100% correct!

Even if Websters plan works perfectly and Wakey win the middle 8. What's the point?

I know Wakefield don't have the resources to be a top team, but that's not what it's about. They should be going out and doing their best to give the fans something to cheer about. A couple of scalps against the big boys can make it all worthwhile. Who wants to see their team go through the motions every week so that they can survive to do it all again next year? The Wakefield fans aren't stupid, they know they don't have a team full of stars. I'm sure they would be happy just to have a team that was giving its all and providing a bit of entertainment, and they aren't getting that at the moment.

I didn't say which year



Someone get the DeLorean warmed up...

I think cas proved last season you dont need to be mega rich to do well, I'd say they did a bit more than just entertain last year they came close to winning 2 of the 3 throphies.
Do wakey have significantly less resources than cas? Or would a Powell type coach make such a huge difference?
Just because they don't have quite as much money doesn't automatically mean they should give up trying to compete

Agree with above. You don't have to be mega rich to compete.

If you've got a decent coach and a decent pair of HBs you do better than others in this league. Wakefield has neither.

Wakey are where most people thought they would be, however the no full time rugby league team should be losing 80 points to nil. IMO the main fault as to be with the players who look like they are lacking any moral fibre and backbone

It's an absolutely disgraceful way to run a club and I for one hope they get hammered in the middle 8's and relegated, for the good of RL if nothing else. Hopefully the chairman does the right thing and gets rid long before we reach that stage of the comp

Halifax next.....

For me, the only surprise is that people seem to be surprised. Even with the relative security of licencing, Wakefield were a basket case of a club.

I do feel some sympathy for Webster in this situation. Whilst he is arguably out of his depth at this level (and he's not the only coach to which that criticism could be leveled), I'm sure that he does have a degree of ambition and some big ideas for what he can do. Unfortunately, that ambition and enthusiasm seems to have been just sapped out of him by being in an environment that is absolutely shambolic.

His comments in post match interviews smack of a man just resigned to defeat. Last week he compared the relative squad values (although we'll ignore the fact that Leeds provided 13 academy graduates across the two teams that day - three of them playing for Wakefield) and this week, he's commenting on turnarounds to somehow excuse a 80-0 defeat.

Wakefield as a club need to really look at what they want to achieve. They're a club that has lurched from crisis to crisis and winding-up order to winding-up order, failing to grow crowds, failing to attract commercial revenue, failing to grow ticket revenue, failing to develop and retain talent. That's not a problem with Webster (and those who have gone before him), it's a problem with the succession of clowns who have tried to run that club.

I don't dispute that Wakefield as a club doesn't have its challenges, but so does every other club to varying degrees. Those challenges, however, shouldn't be so insurmountable that they can't put together a remotely competitive performance.

The most bizarre comment from Webster has to be this

"I hate looking for excuses but over the last month I think we have spent around two hours as a team training together, for the simple reason I don't have enough people to fulfil training."

It's a sad state of affairs then that a coach has to begin to teach full time players how to run pass and tackle



Seriously he should resign for his own sanity, I wouldn't want to coach any player who wasn't trying but taking money under full pretences.

People can accept players being beat providing the effort and commitment is obvious. It wasn't even a twinkle in the Wildcats players eyes

Admittedly, an eighty point thrashing doesn't sound particularly great. But listening to many in this thread you'd swear they haven't scored a point all season.

Given Wakey's squad and the injuries they've piled up I'd say they are pretty much where I'd expect.

All this talk about "resigning without pay" is complete tosh. In this league it's entirely possible for Wakefield to pick up two or three wins on the bounce (provided they get some players back). Which means they are back in the hunt.

I mean, it wasn't all that long ago they could have pulled off a great win against Saints.

more than they would in the championship. Which is why they are doing what they are doing. There might be some romance that some attach to going down swinging, but sometimes the pragmatic thing is to take a knee and fight the battle you can win.

Ill tell you one thing, Wakefield will go in to next year far more positive, with far more money, and far more season ticket sales if they lose the next 13 but they finish the season with 5 wins from 7, than they would going down having finished the first 23 rounds in 9th.

The only thing that matters to Wakefield this year is that they stay up, they are far more likely to do that by being better than 4 championship clubs than they are 4 SL clubs.

Who are all these injured players? Looking at the 17 that played this week, didn't seem to be full of kids that have never played before?

Yes, staying up is the most important thing. But would be asking a lot of a team that have lost 13+ games on the trot to suddenly win 5 out of 7. Don't doubt the logic for saying they want to save themselves for play offs, but will need some careful managing.

Yeah but they don't need to give up on all 13 games. Right now it doesn't really matter, but this is just an extended pre-season for them.

Look at the criticism of Wakefield from a performance aspect, conditioning and injuries. Its not coincidence Wakefield have injuries. A strain wont be risked in case it turns in to a tear, a bang gets rested. I would bet a pound to a penny that a fair amount of Wakefields injured players would be playing if we were the middle 8 phase.

Similarly conditioning. Its no coincidence Wakefield lack conditioning. They don't want to be peaking right now, they need to be building up their fitness and conditioning for a few months time. And they are able to do that. The start of this season they beat Cas and Hull KR, pushed Salford and Saints. Two of their first 4 games in the super 8s are likely to be against the 3rd and 4th best teams in the championship at home, games you would expect them to win even now, the other two will be away at teams 9 and 10 from SL, they pinch a result there and they are 1 win away from at the very least being the home side in the million pound game that isn't for a million pound.

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 103848.stm news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 917753.stm

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 103848.stm news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 917753.stm

Bang on this ^^.

With WTW now playing "friendlies" for the next 13 games the concept of "every minute matters" certainly hasn't worked out the way the RFL expected. Other teams will fall into friendly mode over the next 6 to 8 weeks but I don't think anyone expected someone to do it this early in the season.

At what point do the RFL look at the new system been flawed ? Could they bring WTW to task of not playing their part in the concept ?

Quote ="loiner81"news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/super_league/4103848.stm news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 917753.stm'" And the common variable here? The delightful Ian Millward.

Quote ="loiner81"news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/super_league/4103848.stm news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 917753.stm'" And the common variable here? The delightful Ian Millward.

Don't believe Wakey are deliberately conditioning their players for the last 8 of the season. That's how injuries happen. Martin Clawson used to be the conditioner at the Bulls, he's just simply an awful conditioner. Wakey won't be any fitter or stronger come the split than they are now.

For me it's a massive gamble what Websters doing. He can really make the fans become disillusioned with the club. Last year after we got humiliated by Leeds & Wigan at Easter, our coach said that games against Leeds and Wigan weren't going to decide our season. We then played Salford who at the time were the directly above us in the table. The game was over in 20 minutes. Confidence and moods of the club/fans are massive. Wakey lose the fans with getting tonked every week, they will struggle.

You can't guarantee you have a fit and healthy squad either. Look at Carney's injury. One tackle and a season could be over for a player.

When all the squads are fit and healthy, i would have Wakey as a better team than Bradford and Leigh on paper. But i would also have Warrington as a better team than Cas, St Helens a better team than Hull KR, Wigan a better team than Widnes. None of them results went the way we expected. Beauty of sport is, it's not played on paper. If we knew what was going to happen in sports matches, we could all make a living off the bookies.

Whilst I think that Wakefield and in particular Webster have got this one badly wrong, clubs can only work to the system (2 x 12 & 3 x

that has been put in place.

I actually posed a question of James Webster at the fans forum just before the season started, as to how he intended managing his squad as there was a strong possibility of us finishing in the "middle 8".
The reply given was, that they would re asses where the team were at regular intervals.

I guess that the number of injuries sustained early on, especially in the forwards, has made it extremely difficult to compete and realistically, even at such an early stage of the season, Wakefield look nailed on for the "middle eight".

Where Webster and M. Carter have got things badly wrong, is that people will not turn up to watch a team going through the motions and quite frankly, if this is what we have, I would rather that we were playing Championship rugby, although IF Wakefield do get relegated, they may never return to SL.

There are major issues with the ground, falling attendances and of course, cash is tight.

It's a very sorry situation but, the one certainty is that if there was 1 up, 1 down, based on final league position, the white flag would not have been raised yet !

If Wakefield's current predicament is partly down to Webster placing greater emphasis on Wakefield's final standing than the here-and-now then you can really only judge him at the end of the season - against his own goals.

I'm not saying I like "gaming the competition" - but haven't Rugby League fans been crying out of "more intelligent coaching" for years?

Granted, the two teams aren't comparable in terms of quality players - but I remember Nathan Brown being repeatedly slaughtered for some of Saints' performances around the mid-point of last season. At the time those criticisms seemed reasonable to many. But looking back now it was obvious that Brown had targeted early points which would allow him to take the foot off the accelerator somewhat mid-season and experiment with new tactics so come the arrival of the playoffs the team would be fully conditioned and tactically ready (injuries allowing). I don't want to get into whether Brown was a better coach than Millward or Anderson. But I will say he more than any Saints coach I've witnessed never saw individual games as anything other than a [imeans to an end[/i. A chess move set against the context of the entirety of the game.

This is why I'm very much against getting rid of coaches mid-season in the professional era unless it is absolutely essential.

You mean something similar to this scoreline???



Leeds 4 Wigan 74 the main fault was the Leeds players, no moral fibre or backbone


And whilst we're at it just in the SL era
Bradford 96 Salford 16
St.Helens 75 Wigan 0
St.Helens 18 Wigan 68
Warrington 0. St.Helens 80
the list goes on, you just have no idea do you..


And just for the London fans
London 68 Warrington 18, at a time when Warrington were flying high bunch of non tryers

Maybe Wakefield aren't as bad as everyone thinks

Many a true word said in jest!

They're not, the Webster comments and that ridiculous score line have exacerbated the situation, Wakefield are bad but not as bad as that!

As the injury list gets shorter Wakefield will get more competitive, it will take time to rebuild confidence and become cohesive but by the seasons end and the mid8s begin Wakefield will be a SL team again.