I have deliberately left raising this issue until we had a win under our belt in the hope that we can actually discuss the issues rationally.
My starting point is that on paper we have a stronger squad than last season, and we have the same coaching set up so in theory we should have been in a strong position for the start of the season.
I accept we have had injuries, the terribly sad news for Dom Crosby and factor in other teams have strengthened but that doesn't explain the dreadful start to the season.
I know there is a strong view on the forum that TS has lost the dressing room and/or is no longer fit for purpose.
My theory is that too much emphasis has been put on the game against Aussie opposition and it has been treated as a cup final, with a typical "Post cup final" reaction, the same thing happened a couple of seasons ago.
Reasonable theory or "grassy knoll" bat pooh crazy?

Unfortunately, none of us know the real injury situation from week to week within any club & the state of readiness any club is really in to compete at the highest level. Luckily, the current format of superleague seems geared to favour which ever team can rise to the occasion for a few games at the end of the year to hope to win a trophy regardless of what dross is turned out to its paying supporters for the previous few months. Managing injuries or even saving your better players for games that matter could be critical.

It's been an awful conbination of events, failures and yes, bad luck.

On paper, Cooper, Crosby and Savelio gave considerable guile and power to a pack heavily reliant on Hill. However, for various reasons, none have as yet fulfilled expectations. Crosby obviously is forgiven but Cooper in particular has been appaling.

We limped into the season minus our best players and never seem to have recovered composure , a cohesive game plan or shaken off pre-season rustiness and apathy.

We've missed Currie massively, even more than I as his stalker in chief expected. With the exception of Clark there isn't a player in the squad comes cloae to his skill range.

I don't subscribe to the rampant mood of denial regarding Sandow's loss either. In the first few months he was unplayable. Even after that he still offerred a spark that none of our halves have consistently achieved. Once again, you have to question if the club should have seen it coming and planned ahead - whats the point in employing player welfare officers if they can't see a player is unhappy?

And finally too much game time and time itself had caught up with Westwood and Gidley whilst Hill is sufferring from carrying the pack for too long.

We can offer more excuses than the class naughty kid, who never hands his homework in on time.
A head coach who's outstayed his welcome. His last trophy of note was 5 years ago. Simple fact is, everybody but the winner sneers at the LLS. His recruitment is,ahem, below par.

His assistant, who's arrival at our club has coincided with some of the dullest RL I can remember us playing.

Despite the hero worship (by some) of Gidley. Nah. Not for me.

Westwood. Should've gone after the 2013 GF. He's finished.

Patton. One week he looks like a player, the next, like he's never played before.

Crap tactics.

Injuries to Hill, Currie, RATCHFORD and Penny have blunted us.

Youngsters that just don't look SL standard.

Dreadful discipline, particularly that Catalans game. At times, we're a penalty machine.

Going complete halves of matches, without scoring a try. Unforgiveable, in this day and age, when defence is an optional extra, in some matches.

I could do a Jimmy Cricket impression now, and say there's more, but I'll just get accused of being negative by the 3 monkey syndromers on here.

Who Knows to be honest, I hate the term it takes time for teams to gel but that appears to be the case here. I wasn't excited by the signing of Cooper which I think was massively blown out of proportion. He wasn't amazing when he played for us and wasn't amazing in the NRL, he's just a consistant decent prop and that is it. Brown can be a game changer for us whatever peoples opinions of him are, he is a good player and when are forwards are working well he will be a lot better just like the Brisbane game. Savelio I like and think we should sign him long term. When Crosby feels ready to return and gets some games for us I think he will be awesome for us, I really like him and think he is a really good prop. We've won a few now and we are still playing poor so once we get players back and playing in consistant spot we "should" kick on from there.

Brilliant

It's strange that you should mention it because I have mulled the Broncos game over a couple of times. Cast your mind back to the tackles and we were regularly putting 4 men into them. And Cooper looked like the prop we were all hoping for as he crashed into their defensive line. The team were certainly pumped up for that match and it did look like a final. Remember the error count in the first half (1) and the number of completed sets (100%) ? So if we can perform like that for one game surely we can repeat it for the regular rounds. Wigan seemed to handle their WC game a lot better than we did because we all know what followed: low energy performances and the biggest error count of all the teams in SL. The Broncos game might well have been our downfall by sapping our energy and making it difficult to 'get up' for the next one, which of course was Cas, the form team of the competition.

Having said all that, you certainly can not put all our woes down to the WCS. Missing key players like Hill and Ratchford must surely be a key factor as you point out. Then there are the cracks that have been papered-over such as the lack of attacking edge from our 3/4's and last years problem of the pack with no 'go forward', (which has re-surfaced). Finally I guess there is morale, which would have steadily gone down hill with each defeat. So perhaps you are right, we should have been putting all our energy and focus into getting a winning start in SL than playing a high tempo game against the Aussies. Last year we benefitted from a long winning streak, this year we may have been distracted and paid the penalty.

Try the Facebook pages. Like The Peoples Republic of North Korea.

+ 1

My theories:

- We've had generally poor recruitment over the past few years. For about 7 years now we have had more misses than hits in the recruitment market and this has taken its toll.

- Over the same sort of time period, the players that have come through our youth system have either been just about good enough or not quite good enough. Unlike Wigan, Leeds, Hull, Cas we haven't been producing players who are top quality.

- For most of that time we have still been one of the best teams around, because we have been well coached and the team has been committed and hard working. There have been some senior players who have set standards and been a benchmark of consistency. But this year because of injury or advancing years, our senior pros are not really doing it and it has left us exposed.

- Chris Sandow's departure was disruptive although I thought in Kevin Brown we got a very good replacement who I was pleased with, but his form so far has not been good. That has left us short in a key position, but I haven't given up hope in Brown who is quality IMO.

- Other teams have improved and made us pay the price for regressing. I don't think there's THAT much difference between the higher and lower teams in SL but we have definitely been reined in and lost our edge that put us in the top group. We will see where we really are at the end of the season. There is always the possibility over a short sample of games that bad luck combined with loss of form and confidence can make us look worse than we are but over an extended run we'll get a fair reflection.

Which home produced players have Leeds, Hull and Cas got in their teams that are better than ours?

Every young player those teams have were poor and looked well below average when they first came on the scene (Ash Goulding for Leeds had stinkers week in week out). Ben Currie wasn't what he is now when he first broke through. He dropped balls, he picked wrong passes, he missed tackles. I remember many on here questioning is he was good enough to be playing first team. then one season he stepped up. and looked like a superstar. Why? because he was given time. He was blooded little and often which gave him the experience to become what he is now.

The same thing Happened with Williams at Wigan. He wasn't a world beater but the coaches stuck by him because they saw something and that experience has turned him into a superstar.

Toby King has stepped up this year, Philbin has stepped up too. Livett had a couple of games last season and looks to be on course. Morgan smith will be the same without a doubt.

To make an omelette you have to break a few eggs.

but I also agree there is a lot of deadwood the club are carrying and need to get shut of.

Getting rid of the so-called deadwood and playing the new, exciting prospects would give us a 17 something like....

Ratchford
Johnson
T King
Julien
Lineham
Smith
Patton
Hill
Clark
G King
Livett
Currie
Westerman

Dwyer
Philbin
Savelio
Cooper

Seems fresher, but would it win the GF this year or next?

No. But you would hope that with the cap freed by Gidley, Sims, Brown**, Evans, Atkins**, Russel**, Westwood, we may be able to recruit some additional quality*

*Although past experience has shown us that this is by no means certain.
**Contracted 2018 anyhow.

There is an ongoing disconnect between some very, very good players at U16s just diminishing when they move to U19s and Reserve Grade. It certainly isn't always due to the lack of ability of the players.

Some players are world beaters at Scholarship level but falter at Academy level, some are the other way round average at Scholarship and world beaters at Academy. That just natural development, you can coach and train and try your best with a player but they may not make the grade despite the investment. I think at the minute we have a good pathway for developing talent. We had 9 against Widnes and 8 against Hudds from our Academy. Wigan had 10 and 11 I think, Sints had 9 for each game. This shows that regardless of ability we are producing talent that is making the senior team which is far better than a few years back.

Are you sure?

Widnes Game
Warrington: Ratchford, Russell, T. King, Atkins, Lineham, Patton, Gidley, Hill, Dwyer, Sims, Jullien, Hughes, G. King.
Replacements: Evans, Savelio, Philbin, Livett.

Hudds Game
Warrington: Ratchford; Evans, T King, Livett, Lineham; Patton, Gidley; Hill, Clark, Sims, Jullien, Hughes, Cooper.
Replacements: Philbin, Dwyer, G King, Savelio.

G. King - Huddersfield Academy
Jullien - Avignon

None that can be realistically described in your terms of "world beaters".

I never gave up on Asotasi. He came good with his last pass of the ball to him.
Tbh. There is more to Brown. He needs a strong pack. Let's be honest, that has been where we've let down this season.

My theory is that our style and game plan have been found out and teams have adapted. We do not have the overall quality to play the same way n still win even if the opposition know what's coming.

I also think that we've skipped a step in what was working, the scoots and backs taking the ball up against a tired pack was built upon our packs dominance early on. I have no doubt if our forwards focused more on making yards rather than a fast play the ball early on and force the opposition to commit 3/4 players to a tackle and use up lots of enery in the tackle Russell n clarks scoots would start to result in more try's we're asking them to do it against fresh forwards making it harder on ourselves I don't buy into the pack cannot make the yards If they are being asked to do so.

also youth development takes a long long time to bear fruits money and investment spent now will start to show 4-10 years down the line I think we will start to see more and ore players breaking through over the next couple of years. I hope things have changed in terms of the youth n academy team I remember going to a try out and it was the most demoralising thing ever !!! Before a ball had been kicked they had already made their selections !!! Was a waste of time for a lot of kids who did not bother going back the following year and on that list only two players made it to the first team for a few games then never seen again!!

I agree that both King and Jullien did not play scholarship for wire but we had a hand in their development both I believe played at academy level for us.
Also I never said any of the players were world beaters , I said a player could be a world beater at scholarship but never make it. Again some people find it really easy to criticise the player development at the Wolves due to a number of reasons but the number of players playing 1st team now compared to not too long ago is massive which means we must be doing a decent job. I bet if you looked at all clubs last week and did the same exercise I would bet we would be near the top of the list.

Is the British game playing more homegrown youngsters because the quick fix of quality overseas players is no longer an option ? I think it is more likely that there are less quality players available & the RL & clubs are having to get back to producing our own.

Possibly pays a part, hopefully the continued investment in youth will mean that the younger players coming through are improving in quality

I'm still unsure on Johnson short term he is not at the level Patton livett n t king are at probably be next season before he is a genuine contender for a first team spot dependant on recruitment.

We just need genuine quality alongside them now...

We have been hearing for years about how much the clubs these days have invested in young talent and their youth structures.

There must be far more organisation, and far more coaches and people involved running a structured pathway these days than there was in the 1970s and 1980s.

The question is, how come back then the British game produced guys like Hanley, Schofield, Edwards and Gregory.

How many players of that calibre have come through since?