For me walsh hasn't been the same player since that bad ankle injury.
For me walsh hasn't been the same player since that bad ankle injury.
I agree, he did clamp down on what we are moaning about. But he did seem to get carried away with his positivity. The big example was the no try, try. He should have gone to the Vid Ref as I can't see how he could have seen the ball from his position. He also (as did his assistants) missed a few shoulder charges off the ball by Hull. But I think both his sin-bins were 100% correct.
Humans are more concerned with having than being.
Not quite sure what Walsh did to have people bigging him up. Looked another dropoffathon to me but I acknowledge the conditions weren't exactly top of the ground rugby territory.
I thought his kicking game was v good and his goal kicking was outstanding in those conditions. It's what we saw at Saints and what we might miss at Saints. It's very easy to take goal kicking for granted (irony of course being that Walsh missed his most important one in the semi against Leeds a couple of years ago). I remember when Long went and we really struggled with it. Lost count of the amount of games we blew on goal kicks.
Walsh has clear strengths and clear weaknesses, like every half back in SL. I guess it just depends which you can deal with and which you can't.
Yeah probably a bit of both as you say. All the refs are inconsistent and collectively they need to improve a lot. With Hicks though it's his attitude and the respect he shows towards the players that I don't like. It works both ways but one of the great things about the sport is that you can belt each other for 80 mins but there is always the respect there. I don't think he shows that and nothing good will ever come of it.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
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Maybe so but he definitely took the line on more in his early days than he did after his injury. I remember his first few games for us when he would make breaks from half way with a show and go or a cheeky sidestep. Very rarely see him get close enough to the defensive line for them to even tackle him post injury.
I was dipping in and out of this game, but Walsh for me wasn't much different to when he was at Saints. Running horizontally infront of the defence, dropping a pass off to a forward, and repeat. I think Catalans have good runners in their team, and whilst I don't rate him that highly it looks like Myler is being given the job of being the creative half back whilst Walsh simply plays the steady eddie role.
It's a constant issue for me that half backs like Walsh are lauded for their organisational abilities, because to me it doesn't actually take that much organisational ability to simply take a ball, run across a line, hand it off to somebody else and then put in a decent kick on the last tackle. That is the bare minimum that I would expect from a good half back, and Walsh does nothing over and above that for me. I will give him credit defensively, he got himself about and put in a shift in that regard, but it seems like Catalans have worked him out and simply asked him to do what they think he can do at this stage in his career, and that is to be a risk free 7 who recycles the ball, kicks well and can stick the ball between the posts. With the other weapons Catalans have it may well be that that is enough.
BTW, good win for them. Hull might not have been great, but that is one of the toughest places in the league to get a win, especially for Catalans who are traditionally awful on the road. 4 points from 4 from Wire and Hull is a great return.