At the risk of repeating yourself for the umpteenth time???????
To quote pmarrow's opening gambit " Where is this fabled half back?" or the famous coach you're always espousing about?

Always espousing about? I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.

I don't know where the half back is, in Australia probably but I don't have the time or the contacts to find him but I'd hope someone at the club would.

What's your answer then? Go with rankin and miller irrespective of results until we're either world champions or languishing in the national leagues?

Both may well go on to be good quality players but can we as a club sit around waiting to find out? I don't think so and I don't think the club do either, hence their attempts to offload miller

The pack alone should be more than good enough to see us make the top 8. Give the half backs time to gel.

Results to date would tend to blow that one out of the water. Already 5 points down on the same games last season with widnes, cas and salford all in with a chance of the 8 (and all 3 beaten us already this year)

I agree with Jake, Two rookies is way too much so we have to go with experience and that means Horne who atm is a better player than both Miller and Rankin

Still don't get why Horne gets the bagging he does. Granted hes not as creative as someone like Chase but hes a good solid half back who needs a creator next to him, who that is who knows but for me I don't think it will ever be Miller or Rankin

With regards the thread title though im still open to Radford as I think we have shown improvements. What would help him though is an experienced assistant. Id love to see Kear back here or even Noble if he'd take the step down in order to nurture Radford. As it is the whole coaching setup is too green and that needs changing for us to move forward

People seem to be working on the assumption that if we persevere with miller and rankin for long enough they'll come good which is by no means guaranteed

We are where we are because of our past failings. We have tried the short term quick fix patching up with so called experienced players, Holdsworth, Seymour, Long, etc. and they failed.

If we can beat teams like Huddersfield with this inexperienced half back pairing, then I think we will do ‘ok’ at the least.
We don’t have the so called ‘luxury’ to do much else at this time.

If we keep killing off players, then who is going to want to come to us?

There's two issues here and has been for some time. Marrow has summed up perfectly the current position and essentially what the coach has to work with. The other issue is recruitment and retention. It's been poor for years and we can't put that at Radford's door. We've been looking for a scrum half for years , we knew that Tickle was going for ages and needed a goal kicker , we somehow allowed Briscoe to leave , we allowed Manu to go and even Turner hasn't been replaced by a better player. We were told that there were no halves available yet Saints knowing they have good but inexperienced halves just go out and get Walsh who also kicks goals. I think that McRae and our reputation from the previous regime did us a huge amount of damage and we ended up signing far too many players who were/are not good enough or past it and couldn't go anywhere else rather than what we needed. There's still an element of that as seen from the type of signings we've made where they can be said to be inspirational - Feka , Talanoa , etc or desperate depending on your point of view. AP and Radders have got to keep looking for the player that can manage the game on the field and in general for players to replace some of our aging forwards and Horne , Yeaman , Hazza , etc. To expect these to simply come from within our junior ranks is living in a dreamworld. Certainly develop our own but it's got to be I conjunction with a much better recruitment regime than we've had for many years. In the meantime we've got to get the best out of the guys we have and frankly we shouldn't expect miracles.

No point beating teams like huddersfield if you then lose to teams like rovers and salford.

We have done that for many years.

From what I've seen of you this year you at least seem to be playing to a game plan that will work if the players perform. On at least a couple of occasions last year you seemed to be playing to a plan doomed to failure regardless.

good post.

Exactly but because miller represented at junior level (aus) he is going to be a world beater..lee williams represented at junior level (eng) he isnt even playing now so it just goes to show you.. the only difference been miller is 3rd best earner at our club..were as williams wasnt.. so in hindsight hes got to play or it is wasted money.

What a player earns is largely irrelevant. Why would we drop a pairing with potential for a player that has proven he's not good enough for the last 7 years?

horne does a job at 6, miller is a 7 (meant to be the organizer) i just cant see him fulfilling this role, any combo have potential if they achieve this is another story, time can only tell.

& what a player earns is irrelevant.. hes on a mega wage for a rookie who has done nothing in the game, it was pretty dumb work by our club prior to him signing. you just dont go about signing unknown players on top whack just to fill the void we was desperate for. name another club that has done this? in gentle we trust eh!

What any player earns is completely irrelevant when it comes to team performances. This year Ben Crooks hasn't been worth 50p.

but atleast he has had 1 good season, miller hasn't.

No good to us now though, is it!

Great post. Radford is still finding out what his best team is.

Crooks will be fine when he gains weight & sorts his defence. miller will crab across & get his mates banjoed all his career..

Millers WxxK ! Full stop so stop pretending this messiah will come good and take your head out his ass FFS

A balanced, well thought out post there.

Is your surname 'Head'?

Miller or Horne? NO contest there. Horne's dumb, repetitive inside ball is his only trick and it still doesn't work.

Our pack on Thursday was as effective as Lidl toilet roll. How do you expect half-backs to work from that?