Coote in 2019 Challenge Cup Final is another example.

No at all. It was a gorgeous day, Coote had a mare because he wasn’t match fit.

From 2022 under Powell, I think the fullback position will be up for grabs between Ashton and Ratchford. For now, I would let Ratchford continue as he is at full back unless he has a serious dip in form. Under a new coach with his own team and own ideas there will be a lot of tough decisions to be made on & off the field.

Especially, when you consider the amount of players out of contract at the end of the year and linked to the NRL (Clark/Widdop).. We could see a serious overhaul of players and staff, which I would actually welcome to be honest.. the team seems very stale at the minute & has been for the last 18 months or so.

We need change.

Ashton, for me, is not big enough to be on the wing neither is he a pure finisher. He'd just get bundled into touch all the time similar to Kevin Penny.

Looking at the stats per game at fullback for Ashton and Ratchford, Ashton makes more meters, takes more carries, makes more average gain and scores more tries.

Obviously there are no stats for positional awareness or communication however again, I think you're overrating Ratchford's ability to be a third pivot. I've seen him throw many passes into touch.

The one thing this team badly lacks is genuine pace. Charnley has lost his, Lineham isn't as fast as he once was, the same with Currie. We literally only have Ashton and Mamo who give us raw speed and that many defenders wouldn't be able to catch and both seldom ever play. You compare that to Wigan and Saints and the likes of French, Grace, Makinson, Manfriedi, Gildart, Marshall. Our backs literally have no pace.

If you were to put both players (at the same age) with the same attributes they have now into the NRL and made each side pick I would be confident that every NRL side would chose Ashton.

I think if we had more attacking ,running threats in the opposition 20 , the lack of pace would not be a problem. We need to be slicker at creating gaps instead of relying on kicks to the corner which make life difficult for the goal kicker.

I meant he had a mare, nothing to do with the weather. Experienced players make mistakes, young players make mistakes. They are not robots and if sport was decided by some algorithm we might as well all give up and play Fifa or some such game.

I don’t blame Coote. He shouldn’t have played and missed some games after it. The coach called it. I was thrilled to bits when I saw him down to play.

This relates to my point. While you call for slicker attacking, that comes on the back of creating space. Rugby League is number manipulation, it’s finding a way for you to have more attackers than there are defenders. This can be done by sweeping attackers from one side of the ruck to the other, but by far the simplest way is by taking people out of their defensive positions. Running harder, busting the line, leaving people on the ground takes numbers out, it then, makes defenders move in to patch the gap where that defender should be, moving in one by one, to plug gaps. It’s then a case of waiting for someone to not move in, or beating them on the outside.

Slick moves are great, but if it’s 6 vs 6 on one edge, the defenders just need to nominate and not miss their individual tackle. You need to find that extra man, or wait for a mid-read and punish it.

If we had a dominant pack, we could have Ratchford at loose with Clark and Ashton in the middle running riot, Austin would benefit also. It would be electric. But our pack just don’t give us that platform.

One of ashtons coaches described him as similar to ratchford in that he can play wing fullback and in the halfs very well and applies him self 100 to each position and like ratchford hes a player you just want on the pitch.

Powell will have some interesting choices to make !! Oneof the trickiest will be what to do with ashton. And I think that its linked to what happens with tom lineham if lineham is offered a new contract or not. One of the things powell does well is pick his best TEAM not best individuals.

Perhaps that is our problem Dezzie . We don't have a team, just a set of individuals.

Occasionally with Price, we have looked like a team that is greater than the sum of its parts - most notably in the 2019 cup run and Wembley in that backs to the wall defensive effort against the Saints.

The thing that has always been missing is leadership and having players with the charisma and character to right a losing situation. When the momentum goes against us in a game or when we're on a bad run, lots of our big names, including all the fan favourites on here, immediately become anonymous. We go through the motions and let the game run away from us. Teams don't play us thinking, "well we're 18-6 up now, but you know what Wire are like...the backlash will come and it could quickly be 18-18". They probably think, just keep the pressure on now and they will go dormant, they won't test us, they'll just try to complete their sets and not get shallacked.

The player I really miss is Nat Wood (can you believe its 16 years since he retired), he would just say ok give me the ball and I'll run at these feckers and lets change the tone of the game.

NatWood, the man, the legend.....absolutely used to love watching him play, never sure what he was going to do but always entertained me and really seemed to buy in to being a Wire.

Lineham would have no problem getting a decent deal elsewhere. Disciplinary is a problem but who is managing players at Wire????

I was always pretty sure what he was going to do: dummy left and then drop the shoulder.

Well old glue hands was certainly not going to pass it.

Nat Wood didn't pass much and didn't have much of a kicking game, he was a running halfback who didn't have express pace, but.....he did make an impact on games and he could change the momentum back in our favour. He did make breaks and beat people, because he was physically strong and had good footwork. You never saw him hiding in a game.

If we're honest, what halfbacks have we had since Nat Wood, other than Briers who was already there playing with him, who were better? Sandow for about 2 months. Austin for about 2 months. Myler was faster and scored more tries, running off the holes set up to him from a good team, but I doubt Myler would have done as much in the teams Nat Wood played in.

I would have rather had Nat Wood.

I’d argue Myler was better. Significantly so.

His assist stats were actually quite posit for a guy who got a lot of criticism for that part of his game. And it’s not like he had superstars outside of him, it was mainly Atkins and Riley. Plus he scored a decent amount. And all told, he was a good defender and put a lot of kick pressure in (to our detriment in 2011 prelim, he was penalised for the charge down on the drip kick if I remember correctly).

Never been favoured, but was an important part of the Catalan team and has forced his way back into the Leeds team despite big money going at Lui and Gale.

Wood was courageous. He was all effort. And that is commendable, but you need a little more than that to be a top half. He was great for us, in that time, but as the club grew I think we put grew him. If we had picked up the right halfback after him he wouldn’t be held is such high regard in my opinion, it’s just that we messed around with Bridge, Sullivan and Monaghan before finding a decent replacement.

I think this pretty much sums it up - you have to look at it in the context of when he played for us. Wood was great for Warrington and a hero because he stood out as the one player who gave his all when we were consistently disappointing as a team. He didn't come here as a star with a big reputation or expectations etc but he gave us exactly what fans wanted at that time. Underdog player for underdog club.

Put him in the 2011 team and he'd still be a fans favourite, just maybe not able to offer quite as much as Myler did for that period and squad.

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Anyway, back to Lineham. A very good all-round winger, who is starting to depreciate on the value-for-money stakes due to repeated brain farts. I've always been a big fan of his (see 2018 play-off semi) but I'm now wondering if we'd be better off with someone a bit steadier on the left wing. If Powell can get Ashton or Thewlis producing the goods there on a lower salary I'd be quite happy. And I get the feeling Ashton and Thewlis will find it easier to follow Powell's guidance and stay on the right side of him.

Lineham's major problem now is he's losing his biggest supporter at the end of the season

But I think most would say Lineham is a decent winger even though he seems to be going dafter with age.

Price or Briers?

What I can't work out is why we have seen so many players grabbing other players knackers. It was unheard of.

According to MEN Lineham won't be offered a new deal with us and other SL clubs have been advised of his availability for next year. Good player but as we know, plenty of baggage.

Shame as if he could cut out the stupid crap he does he's a brilliant Winger. It'll be interesting to see what wingers we will be looking to sign or whether Ashton will move to the wing full time?

He be a great asset if he wasn't serving so many bans.get shut..