C'est magnifique mais c'est pas rugby league ?

Mangetout, Winslade, Mangetout.

That's spot on. He's wasted in he current set up.
It's not his fault.

The sign of a good coach - in my humble opinion - is if a coach can make the team look better that its' individual players.

Powell does it, Watson does it.

We can certainly get up for some games with some good tactics (eg Hull and Saints in the CC) - but on the whole we're stale in attack which is criminal given the players we have.

War and Peas by Leo Tolstoy ?

There was certainly a lot of disappointing errors and sheer stupidity in Blake Austin's case, but as pointed out earlier in the thread we have won a couple of games and picked up the points. There was also some cause for satisfaction. I thought Widdop played a really good game and even nearly managed to strip the ball when Huddersfield scored their try. Nobody mentioned Toby King but I thought he also played well. It was his break and ability to get the ball away that saw the flying pig score and he played a nice interchange of passes with Widdop for his try. Yes, he doesn't have electrifying pace or score lots of tries to catch the eye, but he has excellent hands, is very good in the air, and his defensive game has really come on. But his main role is to feed the winger and provide linking play which I think he does really well. Chris Hill I thought also worked really hard and seems to have finally got rid of those silly penalties he used to give away.

Team balance is certainly a problem with Austin looking the odd man out. He is a shadow of the player we saw when he first joined and doesn't seem capable of providing those openings for players around him. Compare that with Widdop's pass to put Currie in space during the HKR game, then his kick through for Currie to score against Hudds. Austin needs to provide hose sorts of opportunities on his side of the field.

The one big benefit of these wins is also team morale. I think we were short on that during SL Part One, but despite the silly mistakes, the body language we are currently seeing looks pretty positive.

Lots of stuff needs fixing and no, we are not going to see the quality of play that entertained us back in 2012, but if we can see steady improvement we have a good chance of 4th place methinks, After that it's knockout rugby and anything can happen.

I Don't mention Toby King anymore for kind of the same reason i don't mention Daz Clark anymore. Because they always have a good game, and i just kind of expect it now. I wasn't really keen on King the first year or 2 but i think he's Brilliant now and can only get better.
I 100% agree with you Winslade about him and a year learning off Greg Inglis can only improve him.
My main worry now is the team seems stifled and the creativity seemed to have disappeared for a while, but i've started to see glimpses of it coming back so hope it continues to grow and improve. Or Inglis will come over and play in a dull as hell team that he can't do anything with.
Austin looks like he doesn't want to be here anymore, his attitude seemed to change when he got injured and missed the CC final. After that he just seems to have lost the spark and energy he used to have. He does have a habit of starting off great at a new team and fading away but i hope it's just a case of consistancy building the team up again.
The team we have on paper is excellent so i hope we find our form again soon as it's been a long time since i've been excited before one of our games.

Austin is doing a convincing impersonation of Tyrone Roberts, both in application and an aura of sulkiness, and has been for some time.

There's more chance of my being kidnapped by aliens from a planet entirely populated by Nigella Lawson lookalikes but he needs to be dropped to the bench and replaced with Stef, who I think would dovetail with Widdop nicely.

It'd never happen as you say but Austin being dropped to the bench could be a good thing. Last decent game he played for Canberra was when he came on with 15 to go and got MOM. Releasing Austin for the last twenty under the current rules could be a masterstroke...but it would take an innovative coach to give that a go. Also can we use this season to give some of the youngsters - Doro, Robson, Dean a bit of a sniff at some point?

Maybe we need to reconsider our view of the match bearing in mind the Saints and Wigan matches this weekend.

What is there to reconsider?... We are awful to watch and look to have zero attacking plans and it's been that way for over half a season now - I'm not sure how Saints and Wigan perform as much to do with that?

Well ,we are in a truncated season, there is every chance our GF hopes will go the way of every other year & we have some senior players getting a bit long in the tooth.
There is no relegation ,so why not blood some of our young lads. Have some faith, give 'em a go.

With covid bouncing around and the fixture pile up at the end of the season I am pretty sure there will be a lot of young players playing SL games this season.

Well Simon Woolford has received an apology from the RFL Ref department. They have said Masila should have been sent off and one of your tries should have been ruled out for a forward pass.

I suppose an apology is sufficient for costing us the 2 points, eh?

Perceived injustice has been done to all clubs, many times, over many years. Time to move on.

Poor Huddersfield. Played against 12 men for a quarter of the game and still got beat.

If you excuse the expression....bugger me

If we'd have had apologies for every time we've been "done over" in a major match, let alone a [irun of the mill[/i league game, there wouldn't be enough hours left in the day.


There's a forward pass in at least one try, in EVERY game I've ever watched.

As they sung in that irritating song....Let It Go

Not a personal dig, DSM, but over half a season?????

Try the last 8 seasons

I'm sick to the back teeth of saying this, but the rot set in, when Smith got rid of Willie Poaching, and brought in his squash playing buddy, Agar.
The amount of free flowing rugby we've played since, has plummeted. We've become a formulaic, second tier Australian like side, since Poaching left, only even more so, under Price.

Time to take the shackles off, and express ourselves.
God knows, we've got the players to do ot

This, I can't get excited about wire at all in recent years. We made 3 of the last 4 finals but generally it's been unenjoyable. We score 40 points against Hull kr (albeit with a lot of eerors) and then the week after the leashes have been put on to prevent the errors and we are boring again. Too much emphasis on control and not enogh on cutting edge. The defence is mostly good but it should be when the the team is so rigid! It seems that even when we have the ball we are set up to stop the opposition scoring.

Isn't that the game in general and we are just one of the worst culprits though?

Truth is, our sport has become one for only the hardcore enthusiast- For the casual sports fan, and I have friends who can confirm this, RL is a very hard watch nowadays.

Very little flair, all grunt and lots of kicking.. it's the very thing we used to slate RU for.

I can honestly say, I've found it hard to sustain 80 minutes of any game since it's come back. I never thought I'd say it, but I prefer the NRL - At least their grunt and kick is done at a higher quality to ours.

Did Woolford really get an apology from RFL Ref Dept. ????
It would seem a strange & rather foolish thing to do.
How many phone calls would they have to make every Monday morning? What sort of decision would warrant a phone call?

"Ever so sorry Simon but we missed a knock on in the 14th minute. Mind you ... you got away with a ball steal in the 16th minute" etc etc

I can't find a word of arguement for that, DSM.

You should have been well used to being on the end of forward passes having played Leeds the week before , & Saints get away with them in every game.

Evidence please?