What worries me speaking to other fans at half time is there is too many fans that love and would like us to retain bang average "solid" players.

Clough - average
Smith - average
Rapira = average with occasional good game and occasional crap game like tonight
Mason = average and poor
Gaskell = average with odd good game. Has played 3 positions by had a good run at full back now.


other players who didnt play tonight

Ormsby = poor
Ferguson = average

Average solid players don't win you games or trophies and we have way too many in our team at present.

For me Rapira will not be a miss on the field but maybe missed in the dressing room etc and I do thank him for his service but for the wage he is on we could replace him with someone of the same standard for 1/4 the price.

Another worry for me is we cannot finish off breaks. This season Seb has made around 15-20 breaks at home and I dont think 1 has been finished off apart from against Warrington. We had 3/4 tonight and make the wrong decision every time. When Leeds break they score.

It is now time we replace Danny Brough and got some new blood in at half back to move this club forward. Yes a great servant but I think he needs to be replaced.

We have a considerable lack of pace in the team. Would we have scored the tries Leeds did tonight? not a chance.

Highlights of the year. SEB IKAHIHIFO, the emergence of Kruise and Darnell as well as Jake Mamo.

Stone says 3 in 3 out. 2 thought to be Roche and Walne which suggest were are not going to strengthen much.

Hopefully we can get Mamo, Symonds, Cudjoe and Jerry fit for the start of the season and hopefully bring in a few more faces.

2/3 new prop forwards for me is a must to complement Seb, when he goes off we just have no go forward.

Agree with a lot of that.
Although I thought smith had his best game for us tonight- he ran strongly- is this because we are trying to offload him?
I'd also be controversial and add to that list rankin and turner.
Wardle was better than turner, and although rankin doesn't make the howlers of grix ( although he makes his fair share of errors) I don't think he brings any more than grix did.
We have too many "solid" players and not enough great ones.
Everyone keeps saying it takes a long time to build a squad- but it took one season to break one.

Yes Turners best game and a half were against a poor Warrington and Catalans. Since coming back from injury has been poor in defence but made some decentish drives going forward.

Rankin is cover for FB and will be playing HB next so will judge him then.

For me I'm not too confident going into next season I think we need 5 new players 3 for first team and 2 project ones such as Colton Roche.

unfortunately due to salary cap reasons you cant have a team full of stars.

what is important is that they squad work hard for each other and you need luck with injuries to keep your key players on the field, something which we have rarely if ever had all season, to get into the top 8 when after 12 games some people were saying we wouldnt win another game is an achievement in itself... strangely enough that upturn in form mid way through the season coincided with us getting our injured players back such as mamo and cudjoe...and also an upturn in confidence.

im looking forward to 2018, expect top 6 finish with more progress to come.

i can understand that we are in a rebuilding phase at the club right now and its back on an upward curve overall..

look at warrington and catalans.... they both are now rebuilding... i feel we are ahead of those now in terms of where we are and were last season and can gain on wakefield and st helens etc.

oh and for what its worth the injury list lastnight was...

mamo
mcgillvary
cudjoe
murphy
wakeman
symonds
ferguson
roberts

also lost taai, mellor, ikahihifo during the game.

what did some fans expect???? with nothing to play for too and against 2nd in the table... we did well to win two of our super 8 games!

Fans expect professional players to be able to throw and catch a ball and make correct decisions on the field.

6/10 for season overall. Top 8 achieved (just) but ran out of steam in qualifiers. Bit disappointed at season end but guess we have made progress from last year and can continue to build for next year. Need to improve our fitness and conditioning as well as rehab processes. Work on our defence has improved but still far too predictable in attack with not enough support to breaks or decent dummy runs being made. Should improve this given a full pre season this time.
Definitely need at least 1/2 props as support for Seb and Shannon. Thought this was the difference last night as we could not deal with the size of the Rhinos up front. That combined with our continual one out runs after one pass from the ptb made it too easy for Leeds.
Cautiously optimistic for next year though dependent on what signings we confirm and who we choose to retain or extend.

two props are incoming, one from salford and one from bradford.

yeh quite a few players were dropping the ball lastnight, both teams, listen to brian mcdermott interview on radio leeds, he blames the pitch being too nice.

Not just on about the Leeds game im talking about all season.

How many breaks have we seen at home from Seb Ikahihifo and Ollie Roberts....10-15 and I don't recall us actually finishing off one. There were 3 last night alone we should have finished off. Cas, Leeds, Hull, Saints, Wigan and even Wakey would have probably put 10+ of them under the sticks for points. We seem really incapable to making the right decision to even pass to the man when there is support or we simply get caught.

We were converting plenty when Mamo was fit and playing. Most teams have one player like LEEDS with McGuire who hoover up midfield breaks Brett Hodgson was our last one although Scott Grix had an ability to do this too as he showed at Wakefield yesterday. You need pace to follow a break and not too many teams have it or more than one player who has it usually the full back or stand off.

Danny Brough had it too but has slowed a little but can still get through a gap but not go long distances like Mamo.

With our fully fit team we have plenty of pivots plus a proper loose forward and the Leroy/Jerry partnership which is lethal.

Not the finished article but also not representative of the last three games which as one poster said we played in ‘flip flops’ a proper pre season with all our players and I think we won’t do too badly

yep mamo the x factor player than can be on the end of those breaks.. hope he has a injury free 2018!

I've personally not got much of a problem with our squad. I think it's a little harsh to call Gaskell average, I'm happy with his season in the halves and centre.
I think Mason and Smith have lacked game time and will be happy to move on. I still see them as SL standered.

For next year year if everyone is fit, from the top of my head (if the rumours of players leaving aren't true) we could end up with a starting line up like this.

1. Mamo
2. Mcgillvary
3. Cudjoe
4. Turner
5. McIntosh
6. Brough
7. Rankin
8. Seb
9. Leeming
10. Ta'ai
11. Bruno
12. Symonds
13. Hinchcliffe.

Not too bad.

Pre season we need to bring in a very good strength and conditioning coach, and a couple of props to open Ta'ai back into the second row.

Our right edge defence is shocking at times and needs special attention, especially if Cudjoe wants an England shirt again.

Our fitness needs to improve, so players can be bothered to back up any potential offloads or breaks. Unless it's just coached out of us.

Overall. I'm glad this season is done. Disappointed with the way it's ended. Wether the season was over or not rolling over for teams is not acceptable.

Let's take another step next year. 1 season down, 2 more seasons until we are the finished article.

Look at how wakey finished the season. Couldn't get in top 4- but showed pride in the last game of the season. Players like huby, woody and grix who some giants fans couldn't wait to get shut of because they "weren't good enough" stepped up last season with fans behind them and a good team spirit have shone.
All about attitude.

100% agree.

true it is all about attitude.

but also they didnt have as many players out as the giants did which was 8.

they were also in with a chance of getting in the top 4 until two days before...not 8 weeks before like us! (yes we mathematically could make it but reality never was.... warned fans it was job done when we made the top 8...)

100% improvement on last season

I think the OP is very harsh on some of our players personally too.

Once again we did it damn tough through the season, not once with our optimum spine, and definitely never with out optimum 17

Rankin covered at fullback Well, he was signed to play halves I'm sure but fortunately arrived just as Mamo got injured again

Turner had some back luck injury wise too, his best game was v Leeds imo. Looked top class.

Ferguson has been above average I think, especially early on when he very much proved his doubters wrong. Same with Gaskel, Mellor and O'Brien, the latter being a key part of our team now.

Given The disaster Anderson left us in, we are in pretty good shape. When we have our best spine we compete with anyone. Still rebuilding to do though and but for some bad luck we could have finished much higher

Put the season into perspective and stop being so bloody miserable

Well quite- they were still in with a shout up until two days before- they'd worked so hard all season- got their best ever Season in superleGue and could have made it into the top four for the first time ever.....so perhaps more reason for wakey for heads to go/ downheartedness to play a part- instead they showed exactly the opposite. Proves my point more so to me.

A note on Nathan Mason. Been looking through some old videos- looks to me like Nathan has stalled under Rick Stone.
When he was starting to get some game time He looked up for it and enthusiastic- was really showing some promise and playing and developing well. Then Rick came and he got dropped, perhaps as a young player he's been poorly managed.

If it's Roche he isn't a prop. More of a steady backrower. Not as good as Clough or Ferguson IMO.

Pundits already giving their views on next season. We are going to be in the bottom four apparently- that's regardless of any signings we may/may not make it seems.

mason has been injured and that has set him back from the last article i read about him

Sat with Nathan at the dinner last week as we sponsor him. It was blindingly obvious he is suffering from a lack of game time, the dual reg with a club like Oldham does not work and a compulsory reserve grade for all Super League clubs is needed if overall standards are going to improve

can look at how you want... blame stone for mason not progressing

or praise stone for macintosh, leeming, dickinson, obrien progressing and also giving simpson another chance to prove himself with a year deal...