but they are as bad as each other at the moment,the difference being horne is a local lad,and thorman's an outsider-but on past performances horney comes out best all the time.it's about time he pulled his finger out

Sorry ,can`t agree with that one.Thacks always seems to be trying his best.(Not saying it always good enough.)

Nope, fullback. Although he only had three games for them due to injury.







Tony has been comfortably our best player in his three games since returning. Whilst still obviously injured.

And he showed more in one kick return against Wakey than Horne did in his whole spell at fullback.



And yet Lee, also a 16 year old debutant, receives nothing but abuse from you despite giving his all every game. Weird.

Comfortably eh? Funny how the independent RL newspapers didn't pick up on this isn't it?

I'd drop Radford, Tickle and Thackray to start with. I would also rest Dowes and Berrigan. Horne is not playing well but i'd still have in my side.

The question is why are these players not performing anywhere near their potential

Must say I'm surprised how many people are calling for Tickle to be dropped

Not sure he needs dropping. I think his performances are a direct result of him playing 80 minutes every match. Playing him in 2 X 25 minutes spells would see much imrpoved performances from him

A lot of them are just generally not good enough and are deadwood.

I'd not drop him myself, but I can understand why people are calling for it. He does go missing in games and his defence is not consistently up to the required standard. However, I think a lot of this is down to him playing 80 minutes week in and week out.

Reviewing some of our games this season (yes, I am a glutton for punishment) he does run some good lines and provides offloads. If we had better (any?) support play we'd have scored more tries from his work.

That's one way of looking at it but I've seen much worse sets of players play to a better standard than our current side are

Not really. They know as much about the game as most on here.

Thats the way I see it, he has played just about every minute this season IIRC and when he was fresh he was easily one of our better players but he is clearly fatigued. He is one of the only players who actually runs a good line.

He goes missing because he has been burnt-out IMO. As you say he is one of the only players who does run good angles and if spelled correctly with willing support play we would score a lot more tries. It was noticeable just how ed off he was at the end of the Wakey game which shows he is putting the effort in that his level of fatigue will allow.

perfect example being dave hadfield on skysports regular jizm attacks about Danny Maguire, James Roby etc.......

Me too.

I wouldn't drop him at all, he is the only guy who runs any sort of angles and runs the ball in hard every time, plus getting good offloads. Defensively he has been poor of late yes but that is down to being absolutely cream crackered as he is used for the full 80 which again shows poor use of interchanges and management.

In fairness to Tickle he has been the one stood behind the posts talking to the rest of the players whilst the Captain is either having a break on the bench or stood with his hands on head saying nowt.
If more of the players ran lines like Tickle does we'd have a much better chance of scoring.

Bingo!!!!

In fact i think our 2nd row has looked good since Burnett started in the 13, they both run good angles. With Manu fit then we can start rotating the 2nd row a lot more, keep the players fresh and prevent those missed tackles.

Or is that too simple?

Absolutely agree. Tickle is left shattered by the poor interchange policy, same can be said of Burnett too, spends far too much time on the pitch. What baffles me is that everyone in the stands can see this apart from the Chuckle Brothers.

Only thing that annoys me when Tickle is getting the ball, more often than not it's from a drop off from Horne. 9 times out of 10 that's how he will get the ball.

Instead of trying to play him 80mins like they were before his injury lay off.

Yes, or it certainly seems to be.

I agree it is nearly always the drop off.

Lets face it if we know what is going to happen you can guarentee the opposition do as well.

Easy to defend against!

tickle looks bu****ed!!!!! we need to spell him,with the added fact that if we need to kick penalties etc thorman can do it,as this is what agar said was going to happen.(another agar statement that has fallen by the wayside!!!!!!!!!!)

Exactly, Agar was pleased he would now be able to spell Tickle by having Thorman in the side to do the kicking when Tickle having a breather, but that just aint happened, why am I not suprised.

Tickle if spelled correctly in a game is a very good player for us and he has proved that, you certainly can't doubt his effort week in week out its simply that the coaching staff seem happy to run him into the ground every game and for what?

In fairness to Tickle maybe he would benefit from a break during the game and it would then maybe reflect in his performances. He tends ro drop off tackles and give penalties away which realy bothers me but like you say it could be down to fatigue.

Totally agree with that.
I've been baffled by some of the stick he has been getting on here.
1 of the reasons Thorman was brought in was so Tickle could be spelled during a game.Still waiting for it to happen 4 months in to the season mr Agar.