Quote ="Mrs Barista"The point on last tackle options IMO is also divorced from who's on the pitch; organisation is even more important when Holdsworth is not there to produce something. When you know you're down on individual ability, you compensate by trainig and practising set plays and calls in the week until you're bored sick of it, so that on the last on gameday at least everyone knows what the plan is. We've some decent kickers in the team in Tickle, Whiting, Westerman and Houghton. Get the fecking ball in the air with a great chase or long into the dead ball area, but before you do it, everyone needs to know the call and be drilled. Our kicking is just speculative with no organised support. That's unforgivable, but doubly so when we should be well drilled to offset the lack of creative individuals. IMO.
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There was a classic example in the second half yesterday when Whiting, on half way and with all the time in the world, took the ball on the last tackle, looked down field and kicked it directly to David Hodgson with cruise missile accuracy. Hodgson didn't even have to move. In that example the option was okay but the execution was shocking.
But I'm not disagreeing with your point - our last tackle options could and should be better with or without Holdsworth. And yesterday they were dire no doubt. But with Holdsworth in the team they will be a whole lot better - and I think we saw that against Cas a few weeks ago.
But I do agree that Gentle hasn't adapted to the loss of Holdsworth very well and we could and should be better organised ATM. It's a true test of his coaching ability - but I still expect us to improve dramatically with our key players back.
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