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 ...

To go for Attack, Attack, Attack and nothing else I would suggest will only end in tears. Whilst we have brought in some good attacking options we have lost our two best defensive players and will for me struggle up the middle of the pitch to stop the opposition at the PTB.

I would be happy if we had more than one plan week in week out as we have had for the past couple of years, I would much rather a huge down town on the 3rd tackle than a hurried kick by a player not expecting the ball on the 5Th, much better in my eyes to kick the ball dead in goal and face up on the 20 than kick with unerring accuracy to the opposition full back and when Ratchford is on the park we must make full use of the highest bombs I have seen in many a year.

it would be nice to play fast open rugby , but against some teams you just have to grind out ,what they say are ugly wins ,i would be quite happy for us to play bad and win ,than play fast free flowing rugby and lose, the proof will be there next season , we have now a squad capable of the top six , i know it will take a bit of time for them to gell ,but when they do you have got to fancy our chances against anybody ,

We haven't played free flowing rugby under McRae at all and look where that has got us? When we beat Saints at home we did it by throwing the ball about, I'd rather see us play expansive rugby and lose than go on playing the same stuff we do now and still keep getting beat.

At the Wakefield Game pre-match Steve Simms was giving a pre match build up talk in the sponsors lounge, going into tactics with lots of buzz words 'respecting the opposition' building a platform ' etc

someone asked Dan Holdsworth what his tactics would be if he were playing ),

" Score more points than they do ...."




At the players awards evening it was the Saint's home game they replayed ( [iwell tried to [/i
not a game where we spent 40 minutes shoving it up our jumpers ' building a platform ' .

Was going to provide an essay, complete with plenty of examples of why the 'building a platform before killing the opposition' approach is so successful. (Wayne Bennett inspired)

But as convinced I am of the success of this style of RL and why it isn't a boring version of the game, I'm just going to point out that without the right materials you'll struggle to build a house. Our 2011 house has the bricks, the roof and a few decorative touches. BUT, under pressure it'll all break down and blow a way for in the modern game, you need that foundation! Dan Holdsworth knows this, despite his opportunistic comedy cliche!

However, I'm happy to be wrong. Prove me wrong Dan.

Fair play to you Dan if that would be your attitude. Unfortunately, these forums would become almost unbearable with the fair-weather fans (And John from Salford) calling for regime change, booing, insulting, personal digs etc etc because the team loses.

Besides, saying that you'd rather watch a team of middle-range players attempt to throw the ball around like the Harlem Globetrotters (TM), all the time knocking-on and making poor tactical decisions, than watch a side get 2 points in a grafted, tactical match. Is a bit like saying you'd rather watch 'male interest films' where the facial is missed.

lmao Butcher

I'm not calling for a regime change, just a change in the style of play. If we have been unsing the 'build a platform ect' style of play this season then what have we got to lose by throwing the ball around? Like against St. Helens.

But I would suggest that we did build a platform against St Helens. The Saints forwards were dominated that day and failed to control us. Not because our pack is better than that of Saints, but a case of being better on that particular day. (Most probably because Saints weren't completely up for it and we were.)
As a result of being dominant, you not only cause havoc with the opposition defence, you earn the right to throw the ball around on the back of the momentum physical dominance creates.

I think that potentially the most important player for us this season will be Smith at 7, we have all seen what he can do when he has a qaulity pack and players around him in the play offs for Saints and then in the final what happens when the same players go missing for vast tracts of the game.
With the quality we have brought in I get a sneaky feeling Smith will up the quality and make a few eat their words and turn into the on field fulcrumb for our team not as many think Reg.

i agree with most of what you are saying ,but from next season onwards ,we will have a few good game breakers in our team , smith ,holdsworth , pattern , and anderson , i cannot wait for the new season to begin ,



keep the faith

I agree with Michigan red that more is going to be expected of Matty Simth next season. His passes need to find their target considerably more than they were last season. To say he'll be more of a fulcrum than Holdsworth is a big call. Holdsworth has the rugby brain and temperament to go with his ability, and this alone means he should be the man to take us round the park. Especially, as when he was out injured towards the end of last season we looked a little lost in attack. Like I said, though, more is expected of him and they need to forge a partnership, similar to what they were starting to do last season.

As for Smithy's theory statement on game breakers, you left out Feka and Jodie Broughton. Feka can destroy an opposition's defence and Jodie has got to be the quickest winger in super league.

Don't forget Kevin Sinfie...oh wait