Think that game Hock battered our pack on his own?

Apart from us being poor one other thing I remember was it was absolutely freezing cold I thought so much for summer rugby

I must have blocked those out!

Bang on with this..bet all 3 years ago to lift the big one and made a tidy profit..not any more cos the odds are bilge..Leeds won't win it it'll be saints or Wigan yet again

If it does turn out to be Saints, then I may very well be done with rugby league as a pastime. Nobody who plays that poorly/inconsistently through a season ought to be champs and if they do happen to win 5 on the trot by some miracle, it makes an absolute joke of the league and also, we'll never hear the end of it from those who think they've had to overcome opposition from the 'powers that be' to get there.

2017.

A lot of comments on here about fatigue and lack of recovery after the Cats games BUT - just think how it's been for Catalans all these years.
I think it puts into perspective how difficult it must be and must have been for them.

Well people look for excuses rather than just admit we were crap is all.

It's just 3 wins to win the GF I think.

No matter how good a team is in SL, there's never going to be a side that is able to put together performances that keep up the intensity needed to win every game. We have work to do, which has been clear to see for some weeks, but as things stand, we have the best league position to make a challenge in the playoffs from. We didn't look the real deal against Saints and Wigan, and have looked out of sorts since, even with a good cup win at Catalans. The things is, being top of SL has increased our expectations out of proportion, having come out of a train wreck of a previous season. Are we good enough? Not yet, would be my answer, but judging by results so far were on the right path. Time will tell, but there's a possibility that our season may be in danger of melting away, which is something we've dealt with as the Wire for more years than I care to remember.

Leigh have put together their best side for many years, congratulations to them on the win. They look to be playoff rivals when the business end of the season comes along.

These reflect my thoughts too. Miles better than we were. None of our players are "crap" or "useless" & generally loads of effort but room for improvement & lots of work to do. We also lack the strength in depth of some clubs. Hated last year but loving Rugby League again ... which I am thankful for.

By 5 on the trot I mean grand finals.

I just wonder how many weeks we can keep saying "oh well we're in a great position and doing much better than last season so I'm happy". Hopefully the club don't adopt this attitude because only a couple more losses and we'd slip down the top 6, it's pretty close at the minute.

Then again, to play devil's advocate, you could argue that all that matters is to finish in that top six and we're pretty secure for that now, and, we have won the only 'do or die' game that truly matters at this point, which was the cup game last week. In the years we've crowed about beating our rivals they'd remind us that come October those weekly fixtures pale into insignificance. So, maybe we just keep on keeping on and see what September brings? I don't know. I'm just typing out loud.

Be careful here ... no one is going to be happy when we give a poor performance. All fans will be concerned with the struggles we've had over the last few weeks. But compared to last year & most other clubs you've got to be generally pleased with the season. The club will be under no illusions as to what could happen ... having read Powell's post match comments it is obvious that he is well aware.

What does worry me is, he's said similar stuff for weeks. We need to string together a full performance, can't switch off, we know what we're doing wrong, etc. So, when's it gonna get fixed?

Always mystifies me why we don't seem to be able to change things on the pitch when they are going wrong, such as giving away penalties. We always need a half time talk.

Yes and why we keep having "to learn from" these games. We have done a lot of learning over the years.

We seem to have the following issues at the moment.

1. Slow starts.
2. Attack has dried up.

Biggest thing for me is that our pack are simply not dominating in the way they were at the start of the season. Vaughan stats have been sub 100m for a little while now. Is he out of form / content to have signed a new deal / not getting the same support as he was early doors?

If we start dominating in the middle the attack will sort itself out. I always feel it’s a sign we’re not dominating enough when Williams wants to run the ball at every opportunity.

Haven’t read all the posts…life is too short. However my tuppence worth, if I was a betting man I would have put money on Leigh to win after the first 5 minutes. It was one of those games where you felt the opposition were in top gear from the off and we were still in the changing rooms. There was lots of huffing and puffing from us but no real end product. Disappointing but far from the end of the world. There were a couple of very young lads with their dads next to me and to them it was the end of the world but luckily on here we are more philosophical than that and will take it in our stride.
Someone suggested that Dean would be dropped as the scapegoat. I’m sure he will be dropped but then he didn’t do enough to make a case to be picked instead of the player he replaced. Williams looked like the player from last season trying to do it all, which was why Drinkwater was brought in, and should be picked again as soon as available.

Also I enjoyed the pre match band and the atmosphere was great for the most part!

For anyone dismissing Dean and suggesting he’s not done anything for us, you have short memories.
He was best player on the pitch against Cas last season. Think he assisted 5 tries and that was playing in the halves with Matautia. Best performance by a half back all season. Admittedly a low bar.

He may not make it but saw more in that game than I’ve ever seen from Patton.

Yes he needs to be given an extended run before any decisions can be made. Patton got an amazing number of games (10icon_cool.gif for the Wire.

As he gone back to Featherstone on loan.

It was against Huddersfield. He also played at magic weekend. They were our only 2 decent performances of the entire season.

For the record I’m not dismissing Dean, just didn't do enough to displace Drinkwater on Friday.

it was cas away last year that he was gash.