We're absolutely terrible you will have no trouble beating us on Friday

When you do muller us on Friday, I know a few people who will be quite ecstatic, because they'll be able to cash in their winnings on their bet that Chester will be the first coaching casualty of the season.

That said, I like and admire KC but any more wide of the mark, illogical post match comments like the ones he made after the drubbing to the Roosters last Friday could conceivably see him shown the door before Chester. There's no place for uttering such cackamallabab in any situation and certainly not after such a one sided affair. Tell it as it is.

He totally embarrassed himself.

Agree, but KC is a half decent coach. Suffers similarly from Chester's ability to be hit and very miss at talent spotting.

In terms of our personnel, the current Widnes team and even more frustratingly, the Salford team who's attack long coached, are far more entertaining than us with the ball in hand yet they don't have super stars. It's not like what everyone's demanding is a crazy Leeds type offload style; a more entertaining way of playing that doesn't involve 3 drives and kick isn't too much for this group of players.

Again, this is a subjective judgement which has no meaning outside individually derived frames of reference.

Whilst I'm sure most people can arrive at some broad definition of "entertaining football" - the moment we switch to specifics consensus goes out the window and the subtleties of individual preference hold sway.

Perhaps if people spent more time explaining what they think constitutes entertaining football rather than expecting everyone to know intuitively what IT is we might get somewhere with this question. But I wouldn't bet money on it.

Anything that deviates from the unimaginative, 3 one out drives and a kick straight to the fullback would be a fine start. I wouldn't mind if we played an effective forward game with little tip ons, dummy runners and running in pairs, but we don't even do that.

As I said in my post, it's not the Leeds style I think people want, it's a less painful one than 3 one out drives and a poor kick.

While you can't put a concrete definition on 'entertaining rugby', you would have to be some optimist to think what we're producing at the minute goes anywhere near anyone's individual definition.

I hope it changes on Friday.

This isn't very helpful - not least because one of the first criticisms which pops up in the wake of any run of bad form by any club you club you care to mention (after "incompetent"/"cheating" refs) is "unimaginative play".

I'd argue it's more a function of psychological stress than any specific gameplan. When faced with challenging circumstances human beings are genetically pre-programmed to behave more conservatively. It's a survival mechanism which given our position as the dominant form of life on this planet it seems to work.

Why exactly our players have gone into their shell so early in the season is an interesting question to which I don't know the answer.

It's odd that our players suffer this 'psychological stress' A) more often than most teams and B) when we're winning, losing or drawing.

Nonsense. It is our pre-determined tactic and gameplan, as confirmed by both Jon Wilkin and Sean Long last week. Ultra-conservative is our style of play, regardless of opposition or position in the match.

It wouldn't be such a bad thing if we were actually any good at it, but 8 defeats in our past 12 games show that this tactic isn't working.

It's a perfectly recognisable phenomenon we see repeated in the workplace each day. It's possible that the players are afraid of making mistakes because of the way the coaching staff responds to them making mistakes. I'm not saying this is the reason for them keeping things so tight because there are other possibilities. The point is - we don't know.

Playing conservatively and playing no other tactics than five drives and a kick [iare not the same thing[/i. I can believe Cunningham prefers the former (for several reasons) but you are going to have to provide significantly more evidence to prove to me that he only wants the latter.

In that scenario, the coaches would be to blame. I'm just happy you've accepted that there is a conservative style on show. Even if you are putting it down to a psychological fear that for whatever reason doesn't seem to affect most SL sides as badly as us.

For me either play more expansively our really work on our forwards game and turn it into an effective one. The longer he sticks with this current non-effective style, farcically trying to state it's similar to the saints of old, the more criticism he will take.

They would certainly bear responsibility. But I'm only speculating and there could easily be other explanations.



I don't recall saying we play anything other than conservatively. I think I've been pretty consistent over the last two seasons in saying our strength is largely based in the forwards and we play to capitalise on this fact.

Would I prefer to see us zipping the ball from flank to flank? Sure. But to do that effectively and consistently (the hallmarks of a championship side) you need the players. We DON'T HAVE those players and any gameplan which ignores this fact is likely to end in catastrophe.

Whilst it's possible to play poker and win by pretending you have cards you haven't been dealt - it doesn't work so well in team sports.

But unlike cards, you are not dealt your players. You are free to cut them loose and sign some new ones that can play the way you want. Personally I think we're trying to play like an NRL side, but have awful players and a rookie coach who is in the job as he thought it would be fun rather than because he's got any coaching ability.

I disagree completely if you think our current group of players cannot play more expansively. I'm not saying go from flank to flank, I'm just asking for an improved, more potent attacking style that doesn't result in half the ground on their phones or talking to people round them as we complete our 58th drop off of the half.

Sure you can hire players and pass up the opportunity to renew their contracts should their form dip or other factors come into play. But the timescales involved are prodigious. If the club's strategy goes belly up it can't just snap its fingers and create a new team out of thin air. Some calamities or outright blunders can take [uyears[/u to correct.

A good example is Luke Walsh. On paper he was a good signing. The kind of player you can build an entire strategy around. But put him in the wrong square foot of pitch at precisely the wrong split-second in time and your strategy breaks along with his leg.

It's easy to say [i"We should have had a contingency plan"[/i in retrospect. I'm pretty sure the club figured they could at least count on Johnny Lomax to come to the rescue (a player who got us to Old Trafford in Walsh's position). Trouble is he ended up in precisely the wrong square foot of pitch at precisely the wrong split-second in time, too.

As the saying goes ....[i the best laid plans of mice and men[/i.

Every SL club is vulnerable to being caught out in precisely the same fashion. Just because it's not apparent doesn't mean it isn't true.

I'm not sure exactly what you are disagreeing with since I don't recall ever saying we can't play better football.

Well if you now believe we actually do have the players to play better football then we agree that the coach needs to address that fact as his current style isn't getting us far.

Isn't the point of coaching to work with the players to get the best out of them? Coach them to improve and coach them to play the style of rugby you want them to play.

If we accept that all they can do is trundle the ball in for 3 tackles then kick it, and we accept that that is the limitation of our game plan, why do we need a coach at all? Just pick the team and let them get on with it. As it is, I don't accept the mantra that ultra-conservative is the only style of play this team is capable of.

They are not improving as a team and they are not improving as individuals, and that comes down to coaching.

I wouldn't mind the ultra-conservative stuff half as much if we were actually any good at it.

My opinions have been pretty consistent for some time now. If you can't keep up with them I'm not going to lose any sleep.

Look, we are two games into the season. TWO. At this time last season Paul Anderson's Huddersfield couldn't buy a result. The last time I checked Huddersfield neither bought a new team nor changed a great deal between then and finishing as arguably the form side going into the playoffs.

I'm not saying there aren't issues which need to be addressed. But two or three wins and the entire emphasis of the side can change.

As the saying goes, [i"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs ..."
[/i

It was the 'WE DONT HAVE THE PLAYERS' followed by the 'I never said we didn't have the players to play more expansively' that confused me.

They (Hudds) also finished 3rd due to our capitulation in the super 8s, got nowhere near a challenge cup win and got spanked in the semi final by an ordinary Wigan side.

At the end of the day we both want the same things I'd love nothing more than for KC to prove me and many others wrong and bring a good style back and good results. We have a capable squad and hopefully he uses it to it's full potential as nobody enjoys criticising a club legend.

I don't think I'm saying anything revelatory in pointing out that we don't have an exceptional group of backs. Couple this with one functioning playmaker out of three and I think our situation is plain too see.

I've already said that we do have a lot of options in the forwards and we should definitely be offloading the ball more and running one forward off the shoulder. But beyond that I don't think we have the personnel to effectively and consistently create holes outside the centre channel.

I think we should see were we are come Easter now that the world club challenge is out of the way and hopefully KC starts looking at our playing options, Lomax, Percival and Fages will improve our attack but they need to be on the park.