It is the rumour and has been since Powell joined them, however believe Powell has a few issues to deal with at Wire and I know he has never been the most popular coach with the dressing room so there may be a bit of wriggle room should someone else show interest.

One other thing, Farrel's defence, been pretty shocking these last 3 weeks, very unlike him.
I'm not demanding he gets dropped but he needs to up that aspect of his game.

The thing is regardless of him looking shattered, he’s making the most ground out of our props, certainly on an average per carry basis and I’m yet to see him ripped apart defensively (I don’t think they scored when he was on last night did they? I’ll need to watch the full game again). Could he get fitter? Absolutely (I actually think he’s slimmed down from the pictures I saw of him at Souths but granted that doesn’t mean he’s physically fitter) but I still think he’d be wobbling around looking like his legs are due to give out.

I’d also question if he is a ‘big money’ signing and a Souths ‘regular’. He played in some games and his minutes were limited and he didn’t get picked in others, including getting left out of their run to the GF. He’s probably not on peanuts but he’s not the kind of signing you expect to come in and dominate the league because you think he’s one of the leagues top earners. That is somebody like Tetevano at Leeds or George Burgess when he was here. Ellis and Mago were NRL fringe players and shouid be getting paid as such here. They’re signings that could go either way and they always were. Overall I’m pretty happy with the pair of them but there’s plenty of improvement in both.

I don’t think it’s helped that he’s played with Cust and Bibby, then Smith and Hardaker, then back to Cust and Bibby and then on to Cust and Halsall these past few weeks. He does need to pick his form up but it’s been a bit disjointed.

You can 100% see this.

Cust seems a little susceptible to a guy stepping back inside. We got done at KR with it and it almost happened again last night. It's probably a chat thing. Maybe he's pushing too quickly and not pulling his inside man with him?

A lot of people are getting carried away here. Start of this season we all wanted a changed after 3 years of Lams 1D rugby. We have had a response and although it’s been sloppy at times, there are promising flashes of a side that can cause problems. A few people on here honestly loose their heads when the lads put in a bad performance, I’d be happy to be proven wrong but I don’t see the same names commenting on the first 3 games we played

If we are to the salary cap then it needs to be.

We already have 6 props (Ellis, Singleton, Mago, Havard, Byrne, Partington + Ramon Silva looking like he may be the next one to break through in a year or two.

Sliding defence should be covering the man stepping inside. You cannot adequately defend inside and outside at the same time.

As you say, probably comes down to communication which goes back to training and working on sliding defence in small packs.

Not sure how long he played but didn't seem long, but in that time he delivered far more with 6 carries for 56m and 9 tackles in that time than a certain former prop forward.

I've got no issues with his work rate at the minute and his time on the field seems to be a coaches decision.

Agreed. I was always under the impression that you don't push until the person inside you says so. Definitely a communication thing.

I'm not fully convinced that it's a prop or nothing tbh.

I just think we need someone with size & go forward. That could be a prop, 2nd row or even 13. If we did go down the prop route then I'd love to see Ellis move to 13 and that's how we'd justify an extra body. Likewise a new 13 to replace Isa would improve us immensely.

I think people have maybe got a little too high expectations after the first 2/3 games and need to possibly reign it in. I think most on here said they thought we’d finish between 3rd and 5th (odd one maybe a bit higher or lower) before the season started and on what we have seen so far that’s about where we are. One thing that has improved is our attack without a doubt for me, on the whole we were pretty crap last night and probably only won due to a dodgy yellow card but I thought every time we did pass it out wide after getting some go forward and momentum we looked pretty dangerous, I think if we had the territory Cas had we’d have probably scored 50.
The worrying thing was the defence in the second half and also how much our lack of pace with KPP and Hardaker as a centre/winger combo was exposed. I think that should be changed in the next game and probably KPP back into the pack because I think opposing coaches will target that after watching last nights game.

I'd be disappointed to finish lower than fourth to be honest.

Saints and Catalans 1 + 2 is pretty much nailed on.
Wigan and Wire 3 + 4
Huddersfield and Hull FC 5 + 6
Leeds 7 (due to bad start to season)

We need to improve for this to happen definitely.

Totally agree, the defence should work from the centre of the field towards the wing.

His contract with Cas is up this year so I would imagine that you are right and he will join Powell.

I am with you. Two or three shrewd additions and we will be challenging for silverware on a regular basis. The club has an opportunity at the end of the season to make changes and Rads needs to grasp the opportunity. We definitely need to replace Tommy (who I believe was the best half back on show yesterday), we need a pack leader - preferably a prop (Westerman would have sufficed but that ship has sailed), and a class centre. With Hardaker, Tommy, Powell and hopefully Singleton off contract we should have a fair bit of salary cap at our disposal. As someone has referred to elsewhere, the real issue is freeing up non-federation spots because the quality of player we are looking for may not be available in SL, which means we may have to release players who are contracted beyond this season (easier said than done though). We must also retain Field, he is, in my opinion, by far the best full back in SL and his sort of speed is hard to come by. The other thing is we need to stop playing players out of position.

Our defence in general has been shocking of late but it should not be difficult to fix. Saints do it well and many of the better Australian teams have got it right. It is all about line speed, getting into the opposition's faces and cutting down their thinking time. Somebody suggested that it saps the energy out of players but if done correctly it keeps energy levels higher. It is far easier to tackle 17+ stone props before they raise a gallop, command the ruck and set your defensive line if you are dominant in the tackle. We used those tactics against Saints in the GF two years ago and it very nearly worked.

Quote ="MattyB"8 points up with minutes to go against 12 men and we take a penalty goal. Peet didn't look happy as he'd signalled to play the ball.'" Peet's reaction. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-23426553

Quote ="MattyB"8 points up with minutes to go against 12 men and we take a penalty goal. Peet didn't look happy as he'd signalled to play the ball.'" Peet's reaction. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-23426553

More understandable that they’d be nervous but Wakey did the exact same thing today with an 8 point lead and 5 mins left.

It’s borderline a worthless 2 points and does nothing but increase the oppositions chance of an unlikely win. Our case was even crazier considering we were against 12 men.

That crossed my mind too, but there was a fair while to go when Trinity did that, if I remember right.

But well done Wakey anyway. Miller and Lino were very good.

5 and a bit minutes it was, compared to our 3 and a half.

Great day for the sport really. If only we could get some sort of middle ground on these daft penalties, sin bins, sending offs and suspensions, the game could have such a positive year.

Quote ="MattyB"Peet's reaction. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-23426553'" He's just being polite about his so-called 'leadership group'. It was a pathetic decision that could have cost us the game.

Quote ="MattyB"Peet's reaction. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... d-23426553'" He's just being polite about his so-called 'leadership group'. It was a pathetic decision that could have cost us the game.

KPP back to 2nd row - for me that would make a marked difference, including to create space for the pivot or centre beyond.

Definitely, as the pitches dry up he's going to get more and more exposed at centre, it won't do him or us any good to keep him out there

Just rewatched, anyone think Cas kept launching bombs to Marshalls wing was because of the 2017 challenge cup final? Worked a treat for Radfords team that day.

Pretty basic tactics from Radford if so.