Browny

Our issue isn't attack particularly, 555 is a decent enough return, it's our defence that's costing us

i was more referring to our forwards not pulling their weight!