Watching tonight just reinforced what I've seen/thought for a while now - we are overly predictable in attack. It's the same moves, repeated in the same way regardless of if we are having any joy with them or not.

Is it time to shake things up in the coaching department with the appointment of a new backs coach perhaps? I know it's something Harris worked on and we also brought in Longy to coach the backs. Longy obviously didn't work out but we must have seen a need for someone like that right?

I just think if we bring in someone new from the ououtside to work ALONGSIDE Wane and Deacs it might freshen things up.

I saw it somewhat differently, actually - nothing much wrong with the tactics, just the clumsy execution letting us down. In any case, we got the win, which is more than Saints and Wire did!

You have to earn the right to go around a team though you can't just spread the ball laterally from wing to wing and expect to score. Your forwards have make the hard yards, punch hole in the middle and dominate the ruck and suck players in in order to create the space out wide, we was just throwing the ball around like headless chickens and very poorly at that. The tactics are all wrong.

Bar Tautai our forwards were anonymous for the most part.
McIlorums first stint was poor and Matty Smith was anonymous for 70 minutes.
Interchanges were quite odd but at least we were trying different things.
J.Tomkins is still really really really poor at centre.
Thought Matty Bowen was outstanding in the second half. Well deserved MoM. Wish he'd do it in a big game though.
Agree with Geoff on our execution, but it's round 18 of SL... we should be executing plays by now.

It's why we went out the cup. The 60-0 win made us think we could just spread play from wing to wing and walk through them.

Our props really need to up their games. I've been particularly frustrated with Mossop recently who seems to go through the motions half the time. It's frustrating because he's a very good prop and he should be taking on more of a pack leader role nowadays.

Well that was garbage. Our completion rate in the first half was 52%.

The kicking game was useless with the attacking kicks in the last 20m just giving the ball to Salford and we didn't have a long kicking game probably because we'd dropped it before we got the last tackle more often than not.

Only players to come out of that with any credit are Bowen, Tautai and Micky Mac. It was MM in the 2nd half who (aided and abetted by Tautai ) who clearly decided to stop the ball being sent wide and adopt a simple and much more direct approach of actually running at Salford.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the win! The Wire board is in meltdown which always cheers me up.

Agreed, execution undoubtedly plays a massive part but even when it's spot on it's still easy to predict what's happening imo. Saints last week knew our game plan and they snuffed it out. That must be a sure indication that we are laying on the same plays every week.

Grated with Sam back its easy enough to know what's coming but it's another thing altogether stopping him.

Who was the last team that relied so much on one set play. How many times do you think we try to execute it during a match?

Agreed.

I'd add Smith to the hit list as well.

I posted it in another thread but Smith, alongside Bowen, is our most experienced back. For me with the amount of kids we have in the back line he needs to have a bigger impact on games.

Never really rated Smith - just doesn't seem to ever stand up and be counted. As for Mossop, I'm afraid he was a sympathy signing. I do wonder how our pack's going to shape up in the next couple of years, especially when Lockers calls it a day. Still think we need one monster prop in the Morley mould...

I think you no longer threaten around the middle of the pitch enough for your current moves to work (on their own). Generally you work to the right, have Smith with a second man play off him, out the back to Williams, then he either hits Farrell or your fullback.

Problem is that 1) McIlorum is not a big running threat 2) Matty Smith hardly ever runs the ball 3) Very few of your props look capable of breaking the line. So until the ball gets out on the edges, nobody has really threatened to break the line, and no defenders have really been committed, so the defence just drifts, particularly since teams are starting to get wise to how to defend against you guys. A fit S'OL helps massively because he can take it to the line and play out the back if it's on, but teams have to commit defenders in case he dummies and goes himself. He gives everyone else a lot more space. The issue is he is seemingly never fully fit anymore.

But thats Wanes god awful and easy read tactics though, with his ridiculous game plan our forward might as well not be there

Spot on !

Agree 100%

That's a fair assessment.

I don't want to sound like a broken record but i think a lot of our on field issues rest at the feet of Smith. He's been consistently average this year. He's neither been awful or sublime he's simply been average with no real moments to remember.

When you compare him to Williams, who is a similar type of player, you could easily put an argument forward that Williams already offers more to the side. Williams whilst not having an outstanding running game is certainly above Smith in this dept (see his try vs Leeds). You could argue he's created more than Smith as well.

If we could afford it i'd be looking at bringing in another FB for next season and going with

1- New FB
6- Tomkins
7- Williams

Whilst some will disagree i think the above would solve a lot of our current issues. Williams & Tomkins would fix defenders in the middle which in turn gives the guys outside them more room to work with. You'd probably see a marked improvement in someone like Sarge if he had a bit more room to play with as well.

One of my biggest worries for next season would be we play Sam at 1 and stick with our current halves. If we do this he's not going to have the space that he needs to create and i can see him doing a lot of lateral running to try and find gaps. I wouldn't be surprised if in 12 months time there's threads on here about Sam underperforming.

That game was reminiscent of the last time we played Salford; that one being the Easter Monday game after the Good Friday derby. I don't think it's a surprise that we put in a similar performance. Williams' performance was pretty much identical. Most of the things he tried simply didn't come off.

I thought Bateman and Farrell were our best players. They ran hard despite not getting the best service and tackled everything that moved. Manfredi and Tautai were also good and Bowen was very dangerous and can't argue with him being given man of the match.

Unfortunately everyone else was below par. The biggest disappointment is Lee Mossop. Have the club been guilty of being sentimental and re-signing him just because he's 'one of ours'? When's the last time he had a really good game? He was poor in his final season before going down under, did nothing other than get injured playing in the NRL and has been poor this season. If it was any other player would we have been interested?

Hopefully that performance was just the hangover from the Saints game. They say a sign of a good side is one that can play badly and win. We can't play much worse than that and picked up the win. Salford were embarrassing. They had a very good side on paper yet they were awful.

If I was Tautai I would chin Mossop for being a lazy sod and not doing his fair share of the grunt last night.
His work rate is truely abysmal which can also be attributed to Crosby.
If Bitcon is so good at fitness how come all of our props look knackered after just one set?
I find it embarrassing just how little effort that our props put into a game. The castleford props the other night made more yardage in one set than Mossop, Crosby and Flower did in the whole game. Our best prop this season has been Sutton a 19 year old kid.
Our props are useless and not one of them is capable of playing for more than 20'minutes max in one period which personally I find nothing short of disgraceful. I'd ship Mossop and Crosby off to Workington to play a full 80 minutes as they can't need a week off because between them their efforts this season have been woeful and they need hard minutes not this 20 minutes on and do bugger all then 20 minutes running up the bloody touch line then the same again I the second half.
For full time professionals all of our props need to improve their efforts significantly and Bitcon and co (there are more support staff on the field than players at times) should stop convincing players they can only and only need to do 20 minute stints. I can accept failure and lack of quality from a player what I can't accept is lack of effort.
SW can come up with whatever excuse he wants but it won't wash over the fact that our overall work rate is poor and he'd better get someone in to explain to the players what intensity means because his definition is the complete opposite to mine.
In previous years this team at the moment would be in the bottom 4 of the table.
I expected an up and down season what I didn't anticipate was lack of effort which was something I never thought I would hear myself say with SW in charge.

Every time we are clearing our own line we are using the backs to do the work of the forwards. First two tackles are usually wing scoots then we are firing out wild passes across the face of goal to the centres, as if we feel sod it....lets go full length.

How many times did we see certain forwards slow paced walking back to the line when we we had the ball, only getting into the line on the third tackle at best.

A couple of our props are getting away with murder and its showing cause we're being bullied up the middle week after week.

they are not being bullied. To be bullied you have to be in the vacinity of the bully. Mossop and co just don't show up so they are not being bullied.
A few have said we are missing Clubb but we haven't seen him since he did four tackles on the bounce therefore, I assume he is being rested now to help him recover.

Fully agree. I remarked on the Wane Out thread about watching the NZ Warriors. It's one thing having Manu Vatuvei running the ball out from his own line a few times (something he does very well), but the point is, he's not doing it because he has to carry his pack; his props are putting a great shift in too. Our outside backs should be getting half the props' wages.

And yes, Tautai isn't all that. In a more successful season, we'd probably all be clamouring for him to be dumped. As things stand, he looks one of the better of a very poor lot. I feel a bit for Williams: I reckon he's really grown into the job this year after a very shaky start, but by all accounts he had a real stinker last night. Obviously, the fact that Smith and O'Loughlin are offering so little in support doesn't help. But there's plenty of others I'd lose patience with before Williams.

Williams looked to be having a fitness test during the warm up. I guess this was why we had Rocky on the bench instead of Powell (who also took part in the warm up). Rocky seems to put some spark into the attack when he came on for Micky Mac with Smith moving to hooker. Williams was caught in possession too often, several times on the last tackle. The physio was constantly checking up on him

When MM came on for his second spell they should have taken Williams off rather than Rocky. To make matters worse Williams then got a knock. We should have subbed him then but we let him play on for another 20 mins or so making more errors before finally taking him off and putting Rocky on for the last few minutes.

You have to question the selection of Williams for the match and then the choice of not to sub him when we had Hampshire on the bench in case he couldn't make it through the match.

I don't think our props are lazy or unfit.

For a considerable time, I've thought, that they are under instruction that only one prop is to carry the ball in a set out of our own half. Last night Sarginson was either first or second man taking the ball up. Manfredi did more than his fair share and paid the price for it. Harris knew the game plan and Manfredi posed a try scoring threat, he also knew Waney would flog him carrying it up out of our 20. So when Salford kicked early they kicked down his wing making him chase back to get possession. One time he kicked it dead from around 15 mtrs out. He was completely gone in the second half.

The main effort of our props is to tackle in threes and maybe fours and at speed to smash into the opposition ball carrier repeatedly and tire out their pack. This does work at the DW. The Salford pack looked shot at after 30 mins. It worked against Leeds along with some significant changes, and the Hudds forwards were out on their feet after 30 mins.

Salford knew all about our props so spread their defence out across the whole field rather than tight to stop props with exit sets up the centre. As expected we went wide and couldn't get anywhere for 80 mins. Our three tries came from kicks.

We are now very predictable but just need to change tactics during a match. Alternate when appropriate between exit sets using the backs and props. Lockers and Smith to call the play.

If Salford can lock us out apart from kick tries then we have to improve and changes need to be made to achieve that.
The leadership group need to lead when they are out there, not just on the training field and the dressing room.

Ted as always a well thought out arguement however, our props are lazy and if not unfit are not fit for purpose.

If we're so predictable how come we're second in tries scored and third in meters made?

The poorest SL ever?
If we are so good how come there is zero atmosphere at home matches.
I love open play and some of our tries are fantastic however, when push comes to shove we have absolutely no intensity and this feeds through to the spectators