I wonder if it has anything to do with the choice and timing of our interchanges.

We were still in the game at 37 minutes, but tbh, Widnes were exceptional today. If they played like that all season they would be fighting for top 4 never mind top 8.
Great coaching too, they never stopped attacking Fages and Murphy, and got results almost every time. Brown ran the game for them and everything he did came off, including that 40/20.
Big lesson for us, if we are going to rely on our attack and concede that we are poor defensively, that's fine, but we had 3 sets early on with good field position, and came back with nothing.
Bad day at the office for us, Widnes have bought well, I hope their crowds increase as its a town that deserves Super League success.

Not great coaching at our end,was it?
Betts did his homework on the Bulls game and attacked our right side.
If people on this forum highlighted it last week,why was there no change.
I know we are short of players but we were also short of nous.
The pack was ok but ,defensively out wide,we were appalling.
Also Sneyd was out of position so often ,it was a joke.
I assume the defensive formation was laid down by the coaches ,so it's them as much as the players.
Depressing!

We pulled it back to within one score, we had them pinned on their line and then Wild gave away a penalty and they scored off the resulting set. It drives me mad how we throw away good situations like that and it was so predictable that they wold score right on the hooter as well. That one came from a position where we had them contained in midfield, they threw one long pass to our right and were through again.

That was game over and then the second half was nightmarish at times. Bonita Red is right - it is depressing about the coaching not addressing the right hand defence. Time and again they had 2 or 3 to one against Murphy, there was little he could do about it. Widnes obviously spotted that Gaskell went off early on and took advantage of the lack of numbers on that side.

Our defence down that side is bad enough at the best if times never mind when we are without a centre. It looked like Ashurst and Dixon were supposed to be doubling but the gap between them and Fages always too big, no communication and no cover

Fair play to Widnes, there backing up was superb and some of the passing was sublime, especially from Hanbury. But to be honest we made it a lot easier for them than it should have been

Allowing the opposition to score the first try in the opening minutes doesn't help,either.
Gets the crowd right behind them.

It was the other 10 tries that bothered me more

It was Jon Clarke who kicked the 40/20 iirc.

**puts tin hat on**

Its phycological imo we have conceeded tries before and after ht since I can remember regardless of the situation we find ourselves in.

Better in game micro management is needed by the players by taking responsibility and a mind coach to make the players be proactive not reactive in certain situations at certain times of the game MAY intime allow our players to actually be positive in this area and even score tries both before and after ht

Pipe dream at the mo tho imo. Imagine a salford team asking the questions and coming up with the answers at this crutial time in any game. One day.........

Now I wish I'd thought of that.
Sorry,but I was just hoping for a better defensive formation and stronger tackling.

Far from defending an inept display SCR were heavily depleted in the threequarters with Williams, Gleeson, Gibson and after 20 minutes Gaskell missing.

Our strength in depth is paper thin and will be until the end of the season. The coaches are just using Elastoplast at the minute but I too was despondent to see virtually every try scored down our right flank.

We need more personnel from somewhere to avoid similar thrashings.

EB speaks the truth. Consign it to history and let's move on. The exciting thing is that this team will be utterly different this time next year. This year can be seen as a marker for those playing personnel to stake a claim for next season. If they don't shape-up they'll be gone. We need the new coach in asap to start the foundations for next year.

I'm still pretty excited at the prospect of a proper pre-season, new coach, new personnel on and off-field to really see what we can do.

Here we go again...

It has nothing to do with mindset of the players. It has everything to do with being unable to defend. Every time they attacked that right hand side of our defence they scored, whether it was just before half time, just after, or at any other point in the game.

Get the defence right and you solve the problem, simple.

Have to agree with GT on this. It's not a mental issue this, its a "Switch on for the full 80" issue, simple as.

Correct.
We have 4 centres out,if you include Nero,so it was always going to be difficult.
It was obvious that Widnes would attack that side,as Bradford had done,but nothing was done about it.
At half time,it was screaming out for a tactical switch but it didn't happen.
I'm not advocating switching Broughton from left wing to right centre at half time ,and I know we were short of options but they had to try something different and didn't.
We do have to move on,but we also have a right to tell it as we see it

Good comment Bonita - That would have been a very simple choice and should have been made without doubt.

Isn't being 'switched on' a mental issue that comes from what's inside your head?

i would say it's more to do with fitness and having enough in the tank to function for the 40 mins each half. Having played the game, i never once thought "Oh it's 5 mins till half time can look forward to half time". i would say though as fitness levels drained from playing full half's that i was more likely to not stick to the game plan or move in as i would have in the first 5 minutes.

No amount of shuffling would made much difference , we are still a scratch side made up of last yrs U20's & 2-3 loanees , on the 3rd game in 10 days and it showed ,

Widnes were able to bring in Phelps & Brown Fresh , whilst Clarke , Allen & O'Carroll & Hanbury had been rested for the Easter Monday game so had had a Full week to recover , whilst Owen & Pickersgill hadn't played the previous friday. So 8 of the Widnes Team had played 1 or 2 games less .

It seems what works for individuals and teams is [url=http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/dr-steve-peters-the-psychiatrist-charged-with-ridding-anfield-of-the-fear-factor-8554166.htmlManaging The Chimps[/url

i've read Steve Peters' book the 'Chimp Paradox' and its actually very good but a lot of it is just common sense.
It's more about preparation before and the aftermath of an event rather than during it, not sure it would be much help in a fast paced RL game.

For me its about being proactive and not being reactivate during them periods yesterday to me the last five minutes of each half there was no control no micro management of the game on the field they didn't win contact we were going backwards and it needed somebody or a couple of players meet fire with fire and go fwd positively.

I do feel we have a lot of average players but if they are switched on and motivated both as an individual to be the best they can be which let's be honest isnt going to be a world beater but they might end up a good player and if you have more good players in your team you will do much better than a team full of average players.

Personally I think if we had a mind coach and a fully fit squad I do feel that we would finish 8th no problem because as the season goes on it becomes more about motivation and pride both individual and as a group of players rather than fitness that is why every season there isa team who is top of the bottom 10th /11th who makes a dash for glory of finishing in the 8th sometimes they make it sometime they don't

For the record im hoping this season for a top of the bottom finish 10th would be a great achievement considering all the ups and downs this season we shall see.

I've missed David Brent.

the game didn't really have a lot of tempo in it tbh (easter hangover?) and a lot of your lads didn't really seem up for it from the off I must admit. As mentioned our fresh players upped their game and after your two tries brought the score back close I felt we started to run and tackle that bit harder and it showed with some great scores.

As you say good coaching from us to keep attacking a clear weak point but (I know Hunte is a rookie) its a worry if any coach at any level doesn't at least try something to address that by moving a few players around.

Hanbury was just simply phenomenal again. I think their was only the short ball by Mellor for Winterstein to score from close that he didn't have a direct hand in out of the 10 tries from us!

Don't think it was good coaching from your perspective;simple fact being the strength of your side was down the left where Brown and Hock had good games.
Had he moved certain players around it would have meant other young players would have been exposed.
I'll worry when a team coached by Alan Hunte concedes as many as a team coached by Denis Betts -



Look out for a different scoreline at The Etihad



Pleased your club stuck with Mr Betts.Best wishes except when you play against us.