www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... f_success/ Glad to hear it as apparently we had only 6 people on the staff looking after the first team and U19s this season.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... f_success/ Glad to hear it as apparently we had only 6 people on the staff looking after the first team and U19s this season.

Great to hear that Omar is supporting Cummins by making the funds available for him to improve the coaching staff.

Can only be a good thing. Hopefully 2nd assistant coach will be a defensive specialist as that seems to be our weak area.

To be honest our defensive plans seem Ok. It isn't that we're not getting to runners or even [in general leaving big gaps, it's that we're falling off the tackles when we get there and I'm not sure that requires a 'specialist', it's more a case of basic mistakes [and tackling is about as basic as RL gets, imo being made by too many players.

TBH I'd class tackling technique as coming under remit of a defensive coach. Agree the patterns themselves arent terrible and sliding defense when we have first choice players available has been reasonable.

Our goal line defense has been great this year it our defense 30m up the pitch thats costing us we seem to get broken against far to easily.

Would have though every team would have a defense, attack and kicking coach why should we be any different, wish we could get either Deacs or Long to bad he was snapped up by wigan cant blame Long though for wanting to coach at the best team around.

We can throw names around like Deacon and Long but in truth how many of us know if they're decent coaches or not? We can only go on the the teams they coach. Salford played some decent rugby at times - is that all down to Long?

At Wigan they have more coaches than hot dinners so I've no idea what Deacs does. I expect the Georgesons could tell you and tigertot would tell he you he isn't up to it as he wasn't as a player



In defence it seems to me to be the backrowers that struggle most this season. Around the ruck we aren't too bad but on the edges between the front row and centres we've looked shaky. That kind of shows up in the missed tackle stats for the likes of Whitehead, Addy, Walker and Olbison. We scramble well but this uses up too much energy. If the line was better in the first place we wouldn't have to chase around as much.

I'm certain Cummins knows what the problems are. We can't buy big to get out of it so it's a case of making the odd decent signing and improving what we have. Hopefully the new staff are all part of that.

^AGREE^ with that.

Didnt mean to say that Deacon or long are great coaches just ment to say that if we had them around the younger players eg, Addy/Sammut/Gale could always ask for advise on what to do it x/y/z happened during a game and the best way to utilize a kick.

Think Deacs is like 1st team coach at wigan something like that anyway.

I'm sure a great professional like Deacon would be able to pass on a lot of good advice to young halfbacks.

***awaits tigertot's retort***

I suppose it would be logical, though I'd guess that having to spend time with SL professionals, doing basics, must drive them to distraction...assuming we have a dedicated defence coach?

If they were professionals then they should be keen to constantly improve their game? Though there are some lucky sportstars blessed with effortless skills - the majority of them who get to stand on top of the podium have put in the hard hours in training. Why are the All Blacks top of the other code - because they do all the basics right.

Same reason why wigan are bull dozing the competition, also who would want to get on the wrong side of wane.

Funnily enough Wane as a player was a poor trainer and was dumped by John Monie for that reason.

Well he seems to have recognised the errors of his former ways?

He certainly does. I think McGuire brought in a culture change at Wigan that Wane and the staff and players have bought into. They're the best drilled team in the competition.

Tackle bags at the OK Drill Hall would make a good movie. Casting suggestions amyone?

It's the difference between the Aussies and us, I'm afraid; they are grounded in the basic techniques whilst still at junior school whilst we often have to start teaching basics to middle teenagers. I guess it's the difference between a country where RL is a very major sport and one where it isn't, in the first case it is played at school and becomes ingrained [like eating with a knife and forkand in the second it is only learned later in life and needs to be reinforced occasionally. At the end of the day, it is actually [iknown[/i as 'schoolboy stuff' and I still feel a full-time pro should have enough practice in games and training to not need to give the basics any 'special attention'.

[urlhttp://www.bradfordbulls.co.uk/news__video/article/8398/bulls-looking-for-assistant-coach[/url

Applications needed, going in the correct direction.

No closing date on that webpage - great attention to detail there. How long have I got to polish up my CV?

I noticed that as well Bullseye

I disagree the UK system falls down once the Academy coaches get hold of the youngsters. It's easy to blame amateur coaches with out looking where the real problem lies.

Depends on the coach wouldn't you say Red? Obviously the academy set up at Wigan is good. Their youngsters seem to come into the 1st team without missing a beat.

Obviously there will be those that fall by the wayside but that's always the case.

I've no involvement in amateur coaching but it can't be as bad as I remember it in the late 80s early 90s when there was hardly any core skills training for kids and many coaches made it up as they went along. If that's still the case it's an indictment of both the RFL and Barla.

I played a lot of RL, at different levels. Even at semi-pro the core skills training was almost non-existent. Physical strength & fitness were the answer to everything.

That is a ballache is that tigertot, strength and fitness -_- Didn't understand some of the things the semi-pro training taught us tbh. Fitness yes but no need for a winger or hooker to look like a tank? And expecting smaller players to lift the same weights as the big massive props -_-

Wonder if Deacon would be interested?