In garden got the BBQ going washed down with several cans of speckled hen..

Looks overweight and underwhelming.

Na hes always had a barrel physique in his upper body looks too big for his legs is he as trim as he was no is he fat or overweight no. It amazes me how ppl go on about him being one of the best all time players but dont know what he looked like when he was playing !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I remember a few people saying that, on a different forum a few years ago, about Chris Hicks, and he didn't turn out too bad !

He does look 6lb too heavy but he looked more comfortable at FB. He started talking too, prior at centre he was like the last kid pick who no one will pass too.

I thought for a first game in what, 2 years, he did enough. No amount of training would have seen him as good as he can be in his first game but over the the next few runouts we will see him get better. He showed some good leadership qualities today with some chatting.

Yeah I think you have to play him to get him up to speed. He will contribute just enough over the next few games (making the odd mistake of course) and the move to full back might actually bring a better reaction out of him as he'll be more involved and get more responsibility.

The only other option is to send him to Widnes for a week or two, but I heard Amnesty International got involved and put a stop to that.

There's an irony here, we've been talking this last week about moving ratch on from fb, and who ou5 of ashton and Thewlis to go with.


And a week and an injury later, we've bypassed Thewlis and opting for inglis

With respect. If you have Greg Inglis, you play Greg Inglis. Thewlis is a talent, and a better all round fullback than Ashton in my opinion, but his project now is to watch, listen and learn.

If we’re going to win anything, we need Inglis, Widdop, Clark, Cooper and King fit and firing.

My concern is that Price doesn’t know “what footy team he has” at all. He buys a left centre (assuming by the squad numbers and today’s selection), yet put King there to start a relationship with Currie and Widdop, only to move him on to the right after weeks.

He also picks a ‘pivot’ fullback as a part of that plan A, but has since decided to change that plan. And the Clark on the bench plan from minute 1 of the season must have been plan A. All this has fell by the wayside, then the messing around with Charnley moving sides, there is no stability or structure.

He either needs a proper plan, pick the players in positions to suit that plan and carry it out and build some combinations or to go completely the other way embrace the chaos, let these players just play.

We ain't doing too bad given the chaos. Not lost since day 1. Held super duper Hull to a draw. Beat Catalans over there. Scored 50 today.

Also for such a shoddy attack we have scored the most points

I must of imagined it when I read that Inglis was fit, but had to wait for Hull KR before making his an appearance, as it was all about the winning debut and the exposure.

You are Paul Youane and I claim my fiver.

I don't think the key performance indicator is not losing since round one, and neither do I think it's the amount of points we've scored. We are doing [iokay[/i, and i doubt anyone really thinks we are that bad.

The important thing is: Do we look like a team that have improved over the last three seasons and do we think we have a chance of winning the Grand Final? For me, the answer is no. Beating Hull KR by 30ish points is all well and good, but nothing I saw yesterday leads me to believe we're going to do anything other than be a top six team that falls short in the playoffs. That is not a good return on the investment we've made.

But that's just me and I'm hard to please.


====

On the Thewlis issue I want him to play, but I also agree we need Inglis getting game time. Whether Inglis should be at centre or FB I'm not sure. I like the idea of him getting involved more because I think he'll be spurred on by the challenge. But then Thewlis I feel can really kick on if he gets a run.

Inglis is on record as saying he didn't expect or wish to return to FB (" those days are gone"icon_wink.gif, so unless Price insists I guess he will remain at centre. I thought he did OK, better than I was expecting to be honest, and he can only improve with match time. So if Ashton is injured I suppose next weeks options are either Ratchford or Thewliss at FB, and that in turn depends on whether Price brings back Austin. Personally I would like to see Thewliss back, and I am so fed up with Austin I don't really care if he plays for us again.

Lineham's return will presumably leave Mamo without a birth. He has done very well for us over the past few games, but I still see him as a utility back for injury cover, albeit he has taken on the role of a super sub and exploited his speed and energy.

Lineham doesn't deserve to come straight back in, Mamo should keep his shirt and Lineham can wait for his shirt whilst thinking about how he can improve his awful disciplinary record.

Lineham has been shockingly stupid and it would be a kick in the teeth for Mamo, but I would prefer the flying pig to Mamo on the wing. Lineham's contract ends this year so perhaps we should be rather more hard nosed with any new offer.

Mamo to fullback then?

I don't think we [iwill[/i win the Grand Final but then again we didn't when we had a better coach in the first half of the previous decade. Bizarrely, St Helens haven't won the Challenge Cup in the time we have won it 4 times. This sort of thing happens in sport.

We [ido[/i have the team - if all first choice 17 are fit and in form - to beat any team on the day. We will probably have to beat St Helens or Wigan to even get to the Grand Final and we've done it before. Just keep your fingers crossed we don't have to play Salford.

This is true, but I think back in the first half of the previous decade we looked increasingly likely to do it over those first 3-4 years. Maybe it's me but after a surprising 2018 we seem to look increasingly [iless[/i likely to win it. However, big changes are afoot in the off-season and our whole approach to success will be changing. We'll be focussing less on big player recruitment and former 'stars' and more on players with raw talent and hunger to be developed. I don't know if that means we'll finally win it but I bet we feel better after each match.

That said, we can't argue too much with what Price has done. He's delivered three finals and one trophy when he could have easily been a David Furner style disaster. He promised to fix the defence in year one, and he did. He just hasn't seemed to be able to turn this expensively assembled squad into a ruthless machine on a [iregular[/i basis. Whether that's him or a stale culture who knows? But I've no doubt Powell will turn it upside down; Have a listen to interviews with his players about how gets the most out of them - he doesn't just go through the motions.

Powell may turn it upside down, but he may also not be able to get it moving in the right direction quickly enough?

Don’t get me wrong, there was a period of relative success at Cas for a while, on a much smaller budget. And that is commendable, but it’s not a prolonged period of success. They won 6 games all year last season. They finished 5th the year before and while ironically they knocked us out, they got nilled Salford the following round of the play offs.

I’m not saying he’s doomed and destined to fail, it is a different beast being a Warrington coach. There is expectation beyond what has been earned. The club peacocks as a super club, without having actually backed it up. The last ‘great’ team was 2016 until Sandow/Currie finished their seasons, before that we were justifiably a great team in 2011-2013, aside from that were just decent challengers. It’s a tough job, but with that expectation comes money and a decent starting point by way of a squad.

But, there is nothing to say that he can replicate that in that environment. He had a budget at Leeds, signed players like Adrian Vowels, Ben Walker, Willie Poaching, Andrew Dunemann and David Furner. A list of decent players, and they all played a part (Walker aside, didn’t last too long). He also had a stellar academy to supplement that team, to his credit he put them in and stuck with them. But even then, they were shrewd signings.

But realistically, Smith took that squad of good kids and decent old boys and turned them into champions. Powell built a decent squad, but that list of signings in really uninspiring. The production of Sinfield, Burrow, Maguire, Mathers, Bailey, Diskin, Walker, JJB who all came in at the same time, really filled that squad with talent.

Since then he’s been on a shoestring, and getting a bit back from that, but the club expect more than a plucky underdog. Powell will have a huge budget, with Widdop and Austin likely to leave, along with Clark (2), Inglis and maybe Hill if rumours are to be believed. He needs to find some players to get us going from day 1, or he could be in trouble.

Fans get on the back quickly, even when we had the last huge squad purge, losing Briers, Morley, Monaghan, Hodgson, Carvell etc and trying to play the kids, the fans got on the back of Tony Smith. Even with all the credit he had in the bank. Powell won’t have that credit, Smith saw out a rocky 2014/15 because he had earned the respect, he bounced back in 2016 with a cup final, league leaders shield and grand final only to have ran out out that credit/loyalty 12 months on. If Powell has a “2015” style transition year, would the fans trust the project enough to not hound him out?

Is this good enough for a team spending so much on their playing roster and facilities ?

I've mentioned this on here before, 2014 and 2015 are remembered as being years where we were a mile below the 2010-2013 squads.

People do forget that we finished both those seasons in grand final eliminators, iirc it was 2014 that Wigan got to the final with the skin of their teeth.

We were absolute hot garbage in both challenge cup semi finals though

Nope.

No. Which is the point I was making. I was just saying that also it wasn’t the disaster that Furner was at Leeds.

But... a Wigan side with Bateman, Hastings, French, Hardaker, Gildart, Farrell, Manfredi and arguably the biggest selection of quality youth available simply MUST win something this year or Lam will be considered more of a failure than Price, no?