Knock knock knock....
Helloooooo [echo

I totally agree that I stated something to an extreme, and I hope I'm completely wrong.

I did however say without wholesale change!!!

Do you honestly think there can be enough improvement in this side this season to win SL?...
To finish in a top four place?...
To finish in a top 6 place then?....

I'd go with top 6 with some confidence.

I've been reading some of your comments on odds and even you lot want odds of double the 7/1 on offer, 12/1-14/1, 15/1! So a little less irony from one or two perhaps?

I do not have complete confidence that next season as this team stands currently we would not have covered enough ground to make us into a team that is challenging for top position.
Yes we'll improve but can that not be relative across the board?!

Get you heads out of the sand and smell the custard.

I don’t believe the team to be transitional either, you listen to TS and how he keeps defending the team saying 'how not far off' we are!
This is his his team!

I said it at the start if the season and so did Sally Cinnamon, the team is lacking in two key areas!

I've every confidence they will be a reaction v widnes and a great chance to win both games at Easter and move up into the 6!
And that's about where we are in terms of our season.

Now you tell me with all honesty that in 12 months time after game 11 with this side as it stands, we wont have squeaky bums!!!!

Thank you at last somebody talking sence!

I've got to agree Chaz, we shouldn't be wondering about so many young/new lads all in one go and that's the disappointing thing for me we hung on for a year too long for a GF tilt and we aren't out of the 'ageing player woods' yet.

Without stating the obvious, we will have quite a few seniors that will be another year older next year and before folk think I've gone a bit 'rubber duckie' a year older when you're 32 in sport isn't the same as when you're in your mid-late 20's

Reading your posts you'd be lucky!
utter dirge

Is it not all about form, i think that at the minute we have a number of key players not in form Myler, Ratchford, Higham, Monas (joel), atkins, bridge all with poot form, soem are getting better (Atkins). With a full squad all in form that all have shown over the last few years, we will be completing for the GF.
"What is the saying form is temporary but class is permanant"
Wait and see !!!

With estimates of £400k in the bank from the Cap, will there be a mid-season splurge?

From our board it sounds like Wheeler is looking around for a new contract!

I hope so. All I'd say on this is that it's easier to pick the players IN form at the moment :

Hill, Westwood, Russell, R.Evans

Given that one of those is now injured, perhaps our woeful form and peoples concern is understandable.

Wow throwing the teddy out the pram a bit are we not. So we had a bad start to the season. I expected that with the amount of changes that have happened. You cannot just promote youth and expect instant success it takes time. I remember the sit-in at the HJ to remove Cullan and now people are claiming this guy built a world class team. TS has got us to two GF's we have been to Wembley countless times and yet because of a few bad games this is what happens?

Give them time - If we don't win the GF big deal we ain't won it for years another year won't matter. Give the younger players time to get up to speed. I recon we'll get top four this year.

We seem to have some fans who expect instant success now, I am 34 and have watched some dreadful Wire sides and this one is nowhere near the worst but going by some comments on here you would think it was.
Give the guys time and next year with that bit more experience and maybe a few signings we wont be far off again.

Agreed Irishwire.
But we don't want to give them too much rope.

Perhaps better than the complete tripe that you come out with on a consistant basis? Each to their own, you have an opinion on everything tempered by the knowledge of nothing

Is this true? He is a cracking player on his day but surely Saints will be dissapointed given the time he has spent on the sidelines with injury.

Salt the tripe and its palatable.
Rico you can sugarcoat your release and it still wouldn't be.

Yes, they are called JCL's. You know, the people that piggybacked onto the Wembley successes of 2009 and 2010, then expected to us to win the Grand Final after blowing everyone out of the water and finishing 1st in 2011, then piggybacking onto another CC win in 2012 along with GF appearances in 2012 and 2013.

They weren't around in 2002 when (thank christ) I got my first taste of the Greatest Game™®. 2002, the year we almost got relegated. But I got hooked and even though we were having an utter dog turd season, I was captivated by the game.

If that happened now, these JCL's wouldn't think twice about sticking around, they would be off looking for something else to piggyback onto (Warrington Town are doing pretty well at the moment, they would probably go there!)

Yeah, so things are not going according to plan at the moment, I'm sure good things are round the corner. I'm not going to use the "T" word. I've made my feelings clear in the past about how untouchable TS is, when he makes mistakes, it's never his fault, ISWT and all that. But I also remember this is the guy that brought the good times back to Warrington, he brought us our first CC since '74, then 3 in 5 years, our first GF appearance, then our 2nd GF appearance, finishing top of the league for the first time since the '50s.

If he's got a vote of confidence, then I'm sure he will turn things round. The old guard have left, it's left a hole in the team, especially in the pivot positions. We've replaced Hodgson with Russell, a young lad with a bright future. England has come in, and if he ends up being like Chris Hill, it's a great buy. Asotasi has come in, former Rabbitoh's and NZ captain. He's got a lot of stick recently, yet he's scored 2 in 3 or something like that. Briers has left, and it's up to the young un's Myler and Ratchford to fill the gap (maybe even GOB if he gets another chance).

Change is never easy, it never goes smoothly, but I'm not focusing on the Hull KR game, it's focusing on Widnes, the derby, to get us back up and running. I'm sure it will come good and we'll be back up there where we belong. It's just going to take a bit of time. And this is coming from someone who is known for being ultra-negative, the King of the Pessimists. The person who was posting that we're not the same team we were, that we'll never get the the GF this season. I must have had some kind of epiphany reading this forum recently, because I've never been more positive about anything than I have about this.

We'll get there!

Nice wireIII.
Your glass is half full.

56 games in 6 years I believe is his record. As a comparison, the worlds softest prop josh perry managed 44 in 3 years.

His personal best is 13 games in a season, which is equal to sculthorpes "injury ravaged" final season at the club.

I want him to go anywhere but Wigan, new halfback pairing of wheeler and Dobson for wire?

Wheeler is made out of biscuit. No thanks.

I don't think there is anything to be gained by slagging each other off. Disagree by all means but let's not get personal.
I think everyone is agreed that there is no cohesion in the team principally because we have no playmaker and much discussion has gone on about half back combinations, I think Ratchford's best position is full back as I don't think he knows himself what he is going to do next never mind organising the rest of the team. Bridge is past his sell by date and has lost a lot of pace. Myler is basically a very good instinctive support player rather than organiser. Sean Edwards was essentially the same type of player but he was playing alongside Andy Gregory and behind the best pack in the league.
The present pack consistently gets second prize which makes life hard for the halfbacks, Whoever they may be. The halcyon days of Lee Briers career were behind what was probably the best pack in the league at the time who laid a platform for him and gave him space.
Last season we lost several genuine world class players who we have replaced with kids, players from lower divisions and has beens and we still have senior players who are past there best.
I only hope this is a season for TS to assess the players who are coming through before deciding who has to go in the process of rebuilding rather than a case of SM deciding that he has thrown enough money at the Wire. Posters seem to take for granted that our benefactor can be assumed to splash the cash forever but can he?
As for the thread I don't think TS has anything to prove to anybody as to his coaching credentials and the recruitment of any of the names mentioned on this thread as a replacement would, in my view, be a retrograde step. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear no matter how good a coach you are.

THIS.

This. If RD isn't making stuff up he/she is spouting total nonsense. As much as I try to ignore it, it does make awkward reading and thus becomes quite annoying & cringe worthy.

FWIW I think as Wire fans we've been spoilt over the past few years. Now we've started a season indifferently the teddies, toys & dummy are being thrown out by the select few. After 8 games I'm underwhelmed by what I've seen. But I'm definitely not worried or stressing about it. We'll come good. ISWT.

Remember folks if certain people don't like certain people there is the FRIEND AND FOE options, adding to FOE means you don't have to see certain people's posts.

I didn't know this existed. My FOE option has just been exercised. You've just made this board a lot better.

Or we could do what rational people from Planet Earth do and respect opinions that may differ from our own and peoples right to voice them in a constructive, non-confrontational way, whilst reminding ourselves that we're all here for the same reasons and we all want the same outcome.

That obviously only applies to wires fans, the rest of em can kn*b off.

To be fair, I don't actually think there has been that much of an over reaction on here - Yes, there have been differing opinions on what's going wrong, or where we could have done better on the recruitment front, but, unless I've missed it, I've certainly not seen any 'Smith out' calls on here.

It may seem fickle to some, but despite the great things that Smith has done at Wire, when things go a little awry, then surely its only right that people should question, within reason, what is happening?

Personally, I think the worst thing we can do is simply put the blinkers on and come out with stuff like ISWT - We should stay behind the team on the terraces, but on sites like this its only right that people can point out the bleeding obvious, like the form of several players, who should be doing better, and whether its realistic to believe that this present squad can turn their form into something resembling trophy-challenging form.

Not for the first time you took the words out of my mouth