At the risk of boring those who've read my views a dozen times, we had the freak circumstance of a Wakefield team in total meltdown, and on the day we should have won, but as I keep saying it is only if another team goes into a similar meltdown that anyone might have a similar chance. I don't see any team in SL either melting down, or that we could possibly dream of beating, if you're honest.


But, it's that sort of "anything could happen" that persuades me to keep buying the occasional Lotto ticket. My head knows I've no chance of the jackpot though.



TBH I'm not that bothered at all about the overall performance, yes we need to peak at the right end, what has me on a major downer is that we SHOULD be visibly a class or two above all these sort of teams, even if we blow hot and cold, if we had the class, it should tell. And we don't. We have sadly started the descent into mediocrity that is the Championship level, and so we make excuses, Leigh are a good team, Batley on their own pitch are hard opponents etc. It's all bullcrap though IF you GENUINELY think you can mix it with the bottom few SL clubs.

Overall I am very frustrated by the fact that our squad is better than last year's, or could be, but for the crucial fact that we have made the sin of no scrum half. It is a bit like giving Lewis Hamilton the best car, but no steering wheel. I don't know how much better we could be or how more classy our play and combinations could get if we had a half-decent organizing, kicking, problem-posing scrum half, but without one, I fear all the rest is rapidly going down the tubes.

Because in the key game, a Championship level team (which is what we now are) having the cheek to go up against a SL team without a scrum half is actually taking the pi.ss and will end in tears.

I agree with FA, at the moment we are a rudderless ship. So far I have seen two part time scrum halves namely Thackery (Featherstone) and Brambani (Batley) who do what a Scrum Half should ie steer the team round the pitch, I`m sorry Addy does not compare to them.
On Sunday at one point Mathers was screaming to move the ball to the right, AOB moved the ball right to Addy who promptly returned it left to a static player. Addy does not think fast enough and assess a situation quick enough to be a scrum half. Both of Batleys half backs showed how to kick on the last tackle, something ours don`t seem capable of doing. Thank heavens Clare was the one being kicked at he was superb and made the Batley halfs change tactics, something ours seem incapable of doing.
Till we get a decent one we will never know how good this team is.

I don't disagree with any of that.

Maybe a straight winner takes all match between the bottom SL club and the top team in the Championship would introduce more of an incentive to either avoid the bottom slot or come top, and in a one off match you have a better chance of an upset. As it is the Championship side has to overcome both the massive difference in resources, and the pool play which also favours the SL teams

We all know we need a 7 - so does Jimmy.

He's not going to come out and say that and I'm glad he hasn't.

I fully expect us to have a 7 by the middle 8s and will be shocked and disappointed if we don't. I don't want us to leave it too late but equally I think we'd all be a bit miffed if we sign up a bang average half now and a top quality half becomes available towards the back end of the season!

Personally I'd rather see Addy fill in until the right player comes up than sign a Herbert/Siejka!!!

I fully expect you to sign a decent 7 before the 8's but simply waiting for a player to 'come up' might not be the answer. If a decent quality 7 became openly available tomorrow I would expect Huddersfield, Hull KR and Sheffield to be on it like a shot for starters, probably Wakey too.

There are plenty of sides desperate for a good half back at the minute so anyone who comes onto the market is likely to be fought over by a few clubs. Not necessarily a case of seeing who becomes available and snapping them up with ease. With Brierley on the outs and without fully knowing the Chase situation I wouldn't be surprised if Leigh had at least half an eye on the half back market also.

#Brambani4Bulls

Yeah plenty of clubs could do with a half back but I'd like to think we can still get the right man.

If he's not in place by the 8s we can forget about promotion.

I personally think the 8s are to late to be signing a SH (what if we have visa issues or something else crops up) he needs to be playing with the team a few weeks if not a month or 2 so he has an idea of stratagem and the rest of the squad know what to expect, just him turning up at our first 8 game is too late I think.

But I fully expect us to coast thought the season make a snap judgement on an 7 him turn up be crap and out of his depth us not to qualify and it go tits up in a turnip

On the basis that a key player might take a season or two to fully fit in the side, yeh great, lets get one a couple of weeks before we play away at a SL club. That'll work.

How much salary cap space will be left to sign a scrum half if they keep bringing in players who we don't necessarily need? I think Lovegrove will prove a half decent signing but we need a scrum half more. I'm still baffled by the Mather's one. Each player that is added chips another chunk off the available wage to try to lure a quality scrum half to Odsal. By the time one becomes available, we won't be able to afford him.

I'm aware a scrum half isn't going to slot into the side with a weeks training but would you rather sign somebody like Siejka now??

I'm happy with the Lovegrove signing, he's a good player with a lot of experience and he can cover a few different positions in the forwards.
Mathers I'm still not sure about, however once Campbell is back (which should be fairly soon I hope?) I would expect Mathers to take more of a backseat role and focus more on teaching our younger players what he knows about positioning and communicating with the defensive line etc.

If he's fit (the t&a recently said he was) I'd be tempted to give Campbell a game on Friday. At least a bench spot.

Well considering we haven't signed a 7 (and we all know we need one including yourself) and we have approx 4 months before the 8's begin, id rather we signed a player at least a couple of months (at the latest a couple of weeks training with the squad) before they start so may/june they would at least have a chance of making a difference to the squad otherwise what's the point in someone coming in to our first game cold that's a recipe for disaster.

IMO we needed to have someone signed up in the off season but we signed a load of back rowers (fair enough they are better than what we have had) but then we signed Mathers listening on the radio he had a shocker against batley when he was put under pressure we also have Campbell and Thomas (who has looked good when i have seen him at FB) seem to have scatter gunned the squad without addressing the real issue, fair enough there might be a shortage of decent 7's but all we needed where someone better than Seijka that couldnt have been to difficult to find.

Id like Lovegrove in at 13 (alternating with Addy), Pitts/Ferg/Olbison make a good trio in at 2nd row, don't think he is big enough at prop although the will do for now until we have everyone back fit.

Strange as it sounds id be willing to try Lauaki on friday along with some untested players like Campbell, if we go out we go out more time to focus on the league.

Once Easter is out of the way, more SL clubs will look at their roster & think their 3rd or 4th choice halfbacks may need some game time on loan.

We did look at halfbacks this season, we didn't keep him on after his trial

And of course, we had our half back problem sorted 18months ago, but Wire decided they wanted to keep him after all and we graciously let him go back. It was probably morally the right thing to do, but I am certain it cost us promotion last year, and last year was our best shot.

Hopefully you're right Highlander, there must be someone on the clubs radar, Jimmy and Ferres have to know we are getting desperate for someone to lead us round the park as we do look lost sometimes.

Even more so now that the league seems to be more competitive than last year (I don't agree with the view we only need to finish in the top 4 that's bonkers).

I would have Brierley if we do have limited options, fair enough he isnt a text book 7 but he will take alot of pressure off Gaskell and add some flow to our flanks which with Addy can be stagnent.

Brierley and Gaskell would mean Gaskellt at 7 and Brierley at 6.

That's not leading us round the park.

If we signed Brierley it would allow Gaskell to lead us around the park. At the moment he's doing everything. If we wanted someone to just lead us a round we might as well have kept Siejka or Jacks (who i still think we should have persisted with)

Both their strengths are as broken field runners. Gaskell has a bit more to his game, but he's still a natural stand off capable of exploiting gaps. It would look great in the Championship but for me it'd be papering over cracks that would still persist into the M8s. We still wouldn't have a kicking game to speak of.

Sorry probably didnt describe it very well, meant to say failing a 7 who can take charge having another player like Gaskell (Brierley/Sammut) that would give us some creativity on the field, as someone has mentioned on the other thread that when we passed to Addy he just gave it to a stationary player and didnt add anything.

At least with another similar player we could utilise both sides of our attack and not just one, thing by watching the games this season i have been able to attended we rarely use our full squad when attacking, one side might be extremely quite, usually the side Addy is playing on or more the fact (as he plays more central) we lose some creativity on the opposite edge to Gaskell.

Think we should have persisted with Jacks more also, thought during the friendly vs Leeds he played very well and took the line on something Seijka rarely did, we also dont know what JL wants the players to do that might be his gameplan all the time, id rather have to off the cuff players who can make things happen.

If I see this suggestion many more times I will explode.... We don't want or need him.

I went to Batley v Workington - he was totally outplayed for the full 80, poor kicking and zero impact in every aspect.

He is playing at the correct level where he is - or possibly lower if he plays many more games as badly as the ones I have seen.

Let's be honest though, that's always been Sammut. He'll either practically win you the game on his own, or practically lose you the game on his own. Never a shade of grey with Jarrod, he was brilliant or awful.

Was that the game where he dropped a goal when his team were losing by 6 points

He's since admitted that he lost count of the score and he thought they were level at the time