It's like Morecambe & Wise - all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!

He's not been making a good impersonation of a centre either.

Listen I've come out before and said OK as a squad player and yes I thought we were owed a forward pass call after Hudds that week but that's what you get after a sending off an unconscious way of evening up.

Refereeing on the whole was good with the exception that Moore let them get away with a lot at the rook/ptb all the dark arts were employed, I don't blame pies as they were backs against the wall and they reminded me of rats cornered. Also it was a very big 10 that Moore played off felt we didn't get the rub for 6 against or offsides but again I think that was down to the unconscious levelling up.

Also Thailer at VR although got his decisions right seem to be looked at ways not too against us was almost aggrieved to give Thewlis try.

But end of day basic rugby league cost us and I get whilst some reference the 80-0 but on that I felt gutted but with this it was the hope that killed me I always felt we would do it until we didn't and it was so close that those errors just make it even more hard to swallow.

1 comp to focus on now, let's pick up and move on.

I agree that it’s not necessarily Matautia’s fault, but either he or Powell are in for a really uncomfortable video review session this week. Anyone that has been in one knows it’s not one way traffic, often with some robust push back from players.

We can’t avoid how on three occasions Matautia had the ball in try scoring opportunities (the two in my earlier post, plus the Thewlis no-try) and we didn’t score any. They have to be in the video. Now, if he’s been told to let the ball go and give the backs the chance, he’s in the stands next week. No two ways about it, he didn’t follow the plan and ultimately we lost as a direct result. Alternatively, if the plan was to play short and he followed blindly until 78 minutes where he breaks ranks but gets the pass wrong, you can expect Matautia (and I should hope the senior players) to stand up for himself and turn the revolver on Powell.

We’ll know when the team sheet goes up at the weekend, because you can’t pick Matautia again if he has bombed 3 chances out of 3 in such an important game, regardless of how much you might like him.

I'll tell you how the video review will go

"Peanut nearly won us the game, what did you other oiks do? Well done Pete, see you tonight for dinner"

It's amazing how fine the lines are with sport and feeling about a club. You were the execution of one pass away from knocking Wigan out of the cup on their own ground. Had that happened there would have been a far more bouyant mood, the McGuire resolution and possible imminent announcement of an incoming or two could have lifted it to quite a positive feeling. Instead, the pass is ruled forward and the forum and Twitter are full of calls for Powell's head and people refusing to watch you again until Powell or Kirkpatrick leave the club.

There was definitely a spell when they ruled on forward passes. It’s perfectly possible to do so. Works well enough in Union. All you need is to use refs call. If ref gives no try then the video ref would have to back it up. I’d have no problem with that.

Last season was a disaster. The forwards were a joke. All I saw was Matuitia getting through a lot of graft. Perfectly decent season in context. Should he be starting in a team with super league ambitions. Of course not, but doesn’t mean he should be the fall guy.

they've never ruled on forward passes in SL, since day one.

I think, broadly, the fan base are tired of the cracks being papered over. Price, with the benefit of hindsight, did a great job of papering over those cracks and making a unit that was difficult to beat - I use that term purposefully, as we didn’t necessarily go out and win the game on a number of occasions, we just didn’t lose, being resilient enough not to break first.

Even at the back end of the Smith era, recruiting was poor but Smith had credit in the bank and even managed to get a tune out of a team that included notable muppets Chris Sandow, Ryan Bailey and Joe Westerman.

The club has been in decline since Gatcliffe left. That’s the fact. While we are competitive in some areas, such as social media clicks/PDRL, we’re actually awful at running a credible brand across the business/first team/junior development/long term succession planning.

As I’ve said on a number of occasions, I don’t necessarily blame Powell. I just think that the leadership team don’t know what the clubs “signature” looks like. We don’t know what we want to be, and have flip flopped from ultra attacking with 2010-15 Smith, a running threat team with Smith’s 2016-17, ultra defensive with Price and back to, allegedly, attacking with Powell. It’s a lack of genuine foresight and leadership.

I thought it forward but I do wonder if roles were reserved and it was Wigan scoring to snatch that game at the death whether the touch judge would have been so keen to call it forward.

Ok. Weird. Brain lying to me. Either way it’s perfectly possible.

The board are playing at it. That's why we have such a lightweight and out of depth CEO. But it's their trainset for now and they can do what they like. No-one forces us to follow them.

We (Leeds) are similar with this passive defence style and also alleged unrest between the players.
Funny how this gets pulled out when the team isn`t playing well but they all get on well when we`re winning .
At least your teams in the top half of the league!

Couldn't disagree more. I text my mate during the game around the 60 min mark saying, 'win or lose this is an embarrassing performance'.

I find it hard to believe that successful business people would want to be running a sports club in this way, A success is surely measured as being able to grow gate receipts & sponsorship deals. The best way to do that must be to turn boardroom success into playing clout. Not necessarily winning everything in sight but at least competing & putting in discernible effort for the fans who contribute so much to the club. Do the board appreciate that fans will not keep turning up week after week to have the urine extracted regularly?
Maybe even the McGuire affair has affected unity in the camp but leadership must come from the top.

There would still have been questions about the performance, but if you get results most will accept it. Performances don't matter as much if you get the result. Wigan weren't great either as they buckled as soon as Warrington put them under any real pressure, but their fans are talking about it being one of the all time great cup performances.

That happens at all clubs.

At the risk of sounding masochistic, by the 70th minute I was actually preferring defeat to empty victory. It would have been grossly unfair on Wigan, and any chance (although there is probably little chance anyway) of it prompting some real action and kickstarting the season again would have been lost.

Right now... The club needs for the sake of uplifting the supporter base a big win from somewhere...either on with a large victory through evidence of a well thought out game plan or off the field by some evidence of sound recruitment...in terms of the second For Karls clarification... Currie for 3 yrs isn't it

'Price' gets mentioned a few times.
That sends shudders down my spine.
With the exception of 3 or 4 games it was a period of 3 years that I would rather forget.

I would honestly prefer to be where we are now than where we were in that period.
History shows Price couldn't turn it round - and to be fair it's clear with hindsight there were bigger issues than many of us realized. But the manner of our play then was awful.
5 drives and a kick to Toby King (ironic given what happened at the weekend).

Yesterday was truly awful, but I am at least in the 'still caring' phase and not in the 'can't be @rsed' phase that I was in for most of 2019-2021.

But still not going to Cas......

Totally with you Fez, even with last years debacle there hasn't been a single secind that I've pined for the return of Steve Price. He took us further down the path to despair IMO, maintaining the knock out game victories hoodoo over saints is the only real positive.

And yet this is more of a Steve price team than he had....

Yes, Steve price knows exactly what sort of team we have at the minute.

I'm going to level it up a bit and say that Price wasn't as bad as this. (puts tin hat on) and no i don't pine for him..
Our last spell under Tony Smith was turgid and Price came in giving us structure. We were a hard team to beat and hardly had any blow out scores. Defensively we were miles ahead. A CC win, grand final runners up, to me is ahead of what i expect us to do under Powell. It was clear as daylight that Price couldn't take us to that next level as we often fell at the final hurdle or crashed out of the playoffs early. I feel we are more fragile under Powell. And further away from winning a GF.

With Price and Powell we have two coaches that couldn't/can't change the direction of a game once the game plan is not working. Smith and Price had the same problem in GF's, they couldn't get over the line. These games are win at all costs as Wigan proved.

The GF winners in the Super League era are all extremely strong from the Board down and driven by a dominant personality, we do not have that now and have not had that previously, we have wealthy people who are like ghosts in the Board room with a rather non-descript CEO ruling the roost. On the pitch change wont come until there is drive from the top down.

Powell now has the chance to get the club a GF win, or at least play like we can get that chance. We need to recruit cleverly now we have space.

The rugby under Price was awful, truly awful. But you could see that he had a plan not to lose, and you could see that the players were following that plan, frustratingly at times. Our wingers were essentially wide props.

So much so, we had a real attacking threat in Murdoch-Massilla, but he couldn’t trust him to do the basics well enough and we all stood scratching our heads why he’s only getting 15 minutes a game.

Can’t say that of Powell to be fair, he does get the riskier players on, to a fault at times. Kasiano, Philbin, Mikaele and Bullock (I would include Dudson too, but I don’t think he’s even worth 10 mins) are all best used in short bursts as human cannonballs in most people’s opinion. But the result of that is the inefficiency in defence.