He needs to have a bit more awareness of when to be first receiver at the PTB, if our player is tackled dominantly we are not getting a quick play the ball and its a waste of time Tommy Mak trying to make ground because the opposition defence is set. Swifty is a bit more aware and can see our forward coming down on his front for a quicker PTB and quite often can see a small gap to make more metres and momentum. Dawson is also a bit more efficient with a lower centre of gravity and drive.
Tommy Mak needs to back off a bit more, leave it to the forwards, its not as though we are down in large numbers in the pack at the moment.

You mean like he did yesterday to score his try?

He needs a good centre inside him to create, but there are genuinely very few in the league I'd consider swapping him for. I'm not sure Swift is better than him yet (though I'm glad Swift is getting the recognition) but neither are a particular concern at this point in time - FAR bigger issues to fix first!

We went after big wingers, and then decided it wasn't worth the cap space, that is when we should of changed tactics.

Tommy is good 1m out. Anywhere else on the field he's not worth giving him the ball. He's not got great pace either. He's a Avg hard working winger which is very likeable due to his attitude. He's capable of great games (should have been harry Sunderland at OT) but we are taking 3/4 games a year.

I'm not bagging Tommy as I like him and what he's all about but imo he's not good enough if have to be honest.

Both our wingers are average that backline last night was heartbreakingly bad.

Charnley
Manfredi
Solomona
Briscoe
Hall
Sio
Thompson
Carney
Vidot (yes ibonow his injured)
Lineham
Mcgilvray

All of them are better than Tommy.

Who's Thompson?

I'd probably take Broughton too

3 of them are better than T Mak. 4 if I concede Sio.



Corey - the guy who was caught by Walsh yesterday.

Broughton seems to have gotten into the Catalan spirit of consistently inconsistent quite well. He'll be wonderful or terrible but never mediocre!

Just shows how Superleague is poor quality these days, 10 years ago about 8 of those wouldn't get a gig in the top 6. All those players are big units will Regan Grace ever get a chance in Superleague.

Danny Arnold!

The one who caught Martin Offiah and laughed in his face.
.
In my opinion Swift is a better winger now than Tommy Mak.

I remember Bryan Henare running down Jason Robinson in a straight chase over about 70m. He was rubbish as well.

Makinson probably has the edge of Swift in terms of finishing close to the line, but Swift is much better returning the ball and running in open play. Makinson, for all his plus points, is reasonably limited.

I think Makinson is the least of our problems.

Before his injury last season he was in fantastic form. Whilst i think no pre-season has hindered his start to this season, he'd still be one of the first names on the team sheet for me, and he'll only get better with games. A good finisher, very good defender and safe as houses. We have far bigger problems at the minute anyway.

Jason Robinson would start to slow down after 60 metres he was all acceleration and change of direction. We on the odd occasion use to train with him doing hill sprints up Coppull Lane at the back of Swinley Labour Club a 200 metre steep climb, he use to beat us all by 50 metres on every rep.
Swift has a similar style, with quick feet to change direction.

I think that although Swift's finishing isn't as acrobatic as Makinson (particularly last season), he's much better at dancing around their players near the line to score a try. He's faster, and is probably the only player who can go the length of the field for us.

What happened to a "vastly superior" Widnes side pasting our clueless lot?

Its probably Swift and Percival who ask more questions against the opposition defence because of there smart footwork and can break away any part of the field, Tommy Mak is more of a target player with kicks and taking difficult ball off his boot laces and can't fault his efforts. Our wingers don't get a lot of good service because our centres don't get a lot of space with our flat attack and "arm wrestle" pack.

Silly Boy!!

I would replace reasonably with very.

I like(d) the idea of Rush as Manging Director (or whatever they call him). Had we gone for a none rugby man, I think we would have all complained that we were neglecting the on-the-field issues. However, the staffing process of our coaching team is an absolute joke. They've just given out jobs to anyone who needs one. Cunningham was in the top-job within 3 years of retiring - we're supposed to be one of the top 10 RL clubs in the world, but we've given one of the most important (if not THE most important) roles to a complete novice because he was a good player.

The bones of the squad (relative to the rest of the league) is a good one -
Makinson, Percival, Turner (centre), Swift, Amor, Sav, Walmsley, Thompson, Roby, Greenwood, Vea and LMS are a wonderful starting point for a squad to be built, but we have some real problems in key positions with no decent full back, a gutless wonder at scrum half and Wilkin doing some pretty bizarre things. Not to mention the baffling approach to our number 6 shirt and Burns/Fages.

I'm not at all convinced. Those players listed, particularly Makison, Turner, Swift, Greenwood, LMS and Vea are all bang average. How many of those would get in Warrington's side? How many would get in Leeds (2nd bottom remember

) side? Salford? Probably none of the ones I listed.

If we had our first choice 17 all season, I reckon we'd be in the fight for 4th place and 4th would be the best they could achieve. The club is rotten to the core at the moment, recruitment, coaching, player development and contract management are all massive failings for the club. KC needs to go, he is just insane, his press ramblings are comical and deluded. For McManus to give him an extension at the start of the year, he must be as well. I've no idea what Rush actually does, but never liked him from when he pretended to be coach. They can take Wello with them as well. It's a club that's gone from being success and entertainment focused to one that has 'being okay' as it's goal. We'd be delighted with 4th and no trophies and that isn't good enough. I've no problem with them trying and failing, they clearly aren't trying.

What's Wellens done wrong?

Being neutral here, i don't see how looking at your squad how you have gone from the likes of Long, Sculthorpe, Newlove, Gidley, Joynt, Lyon etc to the squad you have now. How did you get so many top class players in a salary capped sport? Im not suggesting you cheated the system. How can you have such quality to one that is no where near that standard? I know you have had a stadium to pay for, however you have been at full salary cap the whole time? You must have players who are taking large spaces of salary cap who are not worth that amount? I think you'd agree with that and not trying to put a dig in. That being said, i believe you will probably win tonight. We are not the same team without Sandow. We need his X-Factor to break teams open, we will be like we were last season without him, good at going forward but not able to open up defences.

Have you watched Saints on tv much this year, you would disagree with yourself if you had.
Saints had all that quality of player you named 10 years ago however the salary cap hasn't changed (money wise) since that time. A host of bad bad recruitment decisions, poor coaches enforcing dull rugby (just do our best mentality) have since followed. Wire on the other hand have recruited really well. Likening Wires current side to what happened with saints, if Sandow goes back to NRL, Gidley retires and Currie is also hoovered up by NRL as you have eluded to with Sandow it's a whole different story.
SL is a poor comp now with the salary cap frozen & the better players going elsewhere (not always for money I agree ) then it's not looking like it's getting better anytime soon

There are plenty of reasons. Firstly, there's inflation to take into account. Had the salary cap been adjusted for inflation since it had come in it would be up around £3m now. So, in real terms, we had up to a third more money to spend back then. There were also tax loopholes that clubs were allowed to exploit in paying their players - something to do with image rights. That got closed up in 2009, and was, I think, the main reason why a few clubs like Bradford, London and Wakey nearly went belly up not long after, as they suddenly got landed with hefty back-dated bills from the HMRC. Then there's the fact that union and the NRL were nowhere near as financially powerful when we had all of those players, so we were able to keep hold of them once we'd got them. There's just no way we or anyone else could assemble a similar lineup in the current climate.

That's not to make an excuse for our club's poor recruitment over the last decade, though. When we lost Graham and Eastmond (two young players the club would have built a side around) we replaced them with totally unsuitable big money signings, and, apart from the odd gem like Walmsley and the odd good solid recruit like Amor, we've been shopping at Primark since then. Clubs like Warrington and Hull have shown recently that it's still possible to sign good quality players if you stick your neck out.

I wish I shared your thoughts about tonight's game. I think we might suprise you with how bad we are.

Good post mate. The salary cap is an issue, across the board not just at Saints. My opinion on this as admittedly only recently changed but they have to put the cap up. It's not fair on the fans. We pay more to watch the games than we did over 10 years ago yet the product is much poorer.