I am puzzled as to why after winning by 16 points we are 5/2 to do it again. Other than Wigan who can challenge us? This seems a gift.
I am puzzled as to why after winning by 16 points we are 5/2 to do it again. Other than Wigan who can challenge us? This seems a gift.
11/4 on Skybet with the boost. I'll have some of that. I'm not sure why W***n are the same price, I know they strengthened but their pack is still rubbish. I'd lump on us now incase Hastings doesn't end up playing for them.
I would of thoughts we would be around evens. Skybet are a joke they will on take about £50 then thats it. Betfred shops are the best got in a few in the space of a day. I am lumping on
There's a few offering 3-1
Overall, the piescum are shorter odds.
Have we timewarped back to the 80's?
Probably because we have not strengthened?
Learned comment from The Don
It's probably because we've just hired a completely unproven coach to replace the best coach the world has ever seen.
I think we performed at about the best standard we could - amazingly consistent high quality - and the competition was poor and not that interested to be top of the league, probably counting on the fact that you can still win without being top of the league.
I'm not sure it will be so easy to win the shield this season - but i don't think that will be down to our new coach, he seems a good enough one to me - and will just need time to settle, find his feet with both the team and the competition in general. I can't see other teams performing as badly either - a lot were below par last season at once - and some have strengthened for this season
Looking forward to see what the season brings
That's a good point Re Taia. Maybe he needs to be managed this year, same with Roby too. It will be interesting to see if Joe Batachelor can step up at 25, Callum Hazzard who's 20 and obvious Paulo and Bentley. I've also said previously I see Ashworth as a second row, whether Woolfe does is another matter.
Think that was down to Longy and the enormous of passing plays and attacking shapes and those risky last tackle options. Our scrambling defence and fitness negated the errors, we did have a pretty bad completion rate in the mid season for a short time but that was fixed up by the time we got to the play offs.
The club was in the bottom three for kicks in general play almost 50% less than the top 3 clubs.
Our kicking options last year were better than the year before without a real recognised kicker. In 2018 you knew were literally 95% of kicks would go, at least last season there was a bit of variety. To be fair we're far from the worst team in that respect. Some teams seem to try and bore the other team to death with their kicking game.
I’m fairly confident in saying that we’ve got the best 1-17 in the league, I don’t think the gap will be as big this season on paper looking at other teams but we’re the team to beat without question. I think the biggest challenge for us is that we’ve not signed any new players. There’s a season’s worth of footage there for other clubs to look at so how we’re able to adapt and improve with the same players after a brilliant season last year will be interesting.
That said, there’s plenty of potential improvement left in the players we do have. The likes of Percival, Grace and Fages in the backs, we’ve got a fairly young pack as well in terms of Lees, Ashworth, Knowles, Bentley etc, they’ve not even scratched the surface in terms of what they’re capable of yet.
The likes of Lomax, Thompson, Makinson, Walmsley, Roby etc are already world class.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
I think its not a bad price, i think we will regress, i dont think we will be able to maintain the run of last year, and other teams will be a bit better, i still think we will win the league, probably by between 6 and 10 points, we have a great squad but Woolf is an unknown as a club coach, he could be as good as Holbrook but we dont know yet.
Being a top 5 play off format its always very important to get a good start, it may take 3 or 4 weeks for teams with quite a few new players, that might give us that advantage of being an unchanged squad we should be able to hit the straps straight away. We might be slightly handicapped with the world club challenge game but overall we do seem to have that mental toughness that was a bit iffy a few seasons ago.
As already mentioned I don't think we will run away with that enormous points gap, hopefully just get through into the top 2, we also have to factor in that we might not be as lucky as last season with minimal injuries, we still have squad depth though and not many teams are equipped in that department.