Didn't we beat Leeds though with half a team out injured? We won a couple of others too before the slide began when players started coming back. We took a tonking at Wigan I recall, Cas beat us yet again then we managed to beat Hull K R and London and just about stayed up. We've supposedly had our best ever squad this season and yet we've won 2 games in the league and walloped Bradford by 3 points in the Cup whoopee. This squad whoever is playing should be doing far better than they are, it is certainly big enough. The effort was there no question against Warrington and the week before against Catalans. I was utterly embarrassed to see us lose 58 - 0 the week before that. I thought when CC came to this club those days were long gone - taking us to the top 4 on a limited budget was admirable but we can't just keep rolling out excuses for the team week after week, something is not right. Maybe it's a lot of things and I feel for CC but we have to get our mojo back somehow.

Why are we constantly picking up injuries is it bad luck, conditioning or that the players we bring in come with an injury history and age against them. The problem is that we had a lot of these players back and despite this the performances continued to decline, requiring us to beat London in the final game.
The one main constant during our run of bad performances is Chester, we use to be known under the Webster era as Wakefield 6 because that was what we usually scored I guess now it could be Wakefield nil. How long have the members on the forum questioned our attack, kicking game and defence out wide, a lot longer than just this season. I am sorry the excuse of blaming the players in the after match press conference is no longer acceptable, he needs to look at his coaching and ask is it my coaching style.
I know money helps but look at Leeds they invested heavily but did not get the results expected where as Wakefield has survived on playing for each other and a never say die attitude. We now appear to use finances as a excuse for everything wrong with the club but the lack of money is nothing new it is what you do with it that matters. We have bolstered the coffers by giving up our season ticket refunds so we should at least expect the club to take some responsibility for the performances and playing games to help Sky is not one of them.

I find it difficult to believe that you are actually a Trinity supporter, let alone a season ticket holder who has declined a repayment of ticket monies of live games not played. Trinity are not alone in fulfilling Sky contract, all SL clubs have that responsibility, play no games, = no Sky monies. Why is it so difficult for you to understand that?

Yawn
#injury list

There could be a number of reasons, one being regression to the mean. In 2017 and 2018 we had an extraordinarily good run with injuries. Unsurprisingly, we did very well considering our resources. 2019 was appalling and no side Could have withstood that without consequences. 2020 is a unique situation. We are now playing a new version of rugby league with 10% more collisions and the ball in play significantly more. Perhaps our players are finding it harder. Maybe that's their age in some cases.im not a fan of these new rules and feel they are irrelevant when the players are hugging with every score and having a cross team love in post match.
But I think we should be cutting them a lot of slack and I find your and others harsh comments extremely unfair and unwarranted in the situation

It’s called independent thought and not blindly accepting anything on face value. It is still possible to be a supporter and still question those in authority. I know all clubs like supporters who pay their money for season tickets and merchandise without question. I am like a small few on here who is not one of these.
How many times have you been to a game and heard the team being booed, do you go over to them and say they are wrong to be disappointed and should just get behind them. I personally have never booed but I feel if crowds were in attendance then this would not be the case for other supporters. The problem is that the forum members do not represent the majority who go and pay their money. If we carry on playing like we have since Leeds away last season how many will want to spend over £20 to see a team heavily defeated every week.
The club relies on the income from supporters therefore the product must be good enough to entice them in when there are greater draws on an individual’s money. We are involved in the entertainment business the problem is we are currently not entertaining.

Feel free to join the rest of us on Planet Earth when you want......

Egg banjo is surely just on a wind up or just out to seek attention?

The fact is injuries played a huge part in the difference between 2018 and 2019 seasons and here is a perfect example that couldn’t ram home the point any clearer...

In 2018 we had three players make the dream team..

Collectively between them they made 62 appearances and scored 29 tries between them...the three of them together missed a total of 10 games.

In 2019 the same three players 33 appearances between them for a return of 11 tries and between them missed 60 games..

The knock on affect of that meant the three left edge positions that were so potent in 2018 was decimated so much that over the course of that season we had 13-14 players play in those three positions with any number of different combinations.

If any fan cannot see how that sort of injury crisis has a huge impact on performances and results then I give up. That is not even taking into account the amount of matches other top quality players like Fifita, Arona etc...missed.

For us to be a competitive super league team we need the vast majority of our best players taking to the field regularly...when we have over the period of Chesters time in charge we’ve more than held our own. Yes, we’ve had disappointing results with our best players playing but to counter that we’ve had plenty more excellent wins against teams with much better teams on paper than us.

We all think we’ve got this top quality squad but ask yourselves this...write down a list of our best 10 players and then look through the rest and ask which of those players would be snapped up by any other super league team if they were put on the market?

Sorry but at least two of those forwards wouldn’t put the fear of god into me mam and she’s 92 , maybe by falling on her n breaking her hip ,n that’s about it . But your right that we are missing the clout up front from a big pack .Money will always be an issue at our club until a supporter win the lottery and it must be hard to balance where you put the big bucks on the field ,either in the backs where the moves come from or the forwards where the grunt comes from,not for me being a coach.My biggest worry for the club is the floating/fickle fans who turn up when we’ve won a few games on the bounce but stay away at times like these , which look like running into next season unless we can turn things around,it’s gunna hurt the club in the pocket At a time when I would suspect they need it most .

Much as I don't like to say so I think Chris Chester and his coaching team have now outlived their usefulness and it is time to move on. Can I just ask a question of all those on here who think he/they are doing a reasonable/good job irrespective of injuries, and there seems to be quite a few of them who do, just what level do we have to drop to before CC and Co. are sacked or resign? We've all got to sit and think If relegation was an option this season we would be odds on favourites for the drop and we all know that if we do drop to the Championship (if there still is one), then MC will be up and away and Wakefield Trinity as we know it will be no more.

Whilst this season is what it is, most of us realise that we need a decent scrum half who can actually lead us around the field come next season or the writing will be on the wall and the Championship will be where we are headed, so what about enquiring about Sam Williams ??
Fairly sure he hasn't played for the Raiders this season (?) so surely wouldn't cost the earth to bring back over and he did ok for us last time ??

I’ve not seen him play for raiders once this season
I’ve seen most of there matches so assume he’s playing in the nsw cup team

I wonder what Mellor is doing now he not playing for the wolf pack this year
Very underrated half and I think very close to what we need. Good organiser and kicking game
Two areas we really struggle in

I’d personally write this season off and evaluate where we are 8-10 games into next season.

That will be Chesters 5th in charge...

1st - 5th
2nd - 5th

Two excellent seasons and rightly rewarded with a new three year contract which just about every Wakefield fan at the time would have agreed with.

3rd - A very difficult season blighted by injuries...excellent start with 6/10 to be 4th in the league...two close defeats in that too to Saints and Warrington. Injuries then struck and no-one can say they didn’t have an impact...

4th - Despite the feeling amongst many I don’t think our start to the season was the worst by any means...pre lockdown we were 2/5 and really unlucky (the width of a post) against Hull from being 3/5...in old times we’d have been 2 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses which in my eyes would have been an acceptable start to any season.

Since the restart things haven’t gone to plan but again there’s mitigating circumstances.

So overall 2 good, 2 not so but with reasons why.

The important thing will be recruitment though. As people say it’s going to be a disappointing season whether you like it or not but I don’t buy that if we changed coach and arguably won 1 or 2 more games, all of a sudden thousands more season tickets will be sold.

Times are going to be hard anyway so the way to attract people will be with quality signings, and the way to attract the floaters will be to get a good start like last season.

With offloading what looks like 3 or 4 of the bigger earners in the squad we may have a bit of room to make a few quality signings? I’ve no idea on the finances but to me that’s what will bring fans in...

Good post, utc, and I can't disagree with your season by season account of things, but the underlying point is why, for the last thirty or so games and at intervals prior to that, have a squad of basically good players been playing such poor , unimaginative rugby. The basic things that many punters on here have pointed out ie a) under performing forwards, b) flat attacking lines, c) very poor defence on the flanks and d) total lack of attacking ideas in the opponents twenty meter area all go unaddressed by the coaching staff. Why???

Sam Williams played for Canberra in the NSW cup competition until this competition was cancelled in March for the rest of 2020.

Believe he is contracted at the Raiders until the end of 2021.

Can’t honestly see how Sam Williams is going to shake things up at the club, whilst still playing behind a beaten pack .Said it before and I’ll say it again ,get the forwards sorted first ,bringing Sam over would be like sticking a plaster on a broken leg .These basics that I am talking about are taught to my 12 year old grandson on the field it’s not rocket science ,the forwards lay the platform for the backs to do their stuff .All of a sudden we’re going to fly a half back half way around the world and our problems are sorted .Now if it was josh papalii from the raiders then your talking ,but as much as I like Sam it’s forward power we need first as I see it .

It's not forward power it's forwards who are not passed it forward power we need

What?

Wax on wax off or some Confucius ?

I get it Legend.
We do need a refresh I think.
We can have an older head but once it gets too many it starts to work against you.

The young guns need to take that step but they tend to be back rowers for us. Front row is in a bit of disarray.

The whole big pack v organising/kicking half back debate is all a bit chicken & egg really as you need a decent organiser to take your pack in the right direction and you need the kicker to build & maintain pressure but in both respects you need the forwards to enforce that.

I actually think our pack isn't the worst in the league and that given our fair share of possession we can hold our own so I'd just edge towards getting a half first in this situation...but I do agree your forwards need to lay the foundation and they haven't done that since returning after lockdown.

Sam Williams is a good shout and one I've been echoing amongst close mates...then again I've also been calling for Benji and any other NRL half that isn't getting a game...eg Matt Burton at the Panthers

Well I think HKR's win tonight shows Tony Smith's got them going in the right direction and playing some good stuff into the bargain.
He hasn't got half the quality of players we have but he knows what he's doing.

Ditto for Ian Watson....everyone else is scoring tries for fun !!

Would say Watson even more so, as he's constantly having to balance the books and bring players in and get them to gel.
Watson is a quality coach.

Well, just the two points difference between us and HKR now. Guess that following our next game we'll be on the bottom.