I think its more a combination of more injuries (and players playing half-fit to cover) and losing Talanoa and Fonua with no big wingers as backup completely alters our style as Radford likes them to drive the ball up like two addtional props.

Still a few players not delivering though, Griffin has been a very poor signing, cant tackle, not that quick, but isnt full of flair either. A big step down on Yeaman in his prime and even Yeaman in his return to form last season.

Sneyd isnt playing well, when we need him to control a game. I have started to agree with Schofield that he doesnt take the line on enough, just passes a good 5 meters from the line and doesnt draw the defender in.

Still time to get out of this rut though, but as we learnt in 2015 even just scraping in to 8th isnt great as you end up with a dead rubber summer of pointless games.

I think a spell without Sneyd will do us good, kicking has been off (probably the injury) and his passing has been awful.

At the moment Connor and Kelly will offer more threat and hopefully they will play together on Monday.

Given our rubbish home form maybe fifth would be better than fourth at the split.

Currently W4 L4 at home, W5 D1 L0 away (not counting the neutral Magic fixture). In fact since the start of 2016 we have a home record of W13 L10 and an away record of W15 D1 L4. Quite astonishing really.

I don't know about a plan B,a plan A would help.Felt sorry for young Rawsthorne tonight,no help from his inside player,get Yeaman back

I certainly don't agree with the injuries excuse.
Injuries should not affect the mental state and tempo of a team.
Wigan for example love them or loathe them, regardless of the personnel on the field will always play an aggressive up tempo style of rugby.
They may lose but mental attitude remains unaffected.
That comes from the guy at the top.

Talk of the middle eights is a bit over the top.
Saying that tonight was woeful. Leigh we're struggling to get out of there own half at times yet still posted points against us. They weren't great by any means. Were was the reaction from last week?

The structures should still be in place so when players are missing, performances are maintained (like Wigan).
We seem to lack that. We're now very reliant on Kelly and lack punch in the forwards.

Too much lateral play, not enough go forward, defense has gone missing.
Rubbish

Confidence seems shot .
Also the commitment and comaradery of last season seems to be missing .
Is it another case of 1 good season, 5 average ones ?
In a tough place at the moment . Where will the spark come from ?
Really frustrating at the moment .
Squad seems lacking depth , salary cap issues leading to us loaning out better squad players just doesn't seem right.
Need some leadership on the pitch , and judging by the last 2 games , off it !

think the squad need to sit down together and talk it out, clearly there are issues in camp and the boys look like they don't want to do it for eachother.

Loaning out players for experience is all well and good if you have a long term plan for where that player will fit in, but im confused as to why we signed Naughton in the first place. He isnt big enough to be a Radford style Wing/Centre who barges the ball up, and Shaul is pretty much first name on the team sheet at fullback.

The Hadley situation is bizarre, he was getting a lot of game time before but wasnt recalled over Easter when we needed bodies (I realise hes currently injured)

Then theres Abdull, I got the point of his loan, as he needed to get fitter and halfbacks are rare to come by in this city, but then you here rumours that he's staying at Rovers, so again whats been the point of having him on the salary cap this year if we dont have long term plans for him?

It's looking like we might have to de-prioritise an Old Trafford visit and concentrate all our eggs in the- thing-we-won last-year-basket.


We are still only 8/1 third favourites to win the Grand Final after Cas and Wigan.
The bookies must know something we don't.

None of those players are on the salary cap and that's the problem.

I think the balance of probability means we'll win at least 1 more game but I'm not sure which one as we've just lost the easiest one we had (on paper) left. 1 more should be enough for us but we'll certainly not be troubling the top 4

Shocking thread Miss B, we will pick it up, put Connor centre Wray in the halves and leave out Griffin, we will be fine the gap is a big 8 points with 8 games to go Catalans or Huddersfield have to win nearly every game which won't happen.

Catalans (a) - They've been rubbish but so have we, gotta throw it about, offload, off the cuff, for a chance (loss).
Wigan (h) - 3 points behind us but likely to be above us after this fixture. (loss).
Salford (a) - Could be another mullering, just at the AJ instead of the KC! (loss).
Wakefield (h) - A sniff but there going well, if we've lost the three above, gonna struggle (draw).
Castleford (a) - Might just stay in The Lion and get p!seed. Will be less painful and some rock chicks to look at (heavy loss)..
Saints (a) - Some have as new favs for GF after their world was falling apart two weeks ago

(loss).
Leeds (a) - Par for the Headingley course (loss).
Giants (h) - Let them beat us as long as long as Broughy promises an extra time drop goal winner in the MPG against Rovers (loss).

A bit?



A bit!

Liberace's wardrobe was a bit on the dramatic side.

A half pounder and double fries is a bit over the top.

This is doing an Evel Knieval jump across the Humber in a cerise Lamborghini, with Carmina Burana full blast on the stereo.

Takes a rovers supporter to put it in perspective. Every club had drama Queen's

Well said Mild Rover. Very good.

I think the over reaction has stemmed from the manner of the last two performances . Pretty wretched to say the least.

Really bad performances against 2 bottom half of the table clubs who are scrapping to stay out of the middle 8's. Unless we suddenly find some form then we're in for a nail biting end to the regular season

Are you talking about Radford or Griffin?
I'd rather see both go, it's pretty clear that unless he (Radford) has a fully fit over the salary cap squad he hasn't a hope in hell of taking us forward as a club.
We've had one game this season were we've had a full game performance. Yes we've had some outstanding 20-30-40minute periods including against Warrington/Wigan in the first half (though winless and full of kids respectively) and the comeback win plus that Cas game were the players were galvanised by the sending off.

Mentally as has being mentioned by others and myself, we are weak.
Are we without Ellis our main leader, yes we are, but then LR should know that there was a more than evens chance he would be injured this year and not for just the odd game or two. So you ensure you identify other players to step up to that role, you build up how players think about situations in games, how to overcome times of duress, what to do and not what to do. You instill mental fortitude and so making the right (or better) decision/s by the players is the default choice not the natural instinct to go into meltdown/heads down/panic mode which we've seen far too often.
In a similar vein the giving away penalties with awful indiscipline, just why? I know it's a fine line between a penalty and not at times but christ we are shocking for pens at the wrong time, again that's down to coaching and mental preparation/decision making.

This is the part of sport (psychology) that Radford simply does not have nor will ever have and clearly needs external help in this dept and with the best will in the world as we've seen we don't have a plan B either. He still makes the same/similar mistakes with the subs bench, he's still tried to fit square pegs into round holes.

We have a fantastic squad of players with enormous talent but lose a few and he simply can't cope even against the SL whipping boy rabble that are Leigh, remember they hadn't won a game in 9 before last night and had a few out injured themselves.

Can we remain in the top 8, of course we can, I'd be shocked if we didn't. Can we reach the top 4 by the end of the season to have a shot, yes we can do that also.

However Radford needs to do something to turn the players around from a mental POV and pretty fecking quick because if we are going to be without our seemingly only leader on pitch for a while and a few others then as pointed out above where is the next win coming. He needs to identify his own weaknesses and get help to address those weaknesses (which as far as I can see he hasn't except for the realisation of needing to use squad players/youngsters more frequently) or he'll not be able to change/adapt/improve as a coach.

The Catalans game could prove to be THE pivotal point in our season, snatch a win and confidence/worries are allayed for a short period at least and rebuild again from there.
Lose and i don't really want to think how that might impact the players.

Hardly ' SL whipping boy rabble ' , nobody has taken us to the cleaners since our opener against Cas , our average of deafeat being 11 points , yes like your good selves we have been nilled ( 20-0 at Wigan ) , methinks you rate yourself too highly

Yes you weren't brilliant last night , yes you had a few missing , good job you had Kelly

All the best

At first, I thought you were being ironic, but then realised you are being serious.

Words fail me. Just when I think I've heard every piece of claptrap that it is possible to hear, someone comes along and raises the level.

I know you have a tendency towards wild over-exaggerations (Female hormones possibly!), but honestly, this is off the scale.

Yes last night was poor, yes last night we looked incapable of stringing two passes together, but Middle Eights!! Really! Honestly!

Please tell me this is just a wind up (and I've willingly fallen for it)and you haven't sunk to this level of quite frankly over-hysterical reaction.

I'm older than a lot of people on this forum, but even in all my long years of supporting the club I don't think I've ever heard or read such an over the top over-reaction as this.

Words fail me, seriously, this beggars belief that a sane rational human being could actually come up with this rubbish (without a hefty dose of irony ladeled all over the top of it).

Shame on you Mrs B, for stooping so low in an effort for a cheap laugh.

OK, maybe a bit TIC.


But we need to find another couple of wins, right? Without Sneyd, Fonua, Ellis, Taylor, Talanoa etc for the short term at least. Not a compelling set of fixtures in front of us either, Kelly carrying a knock and some dubious handling habits across the back line. I talked about 6th pre season so given the current injury crisis not really changed my view massively. The first, overriding goal for any SL side is making the 8. We're not there yet, are we?

I agree with some of your post..

LR has alluded to some post match interviews,regarding some player's attitude
in preparation for games.,

In my opinion this is his role as Head Coach to ensure this is not happening.

Maybe some players are still 'dining at the Challenge Cup winners table'??- or could it be that, our pre-season this year, has not bred the mentality that it produced last year? when they were 'beasted' which produced a never say die attitude...

Regarding the coaching assistants, I personally feel, that coaching jobs
should not be awarded due to club loyalty, but based on purely coaching ability.

Sometimes, it is better to appoint an assistant,externally who has a new set of eyes - IMO

Ellis back mon

A bit?



To feel super confident of securing at least 8th, 2 wins would be fine. Looking at the tables from 2015 and 2016, and how things stand at the moment you could easily have enough points already.

You're 4th still, and have a large and strong squad. I've not been following SL much this season (for obvious reasons), but I assume your injury list isn't atypical. Until this recent wobble you were in good form, results wise at least.

There's a danger you could slip into meh'd-table mediocrity, and somebody, possibly a gentleman in a fetching cycling jersey, might make reference to Pearson's barometer of success. Just as plausibly, you could bounce back, like you did after a couple of heavy defeats earlier in the season. Under no circumstances are you getting the Phoenix from the Ashes narrative that we have asked summer rugby Santa for.