After sticking up for him through the majority of this year im now starting to have doubts. The team that has ran out over the last few weeks havent played to anywhere near there potential. I was expecting a big effort yesterday given the recent results but we got nothing, a lack of faith in the coach?

Im once again left frustrated how a team with the best support and facilities and money etc can once again feck it all up on the pitch. We have seen Cas/Salford/Hull KR steamroll this division and you would think with the infrastructure we have we could do something similar even on a part time basis but oh no this is Widnes!

Credit to Batley, a well oraganised team that will bust a gut for each other and Handforth is a good player. Heckenberg seems a complete waste.

Yes weve had injuries but lets not make excuses, weve been crap nearly all year.

Im really frustrated and angry, can anyone give me a little bit of hope.................



BTW Steve O'connor left before the end yesterday and had a face like thunder, i wonder if a change of coach is a good thing or bad at this stage?

I think you have done about as well as most people expected you to do to be honest. Come the end of the season you should have sneaked in to the playoffs and on your day you could surprise one or two of the top teams. When you looked at the Widnes team on paper at yhe begining of the season it didn't look any better than say Sheffield or Batley so I really don't think you are doing too bad.
As for Cullen he's used to having plenty of money to spend but is notorious for not getting the best out of players. Fantastic analyzer of the game but average coach at best.

I turned to my mate yesterday and said he would take some flak for that performance and he did. After the final whistle while the teams were walking off the pitch he took a barrage of abuse from one or two fans in the South Stand.

He has made some baffling decisions...
Allen in at Captain replacing Smith... the last time something like this happened it was Jules O'Neill being stripped of the captaincy following the Danny the Dolphin Boy. It was awarded to Andy Hay and the team was instantly split in two. Smith is well liked and this has probably generated some bad feeling in the camp. Nothing against Allen I don't think.
Secondly... letting Webster go without having a ready made replacement in place. I will PM you what I was told at the weekend about this. But for me this is incredible. Whether the guy is offered a job or not he should be allowed to leave only when something else is sorted out.
Thirdly... the Ford thing. James Ford has not been anywhere near the worst player in a Widnes shirt this season. Far from it. At present he is in the reserves being told that he will no longer feature in any 1st team games. He is a capable player and should have been in the squad yesterday.

In Cullen's defence... the direction he has had from the top is to save money where he can and he can now point to the problems that this has caused. DR's have not worked to our advantage and being outbid for a number of other players has left the club in a poor position. He now has some money to spend and I think the team will be strengthened shortly.
Finally I genuinely think that when you experience a genuine low like yesterday it can strengthen a team's resolve. Hopefully none of those players will want to play in a game like the one yesterday and this should act as motivation for them to train harder ahead of the next match.

Nobody will steamroll this division again with the 300k cap. It is certainly levelling things out even more than it had been last season.

I dont want to dwell on injuries too much but they have played a part but we have also recruited poorly in the main.

Were not a particularly poor side on paper but we seem to view our players at a level over what they are.

The lack of a goalkicker is criminal and it will probably be the death of Grady because he is out on his feet at the moment having done every game.

Cull aint going unless he walks. SOC aint going to give him the heave-ho off the back of yesterday.

Got to hang on in there at the moment and hope we can add a decent scrum half really.

We are lacking in mainly 3 areas.

1. We need a good and natural full back, like a Gary Broadbent type or even a Johnny Campbell from Batley. We seem to be just throwing centres not even wingers at full back.

2. We all know we need a very good scrum half because Webster left.

3. We need some of our forwards back from injury like Haggerty, Pickersgill. Heckenberg needs to raise his game, maybe we should throw Tom Kelly in the side. Our forwards seem to be losing the battle and we have got in that habit of the wingers doing all the drives again. We don't get the ball out enough to our to our wingers and centres in attack and when we do its either to slow or a bad pass.

On the Cullen thing i am not sure if it is him or the players, other teams seem to be more organised and more enthusiastic. I would give him till the end of at least. Hopefully this is just a blip because of all the injuries and some of the duel reg nonsense. I believe couple of new signings and a Smith or a Coyle and a couple of other players back from injury we will be ok going into the last part of the season. Its Barrow next in about a week and and half enough time to turn it around.

A week is a long time in football?

Keep the faith, we all won't be as angry in a few days.

Basically you're crap





















[size=50I do however reserve the right to retract this statement when you win the GF [/size

I'll wait until all of the injured players are back before making a judgement. But if we don't make the play-offs I'd be seriously worried if I was Cullen.

no mention of a free scoring full back named Shad Royston. thats the type of fullback you want, someone who will guarentee you 20 tries a season if fit. unfortunetley he is not for sale at any price.

Miles Greenwood also pretty good in tha position too.

Cullen only has to the end of this season on his contract doesnt he?

Perhaps we can pinch Millward rom Leigh, the carrot of Super Dooper League would be a big pull to him.

Calland? Could do the business in SL i reckon

Fekkin brilliant rich - but you ought to get out more

!

I think the main area we've gone wrong is recruitment. I think by failing to sign a few experienced players/leaders is where we've gone wrong. Who can the youngsters look upto on the field now that Webster has moved on and Smith is still out for a number of weeks? Okay, we have players like Gannon and Doran and I suppose we now include Allen in that bracket, but it's as if the team are lacking a clear leader, someone to provide an authoratative voice on the pitch and to keep the players heads up when things aren't going as well. I think the system used at Wigan where they have 5 captains is something we could look at.

Try TKL , he's experienced



Ah , I've just spotted a flaw in this cunning plan

Thackeray is a leader but would you class him as experienced.

Another one of your predictions VM ?







Lets face it, your going to SL. Why would SOC waste his money?

Snowy even if he has got the nod from the RFL i still want my club to be playing for honours.Fans will not go to watch no effort, and they want a winning team.We need to be competitive and why does Cullen drop Ford when he is a centre.Players like Mullaley play well for the reserves, but he wants to play Heckenberg who is a fat and lazy.

Not saying this just because I'm a Leigh fan but i don't think he'd leave Leigh unless it was for a decent-ish Super League team.

Completely agree, and thats the risk.

Widnes wil be in this division next year too, and it wil be embarrassing to only have a NRC victory to your name for the franchise.

Your crowds are dwindling too, but you still get the nod over FOUR SL teams in my honest opinion.

To be honest, Leigh are in better shape than 2 SL teams, but we have no chance.

If you fail to reach top 6 this year, it wil be really interesting to see what happens during the off season !

"getting the nod from the RFL" holds about as much water as still saying"Gordon Brown was a prudent Chancellor".

Its amazing how things can change in a short period of time.Widnes still favourites to go into SL but nothing would surprise me with the RFL.

Also Widnes fans if things don't change will have a couple of poor seasons to put up with and will almost certainly initially lose many more games than they win in SL, no one likes watching their team lose consistantly no matter what league you are in.

..and therein lies the problem of the franchise system, the box is ticked, finishing top is of no benefit really so why waste your money. We all want to be the best on the field, but that is no longer necessary and the money men will cut back once they have done what they need to.

Thats true, Imagine if Ben Black hadn't dropped the ball with the line begging and nobody near him in the Semi. Widnes wouldn't even be able to apply yet



Beside the point though, he did drop it and unless you really balls it up you should be in SL soon.

You would have seen a completely different Widnes team this year if that hadn't have happened. They'd be walking this league right now. So, blame Ben Black for ushering in a mediocre season for Widnes. He's our "double-agent" because we're never going to get a licence anyway