Think you're being a tad harsh & disrespectful jaybs. I'm not aware of any of our fans who are stupid enough to think we'll go to France & "smash Catalans". We're just glad that we seem to have a competitive team this year after 4 years of utter cr@p under McRae. We actually believe we can go to Catalans & compete which says a lot about the progress we've made under Veivers & Long.

As for the "enjoying their moment of glory" quote I'll treat it with the contempt it deserves. You seem to imply that you're a massive scalp akin to us beating the likes of Wire or Wigan

. Sorry, but you're not. You had a bad day at the office & contrary to "expert" opinion we're not going to be everyone's b1tches this year. You could take a leaf out of PC Plum or Wire-Quin's book & learn to lose with a little humility.

FWIW, I don't have anything against the Broncos & I hope you have a good season. I'll certainly look forward to sharing a pint or two with some of you guys at The Stoop later in the season. That's if we're worthy of your presence!

Is it any surprise the players are running scared?

I witnessed the drunken rant at Krasniqi last night as he came off at the late interchange. I bet the individual involved will be a shrinking violet in the Kings bar after the Castleford game.

I for one are not brave enough to go toe to toe with a prop.

One of our fans did that?

Come on, don't exagerate. The individual involved was venting his not unreasonable frustration towards the players in general. Let's be honest, it was hardly in the same league as the bile and vitriol the shirt burning Warrington fans were firing in the direction of their players at our place a couple of years ago. Maybe if Powell through a few choice words into the players, the fans wouldnt have to. The London Rugby League community are just too nice.

It was a long rant, the only thing that could be exagerated was how ed the individual was. Krasniqi certainly did not deserve it and was clearly unhappy at being singled out.

When the team has lost too right they should meet the fans and feel the embarrassment. Just maybe they may get the message it is time to start putting in effort and win.

Branson used to say, go in the bar and meet your paymasters.

It is ironic as Olsi has been one the bright things this season along with Dixon and Caro. They put the effort in when the senior players go missing.

The players were rightly criticised for their lack of effort and heart to be losing 44-0 against a team of similar ability, it was just that they were gathered under the sticks and then two substitutions were made and Krasniqi happened to be walking past the away support.

No specific abuse was aimed at Olsi Krasniqi. He would not be exempt from criticism though, he did not do anything of note.

Right, lets get this straight. It was not aimed at Oli as an individual, it was aimed at the team as a whole and if anyone thinks it was Ville then they have led very sheltered lives.
We are to soft as fans , we pay there wages and if I have taken 2 days unpaid from work with train fares and hotels then I will have an opinion and I will not accept guttles , no passion and general couldn't care less attitude, there's to much , I wanna be there mates , they sometimes need to see how we feel.
As for me being sheepish next week !!! Dear god , its like being at school and someone saying my big mates gonna get you at lunchtime in the playground , get a grip.
If he pulls me up I will say the same thing, it was spineless and gutless and if he's a professional im sure he would agree coz if he didn't im sure he would have said something back on Friday instead of keeping his head down , and it would show to me that they really do care.
Rant over

I would go further. I would invite you into the changing room on Saturday and let you have a second go and ask the players if any of them disagree with what you say.

I make it 09.30 am. Powell should have gone by now-Nothing on the offical website

Maybe the fans are saying things the coach is afraid to say

I find it hard to see how Powell can recover from this. He clearly has no fresh ideas and no formula for making this team successful. I don't believe the players respond to him and the last 14 pages show the fans don't support him either. If DH needs any more ammunition to fire a coach, I'd like to hear it.

Too early days imo. Remember, if DH wants rid he will have to pay up RP's contract (and then probably pay a lot more for a replacement).

I think he has until the end of March (unless we get thrashed by Cas in which case DH may feel he has to make a move).

He could sack him for BOC, he's the opposite of a coach.

Powell signed a two year deal which expires at the end of the year. It would not cost much to get rid. If we can afford to keep Hickey on the books, we can afford that. Pleading poverty for not getting rid is unacceptable.

I just saw the highlights on the SL website. I can see why people get jacked off about our defence.

I never say this normally, but there are occasions when you don't tell people back home the truth about some players as sometimes they are average over here then go on and do well there and vice versa.

But i think just by watching that 5 min video that there's a player who was wasn't known for his defence over here. Just watch the vid and you can see who our spot player certainly is. No doubt for every side we play this year will also pick him. They went his way a lot.

From a quick 5 min vid job it shows we are:-

26" ineffective tackle (6) led to line break TRY
46" dead marine (7) left one man at marker, they scoot and get good yards heading to the tramline
1'05" poor read (7) creates overlap and line break TRY
1'24" player (6) has to attempt tackle. Centre (4) is in no man's land thanks to good Salford numbers. Line break. This must have been on last tackle as the winger had dropped back.
2'00" dead marine (12) would have made it to A or B where the try was scored. Also (20) has back turned to play. TRY. Lots of contact from Dummy Runners in this try.
2'19" more contact from dummy runners.
2'36" centre (3) is in no mans' land. Salford have numbers again. TRY. Have to question. Where is the full back who should be spreading his players out???
3'01" dead marine (6) leaves gap. Simple case of numbers from that point. TRY.
3'15" missed tackle (16) then slow to get back to marker >
3'35" (16) missed tackle again. 2nd in set!
3'43" poor defensive read (4) makes tackle late and allows offload and try despite there being nothing on there as we have the numbers.
3'49" one missed tackle from player at marker, other player slow and not square at marker. Salford player runs at him. He is called off by the ref. In this scenario I would rather he'd made the tackle deliberately giving away a penalty as it was on their 20.
4'08" player (9) rushes out and misses tackle
4'15" player (3) is slightly impeded by a dummy runner. This creates the whole for them to run into. Winger then caught out in front of ball! They go from not having enough numbers to having them.
4'30 our winger (2) not only runs into their player (7). Attempts it for a second time and draws in their A marker for us to score.

We are slow getting up from tackles, on a couple of occasions there was only one man ready at marker. We are weak around the tram lines. The backs need to be doing extras at training.

On a positive not we do seem to get numbers in the tackle, but mainly only up the middle. A conclusion based on only 5 mins of one game is that in that game our forwards appear to defend ok. The backs have trouble.

Having said all this, Salford were superb on getting numbers into the right position. Looking at the tries, they often had an overlap.

One thing I do notice is that there seems to be a lot more players that get away with making contact with people after being a dummy runner. A couple of those tries wouldn't have been given if they were in the NRL.



I'll wake you all up when I'm finished!

Spot on Rooster. No's 3, 4 and 6 out. Oh yes, that's JOC, Howell and Witt - a quarter of our missed tackles.

Several others with a rocket up their .

Something needs to change!

drop as many backs as you like, that won't solve the problem of the forwards playing like girls. 1-17 we are very poor apart from 1 or 2 exceptions, simply judging performances on the number of missed tackles is silly IMO.

drop as many backs as you like, that won't solve the problem of the forwards playing like girls. 1-17 we are very poor apart from 1 or 2 exceptions, simply judging performances on the number of missed tackles is silly IMO.

Sorry double post.

Indeed. Observations based on a five minute vid of tries scored is not an accurate indication of the whole game or indeed season. However, there seemed to be a couple of concurrent themes in the tries conceded against Salford.

Sadly no. 3 was supporters' player of the year last season, no. 4 has been well-known as an ineffective tackler ever since he came back from his serious arm injury (tendon separation wasn't it?) and no. 6 has always been a defensive liability - I well remember being slagged off by one "expert" on here when I pointed this out during the general celebrations when we signed him.

Jeez ....you mean he already had a reputation as a bad tackler? Im shocked that we signed him then seeing as we have such a poor defensive record already. May as well have just kept Sargy there and signed a youngster as a backup. Wonder who made the decision to go for him. Witt was always good as an attacking/kicking player at Crusaders getting lots of praise.



JOC always gets credit from the supporters because of his effort. Still not got the hang of defensive positioning and tackling.