https://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/mole-drago ... 233b2ebeea Part way down is about Widdop.

https://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/mole-drago ... 233b2ebeea Part way down is about Widdop.

Interesting quotes from Fitzpatrick stating that Widdop has to deliver. Sure he was disappointing last season as were all the team barring 3-4 players but I'd love it if Karl was consistent. To be fair to Widdop his young family went to Australia halfway in to the season, he's playing in a team that is told to take 5 drives and then a kick to Toby King sure I expect more but I've not heard him mention anything about his review of Price's performance last season. Infact in the Warrington Guardian during his end of season review he just went on to say how difficult the season had been in terms of Covid and a big well done to everyone for fighting through.

Be nice for Karl to put the loyalties aside for a second and come out professionally and say Price has to deliver and that he is under pressure if hes willing to do that to other players as we are almost 4 years in under Price and he is still to deliver.

Yeh, bit odd our CEO making these kind of comments and not our coach.

Karl runs the business, Price runs the team. Unless Steve is negotiating the price of sausage rolls for when we eventually get back to the HJ?

Fantastic we really haven't given Fitzpatrick and Price enough stick. Wonderful to see it on the agenda again. (NOT)
Blimey come on gents!

It sounds a bit passive-aggressive from KF. Did he allow Widdop to look for other options or not? If Widdop is unhappy over here, and wanted to reunite with his young family in Aus, then its a difficult situation for him, now that that hasn't happened and he has to come back here. Surely it would have been better to say something like we'll be supporting Gareth in anyway we can to make his time in Warrington a success, and I know he'll handle this like the great professional he has been over his whole career.

Saying "we're expecting great things" kind of means, "we aren't expecting great things but we want to be able to be bitchy about it and criticise him if he doesn't dominate this season", and all this stuff about "put the rumour and innuendo behind him"....its not him that is starting the rumours is it.

I was hoping Widdop would find another club down under, it would have been better for him, and better for us too if he's a big earner because in my opinion he's not the player he was. But if he's back lets support him and make the best of it. As long as he gives his best, even if he's past his best.

KF seems unnecessarily snarky there.

But I'm expecting "great things" from Fitzpatrick this season, its time for him to put all the big talk behind him and deliver a Super League title, or else lets move on.

I have decided to adopt my workplace motto “expect the worst but hope for the best” for the coming season.

Yeah Widdop needs a good year to actually entice an NRL club to sign him. So it could be a blessing for us, we've improved in the areas we needed to and in the interview KF did awhile ago, saying price needs to do better and he needs to improve our attack, clearly shows he's told price he needs to sort his poop out. I'm excited and have high hopes for this season and nothing anyone says can change that for me

SP couldn't sort our stale attack out during the latter half of 2019 despite his mantra 'we know what's wrong and know how to fix it'.
He couldn't. He didn't.
The CC games against Hull and Saints were 'one offs'.

The start of the following season promised so much with a really good 1st 2 games with more exciting footy, but then it was like 'oooh, I'm out of my comfort zone. Let's go back to what we did last year'.

I'd love to be positive but.....

The one thing I do want to see is Greg Inglis. That for me is the one positive.

Great post and my point entirely.

Maybe if the same tone had been used towards his best mate (Price) sometime in the last 4 years we may have actually kicked on and not looked like an average team.

Or maybe winning involves a bit more than just bollocking the manager?

To win you need a decent manager/coach. The buck stops with the coach. All well and good slagging off Widdop but who signed the bloke?

It all seems so easy. You sack the manager, the head coach, the other coaches, half the players and hey ho ... you win the league. Like taking candy ...
Off we go again.

Where are you getting four years from? His first game in charge was February 2018.

Year before he took over we finished ninth, have we been better under Price?

I agree, and I would not have kept Price given the choice. However that is not what your previous post said. It basically said if Fitzpatrick had bollocked Price we would have done better.

So he took charge of the 2018, 2019, 2020 season. And this season will be his fourth, no?

You said the "last" four years but appearing to be counting a year that has yet to happen.

My bad. Just use what I said for the end of next season though as we’ll be saying the same thing don’t you worry.

Come on Lord Tony ... you seem to be going over the top. Relax ... it's not any easy time for anyone.

I've said this for years (and this isn't aimed at LTS) we've got a bunch of fans, on here and especially on twitter that moan and complain about anything and everything, regardless of whats going on, Never talk up the good times and when things go crap as things can sometimes do, are the first and loudest to jump up and say "I TOLD YOU SO" even if we've had 4/5 years of relative success.


a stopped clock is right twice a day.

I see nothing bad about Widdop’s game. I saw only a weak pack throughout much of 2020. We’ve had some of the greatest half’s in the world from Aus, their results flattered.
I can’t wait to see a left side of Widdop, off a heavy front row, surrounded by Currie, Inglis and Lineham. If that does put the jitters up you, cancel your subscription to view of Most Haunted.

Yeah i'm excited for this season, I've finally got a team that i'm happy with the forward pack, the backs are Quality and our halves are Quality. One of those things were the majority of the squad weren't playing well so to continually pin point Widdop, who most games had nobody backing him up, nobody running angles for him etc is odd and a forward pack living off Hill and Cooper. I'm very Happy we've brought in Mulhern and Butler and genuinely think they will spark us in to life forward wise and are exactly what we need. This season for me now will be down to how the boys are coached and how are attacking plays are set up. COYW!!!

I appreciate we are way off topic by now but I wonder if the strengthening of the prop position will make our 20 metre out attack more effective?

Well we all like to see length of the field tries, but let’s be honest, they don’t happen often, you could count them on one or two hands through SL in a season.
If we are often within 20 meters with tackles in the bag, I can assure you, we’ll be winning more games than constantly defending our own line, burning up energy with repeated tackling, while we will waiting for that line break that has the field chasing for 60 odd plus meters.

The modern game is, play most of the rugby in your opponent’s half, and it’s more than likely you’ll come out the winner.

Presumably Hill and Coops will be a bit fresher in the 2nd half after being spelled by two genuine bench props, but it seemed to me that we were stagnant from 10-20 yards out due to a lack of ideas and practiced moves.

I put myself through the pain of watching the highlights of the 2018 GF the other day. One thing I noticed amongst lots of interesting things was that for Wigans last try was their ability to create a 5 on 4 situation for Manfredi to score.
All down to Tomkins turning up on their right sided attack.
We have discussed the lack of chances that we create for Charnley and there are other reasons but I think opponents know that Ratch hardly ever pops up on the right edge and therefore the defence will always number up correctly so it can be relatively easy to defend against us if the numbers are always right.
In terms of the new props our drop off in intensity when the starting front row has a rest has been noticeable for years, back to Hill and Sims. Teams have had the chance to come back at us and we have been unable to keep the momentum and are often back peddling waiting for Hill and Cooper to come back on, so if the new props can keep the momentum in attack and minimise in the drop off in defence then I am sure that will help to create opportunities.
Another plus for our attack will be Toby King to right centre, he reads a game really well and knows when to pass.