After last week I really wanted to see us start well and we didn't in fact we started poorly again. I want to see our early completion rates high and us defending the opposition in their own half. We were good in the second half and had a good spell in the first half.

I thought Atkins was very good again, he is looking much more like his former self these days. Grix looked sharper, we have really missed this guy, him playing also allowed Harrison to play prop and I think it suits him there. With hill it's got to the point that we don't even need to review his performance. We were pretty good all over the park Russell solid in defence and got a nice try assist for ratchford which was good to see, more of that in attack please matty. Rhys Evans came up with 2 try saving tackles and 2 tries so a good return from him. Those 4 props for the rest of the season would be nice.

We really shouldn't be conceding so many goal line drop outs against an excellent reserve set up or defending so many sets early in the game. Poor handling & a resulting massive defensive effort were our undoing last week.

I thought our attack was poor again and we lack direction, we desperately need a proper halfback.

I don't think we played particularity well, but did TS know that we would win this game so reigned the Lads in a bit.

Only to let them loose from here on in against the Giants, Saints & Wigan and then on in to the Play offs.

I was thinking this. Will we ever see someone as great for us as Lee was?
The problem is real quality half backs just don't grow on trees.

My mate was saying last night that we do have a wonder kid half back in our 16s that could be a great but that is ifs & buts and even if he did make the grade then we wont see him for another 5 seasons.

Major highlight - Russell didn't pass the ball forward and gave an assist.

have a word with yourself and get behind your own team....they had loads of possession and created all just like Leeds in the first half last week. When Castleford gave us similar amounts of possession we slapped 48 points up their .

I despair at the apathy towards our club. we had to suffer a attendance last night by wire fans and now we've got people saying they want us to be like a club that brought twenty fans and drum having just secured a wembley spot and who's team were totally and utterly clueless.

Moran was stood behind me last night and was ed off with the attendance. If he chucks it all in. maybe we'll be a bit more like Cas and everyone will be happy eh?

I am not aware of this wonder kid and I have watched them every game this year.

Sorry to say there isn't anyone like the Lee Briers we signed at 17 years old. Not sure there will ever be at this rate, the game has changed.

I'm sorry but Cas did not play well.
They had moments but how many times did the ball come out from the ptb to a clueless HB stood still with no move set up? Or passes going to the wrong player? At one point the hooker picked the ball up and stood on the spot looking around as no one was making themselves available. He gave up and just ran the ball straight in making about 3 yards.

Is that really exciting to watch?

We were made to look average by what was essentially an 'A' team. If Cas didn't have their eyes on next week I wouldn't have been surprised if we saw a repeat of Easter Monday.

I think your Cas dig is unfair, not many people are able to afford a Friday night away game sandwiched between the semi and final. They have played some fantastic football this year and deserve nothing but praise, especially when you consider the budget and facilities available to Powell in contrast to our set up at Warrington.

Two years ago I was one of about 50 people who watched London put 62 points past us. Attendances have been poor this year but there has been no effort to market at all. If it looks like the club sing interested you're going to struggle getting people in. Don't knock a club that is working really hard on and off the field.

In the modern era the game is now entertainment and the club is a business with customers. If customer numbers fall the club have to look at themselves as to the reasons why.

Average attendance at Warrington is dropping significantly.

I suspect disinterest in the league format and price of tickets.

2013 avg attendance 10,465*
2012 avg attendance 11430
2011 avg attendance 11,149***


*Sporting Life data.
*** Daily Telegraph

Blaming league format is lazy imo. If it were true across all clubs then maybe it's time to look at it, but Saints for example are up 8% yoy with 1 home game left...

It seemed like the good times were back at the start of the year, so that probably brought a fair amount of floaters back inflating your crowds,


How do they stand up to last year's individual figures

Even taking that point, it would imply the product on the pitch and success are more important than the league structure itself. I'd argue that the league structure as an external factor is almost a negligible affect. Also Saints have had the "were back" factor for the past 2 years now!

Saints yoy breakdown:

[code
2013 2014 Yoy change
Bradford 11385 10238 -10.1%
Castleford 10943 12648 +15.6%
Catalan 11111 11321 +1.9%
Giants 12003 10218 -14.8%
Hull fc 11257 13448 +19.4%
Hull Kr 10820 11818 +9.2%
Leeds 12228 13788 +12.8%
London 9926 9408 -5.2%
Salford 5348 10391 +94.3%
Wakefield 12105 11000 -9.1%
Warrington 14715
Widnes 11438 11844 +3.6%
Wigan 14204 17980 +26.6%
[/code

Cheers for that, Wtf happened with the reds last year ?

It snowed!

While Briers was here there were two wonder kid half backs on our books, ten years ago it was Jamie Durbin and five years ago it was Gareth O'Brien.

I think you are right and your figures suggest that too. The 'first past the post' league structure is only an incentive for teams that are in the hunt for the title, which is fair enough at the moment as there are a lot of clubs around the same level at the top but if we went back to an era where there were say 2 or max 3 teams contending for the title then what would the other teams have to play for? In football first past the post works because there's a battle for the title, then there's the battle for top four and Champions League places, then there's the battle for European spots, and once you are out of that its more a case of mid table vs being in the relegation fight. There is so much money at stake that league position is at a premium.

The problem with the current format is I think 8 is too many teams, for the strong sides you know you will make the top 8 even if you have a bad season, so its only really an incentive for the likes of Widnes, Salford, Hull KR, Wakefield fighting for a playoff spot.

I think what really drives the fans is the product on the pitch and the glamour of the players. For years people said there are too many Aussies here, if there were fewer we would get more of our home grown players coming through the ranks, but now because there is more money in the Aussie game and the exchange rate has gone against us that has limited our access to the NRL market better than any overseas player ruling could have done, and it hasn't improved our game. Yes we get to see more of our own players get a chance, Evans, Ormsby, O'Brien, Currie, Laithwaite, and so on but these players do not bring the crowds in. If we were signing Thurston, Inglis and this kind of player then it would increase the gates, guaranteed. In the old days Super League used to get guys like Allan Langer, Adrian Lam, Andrew and Matty Johns, Jason Smith, Jamie Lyon, Adrian Morley, Matt King, these were players that got fans excited about our game.

Lots of reasons for attendances falling...

In no particular order

Money...If anyone I know has had a wage rise in the past few years the are keeping it quiet. Yet season tickets go up in price

Performance ...The team has been hit and miss in big games all season. People start watching (and stop watching) based on the performances in the big games.

Unimportant games - the message from sky is that the only games that matter are the play offs - so everything else is perceived as low importance games - this carries through to the coaching and selection too

SKy scheduling....Monday, Thursday and Friday games would be ok if they were local derbies....but if there is travelling...the away support is wiped out

Sky.....so much negativity...Stevo in particular... they are driving people away

Marketing....seems to have gone very complacent and sleepy

RFL(and parochial self interested clubs) - no vision...no common goal for the sport. Clubs do not work together at all

The match day experience needs addressing, offering something that people are interested in and is relevant to the game. Dancers, bands and competitions are tired and don't really offer many fans much to get them in early and give them something they don't get through TV.

we waited long enough for Lee Briers to play well and take us on to success. He also played alongside the two greatest scrum halves the world has ever seen and still we won nothing.

I'm sure we can afford Gareth O'Brien a bit of slack and maybe another year or two? after all his halfback partner is a centre turned stand off, and sometimes a utility player that has never really held down one position, add to that he has a full back that is not an extra pivot like Briers' team mate Hodgson was..........

sometimes we forget how we were with Briers in the team week after week year after year

player of the season, MOS and best No6 in superleague though..... dont forget that. if he plays we win, if he doesnt were rubbish

after all his halfback partner is a centre turned stand off,
II thought it was the other way round. Didn't Bridge start of as a stand off and move to centre because Briers was occupying that position?

He was a centre, turned half, back to centre and now back in the halves.

I must say ,the attendance figures quoted seem a bit dodgy to me , i can't recall London averaging 9 thousand plus attendances.....or Bradford or Cas or Huddersfield.