Just been looking at some stats, one of our players is 8th in the league for tackle busts in 09, no cheating now, who do you think it is?

Sheriffe

Well you spoilt that!

Soz mate!

Ha ha, guess you've been looking at stats as well?

Those tackle busts become irrelevant if he's moving sideways across the pitch when he makes them.

You're right. A check on "clean breaks" is a more useful stat.

Here's another question.

Of these scrum halves, who has fewer try assists than Paul Deacon this season:

Brough
Burrow
Leuluai
Briers
Sherwin
Long
Bosc
Myler
Horne
Dobson
Van Dijk
Robinson
Orr

none?

Correct. When even Jace van Dijk is getting more, as well as people like Horne, who is at a team having a crap season too, and has played a load of games out of position, then it's quite worrying.

5 try assists from a scrum half from 18 games is abysmal.

62 missed tackles is also a lot for Deacon, who used to be quite a good defender for a small halfback.

Yep. Only Dobson has missed more tackles but he's miles ahead in assists and tries scored.

I knew Deacon has had bad season but he's statistically the worst performer in SL at scrum half. Even the likes of Sherwin who's played 5 fewer games beat him in the stats that count.

Regarding the try assists, it's also interesting to note past season rankings from Mr. Deacon:


2003 = 2nd (only Sinfield had more)
2004 = 5th
2005 = Joint 14th
2006 = 9th
2007 = Joint 22nd
2008 = Joint 17th
2009 = Not even in the top 25


Although there's a slight zig zag in there, it essentially shows a steady drop. Of course that can't just be attributed to Deacs himself, as the team has an influence on it. However it doesn't make for good reading from your first choice halfback.

Part of the responsibility has to fall on the runners for not running decent lines but Deacon's stats this year stand out a mile.

A few posters have mentioned how he should've been dropped and he should but for the fact that our squad is so wafer thin in the backs and halfbacks that he's been virtually guaranteed a place whenever he's fit.

To go into a season with only two players capable of playing halfback is madness. I pray we not going to do it next year too. The thought of having Deacon at scrum half with a combination of Sykes and Kearney at stand off has "bottom three" written all over it.

Boy, he was good in the second half of that year - despite frequently being partnered at halfback by Mike Forshaw IIRC.

[url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/sportbulls/4535351.Macca__We_just_need_the__spark__to_finish_them_off/Macca say's we're not far off being a good side[/url




Who flaming well cares whether we're making metre when we have halfbacks and backs who cannot convert these metres into points. Sooner this year is over the better I reckon, least that might be the end of these ridiculous comments from Macca for a few months. All the fans want to hear about now is how our squad will look for next season, surely it is about time we began releasing some good news on this score?

Slightly off topic here but how exactly does the transfer deadline/embargo situation work?

Is it basically there to prevent teams announcing signings from clubs within the same league etc? If that is the case then how can the signings of Newton and Morrison already be announced?

I only ask because I was under the impression that signings of this nature could not yet be disclosed.

Interesting thng about that is Dave has clearly just lifted all the quotes from Bulls Eye. Now why would the T&A reporter not get his own quotes?

Yea, what do I win??

As for Deacon, there are no stats on it, but how many times this season has Deacon taken a serious knock (often to the head) and looked a shadow of himself for the remaining game? I can think of about 4 or 5 occasions of this, such as both games we played against cas. It really effects his game IMO, more than it used to.

If club give players permission to talk then they can be disclosed, if they dont then they not meant to talk, but everyone knows they do, they just try and keep a lid on it till 1min past midnight on sep 1st.

Well obviously the communication with the club isn't the best right now. Note to McNamara, the only stats that matter are the league table at the end of the year. I could understand him looking at these sorts of stats if we were in a poor run of form. But largely we have been crap for most of the year with only a few notable exceptions. These next 5 games can't happen quickly enough for me now, I just hope the recruitment gives us reason to be hopeful that things might be different next year.