I see it's back to Miller bashing on here again! Just like the good old days when he was scapegoat for our shortcomings. He doesn't seem any different to me before he got injured, apart from a bit of sharpness, I thought he did ok, but there you go. If Broughy does play next week, that will be Miller's 3rd game back with a different partner, something to bear in mind maybe. Bar that error late on Jowitt was my mom, and I've got no problem with either him or Hampshire at full back, but what I don't want in the coming weeks is chopping and changing at full back and in the halves, it cost us last year messing about bringing Finn back, then out again.....

One thing I did notice about our forwards generally......how can I put this politely.......

a lot of them look overweight to me! I'm not saying they are unfit, but 3 of them look as if they could maybe shed a few pounds to me, whether that would bring better personal performance, is obviously open to conjecture, or maybe it's just the shorts and jerseys that are 'highlighting' their excess......

Look at the other teams.Quite a lot of the big guys carry a little extra around the middle . Ben Murdoch Masil a for example.

Absolutely yeah, he does look overweight and he seems to put the same consistent performances in. It might be my eyes, but I just think a few of our guys seem to have put weight on since earlier on in the season, but obviously I don't know that for sure. I think Koppy looks to be carrying a bit too much, and I think the last few games he's looked sluggish and off the pace to me.

There are quite a few of them who no longer seem to be the players of the early rounds of the season. I am not saying they have lost a lot of 'edge' probably only 10% but that can be enough between winners and loosers.

But for all the negativity we are 6th and only off 5th by one drop goal in points difference.
Silly play by Zeb Taia cost us 5th today.

6th is mid table is it not. Tell me how many points are we in front of the bottom team and how many points are we behind the top team. These next 4 or 5 games could see us into the top 5, however we could also slide down much nearer to the bottom, if we don't start to pull things around quickly

Exactly. We are in a good position right now.
What happens from now on is unknown but with our top players coming back I am feeling more positive than negative.

Any team looking to get into the top 5 should not be getting thrashed by London once, never mind twice.

I agree. And we have one more game against them too.

all of them are overweight including your self claimed forward leader.

miller run meters would be in the minus he runs across field so much.

Yes they are ALL clearly overweight aren't they, I mean just look at England, Batch, Ashurst, so fat they can barely run.....you do spout some crap don't you. Well seen as you're disgruntled most of the time with the way we have played etc, I can tell you matey without our 'pack leader' we would probably be in the bottom 4 now, because he almost singlehandedly won us games against Wigan, Hudds probably twice, and at least one more. But that just goes to show how ignorant you are about the game in general.......

Good to know you're still out to lunch.

Our forwards are probably what concern me the most but on paper they are a decent set. We've been battered down the middle twice by London. We can't seem to get the upper hand in the ruck ina lot of games. Also concerning for me is out line speed. We are beaten on line speed in every game pretty much. Even Widnes had better line speed than us for the majority of that game. We seem to just wait and hang back in defence. I think all over the pitch we need to be a bit more aggressive. We should be okay when we get all players back - especially Bill but recent performances have been concerning. Can't comment on Catalan as the first game I have missed this season but sounds like the first half was not much different to games like Widnes.

Agree on line speed and that is one thing that really frustrates me and has done for years, we just don`t seem to move up and pressure teams. Kickers must love playing against us as they seem to have all the time in the world to kick the ball where as every other team gets up in there face which makes a real difference.

In all honesty, I actually think we struggle with go forward outside of Kops and Fifita in the pack who both constantly win the collision.

King consistently wins the collusion and makes good yards but doesn’t get enough game time for me.

I’ll keep saying it, we have not played a full 80 mins this season, usually the first 20. You simply can’t meep winning games in ten minute spurts.

We struggled to make metres against Catalans at Anfield often kicking from very deep, much like the Saturday home game against them last season.

I don't think our pack has suddenly got fat, or our team suddenly become unfit, or whatever else panicky nonsense the doomsayers come up with; we've been hit by an unprecedented and sudden injury crisis, and it's taken a toll on our ability to deliver on the field - despite that, we're hanging around where we need to be and there's every chance that we'll see an uptick when the injured players return to the team. That's it.

We're giving the opposition far too much time at PTB & like
Adam_Harrison9 said if we learned to speed it up we be a different side altogether but we never have so it probably won't happen.

Agree. A side doesn't become unfit as the season progresses, or gains weight while playing week in week out, that's ridiculous imo. As stated above it's fairly obvious why the forwards have not been as effective in the past few games.

To a lot of posters the obvious is never obvious, there always has to be some sinister undertone.

It can’t just be that after 3 years on the up we’ve hit a bit of a wall, much of it not of our making.

Every team has an ideal line up and we have not been able to play ours since the Hull game but that doesn’t seem to count.
,
If this season doesn’t pan out and so long as we don’t get dragged into the relegation zone then I personally will just have to accept that, without wanting to tempt fate, nobody has died.

Totally agree.
We have done well with the bad hand we have been dealt with this season with our injury list.
I mean, it could be a lot worse - we could be dirty Leeds.

Yes ,remember the bad old days selling players Money problems poor management somebody else owning the ground.weve had a bad run of injuries all clubs do l know what I'm doing backing the club players coach and management .up the trin

Personally i am quite happy with where we are. I thought the gap to the top 5 would be bigger considering the players we have or have had missing. Now that we are getting players like Brough and BT due back we can start reeling the teams above back in.

The forwards making ground issue to me is pretty simple. When you are missing Johnstone and Tupou who more often than not break the tackle on plays 1 and 2 and find a quick ptb it’s so much easier for the big guys to move forward and get over the advantage line.

No disrespect to our current backs but there’s only Lyne who can make the hard yards near our own line and actually start a set on the front foot. On Saturday the likes of Sau and BJB were dominated in the tackle leaving the forwards the uphill task of having defenders up in their face before they could get any momentum.

Those first 2 hit ups from the back are more important than some seem to realise

No one has mentioned line speed in defence...