Don't get me started on him.
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Have we changed conditioning coach? We were comfortably the fittest side in super league last year but seems to have been a massive drop off this season. We look absolutely cooked in the pack after 20 minutes every week.
I'm won't be calling for Woolf to go and you could see from his reaction in the stands that he was probably getting as frustrated as the fans in what the players were doing last night.
Sadly last night's game was utterly drab and dour, to say the least. You have to give some credit to Warrington for doing a number on us yet again and defending so well. The attacking skills from both teams last night were poor. Warrington's attack wasn't that much better than Saints and for long periods of the match and they didn't look like a team going to score a try after the first one either. If you had to take a positive from the game it was also that our defence only conceded the one try.
What has been surprising this season is that a lot of SL games have been reasonably tight and yet over in the NRL there has been some absolute blowout scores where various teams have been mullered. A lot of the coaching now is far too defence orientated at the expense of attacking flair and skill and we have been going in this direction for years, and years.
Unfortunately, it doesn't make for a game that is easy on the eye nor will it be the type of rugby league that will encourage fans to watch and enable new fans to become a fan. After a deadlocked game for the first few minutes the penalty kick at goal kind of set the scene that this was going to be a dour close game.
What really frustrated me last night was the inability to try something new and the lack of a Plan B in trying to break down the Warrington defence. The attack was a blunt as a teaspoon. In tight defensive games, we just don't have the players to unlock that defence and if we do they are not being utilised or allowed to do it. Last night also too many players had off games. Johnny Lomax's last pass selection was poor at times, Coote looked very shaky and uncertain, a lot of the forwards never broke a tackle once or got the ball away and we had none or few dummy runners to confuse the Warrington defensive line. The only forward player who I thought played well last night was Alex Walmsley and if he hadn't been on the pitch I dread to think how few yards we would have made. The slow play the ball killed us and it also hampers our attack and we don't have many solutions to respond to a slow PTB tactically.
We just had our second loss of the season. I think some of our fans are a bit spoilt on success. I think he has done a great job personally.
Very much so, attacking options get very limited for nearly every team this season especially with the set defences which Wire had to an art form last night with players going down injured when our next play could have been a quicker one.
Warrington did a very good job on our attacking left edge last night which proved some of that limitation. Already mentioned on this or another thread yesterday our set move of drawing in defenders Coote or Lomax sending out a pass over our centre to Grace, Warrington had that covered by using an extra defender to cut down the space for Grace to use his footwork.
Under Holbrook if that happened we would use a switch play inside using Tai as executioner to drop off an inside pass to Percival who would be running an angle opposite the defence. Woolf doesn't have that option, Percival didn't really play last season and Tai and Percival not played this season.
Very similar on our right edge Peyroux use to run out wide to create space for Kevin but Peyroux picked quite a few calf injuries last season and not playing for us this season. So basically we don't have any edge runners at all, Thompson and Matautia just don't promote the ball.
I,m not sure if Woolf went for Thompson but he definitely approved the Matautia and Passi signing.
Woolf Quote on Matautia: "He can also play on an edge and offer us some 'punch' out there. He is a real strong defender too and he ticks a lot of boxes for us on and off the field.".
He (Matauti) is very inconsistent with his performances carries the ball well at times on the edge so not lost hope on him yet, but Batchelor has played better than Thompson in the last few games.
FOOTNOTE: Seem to remember at the time Rushy was looking at signing second rower Kiwi Kevin Proctor but that fell away and Thompson signed up for his leadership qualities instead.
Even more surprising as our back line seem to do 70% of the hit ups.
Wilkin was hinting before the game that our defence was great but attack was lacking (as diplomatically as he could). Presumably he still has his ear in the dressing room and that makes me think players aren't happy with the coach.
I suppose you could take it two ways. Either he's close to members of the team and knows they aren't happy with the attack, or he's still close to people in the town and knows that some fans are having these very discussions. Either way, his comments are important to note.
tbh anyone who watches us can see we are good in defence but poor in attack, he doesn't need to have mates in the dressing room to see that
Woolf has had a very difficult job on his hands, he has had nowhere near the same number of available attacking players that Holbrook had. Give Woolf players top of their game with Barba, Tai, Peyroux, Thompson, Percival, Roby, Makinson with an attacking coach in Longy then we would see a different balanced side between attack and defence.
His Tongan international side is prove of that, fast open dynamic rugby when he has players at his disposal.
We just don't have enough quality attacking players with some of our pivots past their sell by date, its as simple as that.
Embarrassing thread. The way some fans just turn on various members of the team and coach screams of reactionary nonsense.
Yes, it was poor last night in terms of attack. We lacked ideas and punch through the middle. We're missing Lees in the middle, Bentley's tenacity and Percival's strike capabilities out wide. It only takes a few injuries to make a team look ordinary and we're not unique with that. I'm not going to make out that things are perfect, there are a couple of players past their sell by date for the club particularly in the forwards but every other club is in the same boat. All the top teams will lose at least 5, 6 or 7 games this season so accept that this is part of the journey. We've lost 2 matches so far by a handful of points and not through a lack of commitment and enthusiasm. Get behind the lads.
Spot on.
Walmsley, Lomax, Coote, Amor, LMS, Roby, Thompson all 30+ now. 4 of which you'd say are key players.
Holbrook had our best players at their peak but to credit him, he got them there. They're certainly still very good or good players now but it's a decline from here on out that may have already started for some.
This "team" is coming to an end of their time together really over the next 2 years. A CC this year be a good haul of 2 SLs and a CC in 3 years and we've still got a good chance of SL as well.. They should won something in 2018.
You make a fair point regarding our pivots but this isn't something new, we've known it's been coming. I'll be honest, I was happy with our recruitment for this season, I thought we'd be absolute fine but it's not worked out so far. We've struggled with injuries but that's no excuse, we also struggled with how the PTB is policed (or not) but again that's no excuse, you've got to find a way to work within the rules. Teams have us sussed as long as referee's will allow them to kill the game and it does feel a bit as though there's an agenda at the moment to make sure we don't win 3 on the bounce. It will be more telling after the cup final though.
My point is though, why haven't the club addressed the issues we've all mentioned. I know last year was a mess with no academy/reserves but to me it just comes across as •••• poor management.