Oh dear

They didnt look like they could score every time they had the ball in the 1st half, far from it. But our spirit went and our bodies failed a bit in the 2nd half. 1st half was a monumental effort against a more pwerful pack, but it can't go on, especially if you make errors and the ref shafts you at critical points to rub the salt in. Bigger and more powerful side just wore us out, but I'll say I was proud of their effort tonight. If...if they can put that into Salford and others of that ilk, they will pick up points

I've only seen you lot on Sky and tonight and considering who you've got missing i think you have plenty of positives to build on Wood looked very sharp ,kirmond caused us plenty of strife and your offload game was threatening 1st half.
Yes when we upped the gears we put some gloss on the scoreline but that shouldn't detract what effort your boys put in nor the quality of what they did for a good hour but that early defence was always gonna catch up when we gained momentum.

Should have gone in at half time 20+ points to the good. Bombed far too many chances that proved costly. Leeds were always going to step it up in the second half after a McDermott rollocking, shame nobody told the team. At 18 - 12 within only 8 second half minutes elapsed, the game looked as good as gone.

Going off radio alone, but this reminds me so much of 2006 and Tony Smith in relation to poor second halves.

Before the game, the scoreline would not be unexpected, given home advantage and the opposition. But we struggle in the second half. We compete, kinds, London aside, for forty, and then get rolled over in the second half. Does Agar have a dressing room presence?

Not as doom and gloom as earlier in the week, and I never expected us to win, and so I'll see how it goes. A loss against Salford, for me, would be unforgivable, and would be the real sign of how we are doing.

Looked a totally different side in the two halves.

First half we looked sharp in attack and solid in defence. Wood and Kirmond were causing allsorts of problems and we created some good chances but we didn't capitalise on them. Forwards were making good ground and our discipline was pretty good.

Second half we were falling off tackles, watching Leeds run at us, looked pretty clueless in attack, Smith's passing was all over the place and it was only Isaac John's late try that prevented us being scoreless in the second half. Gave away too many cheap penalties and coughed up too much possession.

We now have just over a week to recover and regroup for Salford. As you say, the result of this one will be a good marker for how much we've improved and what the rest of the season holds...

Leeds or not it was still 32 points against in 40 minutes and that is not good enough old lad I did not expect a win I do not expect a rout either in the 2nd half

The bench had that Agar look about it

Is Ellis injured if not I would be asking for a transfer if I was him

Agar out

Salford have got a decent side so I wouldn't be going in confident of a victory, will be a tough game.

Whats an Agar bench then?

And who would you if the coach would you have played Ellis for last night?

You want the coach out you have shown your hand and made it clear now justify what you would have done differently against the World Club Champions?

Every side is decent at this level - but we know where our best opportunities lie, and this is one of them. No pushovers like the old days - except us - maybe!

For startes I wouldn't put a halfback on the bench he either plays or he doesn't, Ellis should have been on that bench. As for Mellars I would rather have seen Mariano or Trout take that spot.

You are right TRB we are the easybeats of SL at present. Salford have some very good players, Pattern, Holdsworth, Moon, Smith etc are much better than anyone we have. Guess what, Holdworths kicking game will win the game for them unless we improve. I will be at the game and I want to see that the coaching staff have learnt some lessons from the games so far this season. RL has managed to portray the mith that the game is complicated and that its hard to be a coach, Rubbish. the game is very very simple ( and thats its great selling point ) and coaching the game is easy ( managing a group of young men and their egos is not easy, and the modern player on the whole acts like a spoilt kid, the job is made harder when you add agents into the mix ).
The lessons that should have been learnt by the coaching staff to date are :-
The combined rugby brain power of the team is so low and their understanding of the game so weak that we have to simplify the game plan. Play the same tactics as we did at Hull in the bad weather. We do not have the skills to play an expansive game so as a result we are gifting the ball in our own half to often.
The players need to understand why they are giving so many pens away, so we need a session with the refs boss
The players need to know that when we get a penalty the rules allow you to kick at goal and get two easy points. They should ignore the score board and try not to think to hard, just take the points.
We are letting in 30+ points each game, we will never win another match if this continues. Three things to do to solve this : 1.) tackle round the legs ( we are getting knocked off tackles because we are all going high ) 2.) Select the team with the best tacklers in it, this means that Washbrook goes to second row, Aiton to 13, Ellis and Wildie at 9, This gives you 150 + tackles per match. 3.) we have known from game one that we look very weak defending the attacking kick to the wings, our and wingers have had a mare. Practice , practice, practice required. Also remember against Hull KR they played their 6 ( was it Hall ) at stand off in attack but put him on the wing in defence. Lets look at soom options.
Our attack is weak but it is simple to put right, we need our dummy halfs to pick up and go more often, we are simply not asking any questions of the defence around the ruck and as a result the line speed of the defenders is very quick which in turn means that our forwards are finding it hard to make yards and put the team on the front foot. Again very simple to put right, get Ellis and Wildie to watch Roby, Clarke, Hodgson, Lestrange, Diskin, Henderson infact any other SL teams hooker.
I can watch a losing team ( have done for the last 40 years ) as long as I know that they have given 100% . Happy to clap them off at Hull etc. The players did not give 100% at London or against Cas, they felt sorry for themselves etc etc. We need to get some mental toughness into them, no matter how well they did last night ( was not there ) 32 points against in the second half is schoolboy stuff. They need to get a grip, toughen up, will a group bollocking help because it seems that the arm round the shoulder is not working.

I didnt realise you were get em on side ref as well



Hindsight is wonderful didnt see much moaning when the sqaud was announced. people have called for changes they have been made we still havent won a game whoever plays we cannot make the yards and keep the field position other team are too big for us, my point is we need to play our 6 out and cut out the stupid penalties, this was a massive frustration for me under Kear the number of silly penalties, I was hoping we would rid that from our game but so far I dont think we have we are always on the back foot.

Don't get me wrong i know this won't be easy but its one we have to win. Yes salford are a decent side but then again on paper so are we and on our own patch we have to turn them over. We need to be beating the teams around us, the gelling excuse just doesn't wash anymore. But like you i'm not confident that we can put together an 80 minute performance to get a victory. But we have to find it from somewhere otherwise this season could turn out to be a disaster because we've some real tough games to come yet.

Listen !! Its no coincidence that us and Widnes are struggling (2 brand new teams) 10/11 competitive games is no where near enough time to sort the best starting 13 out. As much as I don't like Agar and would prefer a top Aussie coach, we have to give the guy plenty of slack. This team is still in the experimenting stage and will be all season, Agar needs to sort out which players are going to FIT in the team. His next moves are to get rid of players that don't fit, and sign players that do. Then, if we are not regularly beating teams around us and hitting the top 8 that is when Agar out chants need to start.

By the way Leeds beat Manly 26-12, a bit of perspective.

It's not the fact that Salford are a poor side, it's the fact that Salford is the sort of side we should be aiming to compete against. If we can't beat Salford at home, then we can't beat anyone, because there is only really Widnes left who are poorer than us. You could say London or Cas, but as they both battered us in the last two weeks, that comparison is lost.

So did Glover spend all the extra money on new players and coaching staff to be the second worst team in the league? I doubt it. We managed that level last year on a shoestring. If we look at the games we have played against teams who are we hope to be, competing for 8th spot, like Bradford, Hull KR and Cas, and teams who aren't that good, like London, we have lost to all of them. So that is where I would put us, as the second worst team in the league.

Think you are not giving Cas, Salford, London and Widnes enough respect. Cas Salford and London are much better sides than us, we only just managed to beat Widnes with the help of a 12 -0 penalty count in the second half and them getting a player sent to the sin bin. London and Cas stuffed us. The widnes game was great because it was two evenly matched sides. Lets get real its between us and Widnes for the wooden spoon, no disgrace in that as long as the lads give their all.

So we assemble a new squad at much greater expense, along with a new coach, and we are supposed to settle for being the second worst team? Last year, I was happy not to finish bottom. It shouldn't be good enough this year.

It's not about disrespecting the opposition, because we should be aiming to be as good as them.

I disagree if we finish second from bottom this year it will be deemed as failure on the field. If we don't manage to beat last years points for the season this should be a strong case to sack Agar. And I bet I am not the only one who shares the same opinion. Glover wanted to run this club as a business and poor results will not bring in revenue. We have been in this position before under ted.

If that is the case then the people who have spent a great deal more this year recruiting supposedly better players on long contracts need to take a serious look at themselves. And if salfird are better than us then they need to look at who was released as well seeing as their squad has 3 members of wakefield second bottom side from last year in it.

I agree with the sentiment, but the table does not lie, neither do the scorelines against London and Cas. I and many other fans who sit near me have been pointing out all season what we are doing wrong with regards to team selection and tactics, Sadly although there is a great deal of experience that the fans have, having watched many teams and players over many years our views will not be taken on board, because its not our profession, our job does not hinge on the result of games. the good news is that with luck the penny will eventually drop and the right players will be selected qnd given the right game plan and tactics. I hope its soon as I would really like RA and his coahing staff to be a massive success, they work very hard and give 100% plus from the very breif time spent in their company they all seem top blokes. They deserve success.

But the lads aren’t giving it there all are they, the level of commitment has dropped considerably since the Catalans game. I’m certainly not happy with the same standard as last seasons team, considering this team cost a hell of a lot more. If we were happy with 2nd bottom we should just kept Kear as coach and save money on the playing budget by playing mostly youngens like last season.

One good thing is seeing the likes of Trout and Walshaw get some game time. I think, and better judges than me will agree, that the game management of the players in the championship under 18 team was very poor under the old coaching team. Players like Speirs, Anakin, Trout, Walshaw, Eden, Morton, Davey, Wildie should all have 30 plus SL games under their belts before the start of this season. Sadly RA cannot change this but he can make sure that the likes of Jordan Grayson, Lillycroft etc get a try out this season. We already know that we have nothing left to play for this season apart from pride and trying not to finish bottom, a perfect opportunity therefore for Speirs, Davey, Trout Wildie etc

Not sure on the 30+ games but Kear did miss a great oppotunity for himself, the club and the youngsters coming through last season. This year Agar is showing faith in a couple of the youngsters and I like you would like to see others getting a shot, but it has to be the right ones for the right reason to do the right job.

Some of the players mentioned have good go forward but not so big of a work rate when it comes to defence, lets look at some who have a great ability to work hard in defence and will put their hand up to do the hard yards when needed. I have said on here before that Wakefield's biggest problem is defence, we seem capable of scoring points but stopping them is another thing. Richard Agar needs to get this part of the game sorted before the team can continue to develop any further.

Agar should look to bring someone in to help work with the defence, as a coach you have to look at your own weaknesses just as much as you look at your players, and hold your hand up and look for help when you see it. Agar was very good as a player with ball in hand but was never the greatest defender and this seems to follow suit with the 1st team. Too many times now (reserve team also) I have seen players shoot up out of the line in defence leaving gaps to attack, present an organised line you present a wall. 2nd marker being too slow at pushing into line once the ball has moved across, a bit more urgency here would allow us to push players out more quickly and hopefully give the outside players more confidence with numbers and stop them from shooting out trying to stop an attacking play. First contact must stick and then numbers in the tackle to help control the speed of the P.T.B etc, etc.

I really believe in this side, and IMO and mine only, I believe we will develop in to a side that we the supporters can and will be proud of once the defence is tightened and added to our ability to attack along with using right players to do a job they are comfortable and capable of doing.

Rant over, I guess, sorry for being long winded but like everyone else on here I am passionate about Wakefield and like some I believe in this squad.