Originally Posted by
DD
I think other threads cover the style of play, the coach, the aging pack and the halves. I think most people with a bit of foresight can see that there are problems on the horizon, so I’d be interested to hear people’s opinions on where we are heading and what is likely to be the short term future of the club from the end of this season onwards. Where is it going wrong? What are we getting right and how do we maintain/get back to being the top dog in Super League?
I’m not going to go in-depth on the first bit, as it’s getting repeated every week, but I see no long term future in the coach. History will treat him kindly if fortuitously avoiding the big guns allows us to end 13 years of hurt and win the Challenge Cup. Add that to the 2020 Grand Final and he will be our most successful coach since Daniel Anderson. However, take out the style of football, he was given a golden cup and he will likely leave a poisoned chalice. I’d have backed Virginia Woolf to have won trophies with the team he took over, so far ahead of the rest where we at that point, so I’ll always suggest that any achievements may have been in spite of him and not because of him, but as I say, that’s been done to death. The reality is that coaches from Australia don’t hang around for long, so where do we look next when building the next great side?
It would be remiss to blame everything on the coach, though, and maybe he too will say he took over a poisoned chalice, because there is no doubt that some key forwards were already past their prime when he took the job.
All great/good teams reach the end of a cycle if the gradual replacement recruitment policy hits the buffers and my fear is that recruitment has well and truly done so. We have a series of key players now past their prime and I’d be interested to hear who learned followers of the youngsters think is going to come through the ranks.
So rather than look at the chances for this season, let’s look at what we have and how much rebuilding is going to be needed over the next couple of years.
Lachlan Coote – Sure to go home soon – Replacement needed.
Tommy Makinson – Aged 29. Probably got another two or three decent years at the top. Great player. No issue just yet.
Kevin Naiqama – Sure to go home soon – Replacement needed unless Welsby stays as a centre.
Mark Percival – Injury prone. You’d have to question his long term physical future – Question mark!
Regan Grace – I fear that Rugby Union is going to be his future with playing in their World Cup an ambition of his – Replacement probably needed.
Josh Simm – Not sure. Is he good enough? Our centres never get a pass to find out.
Jack Welsby – Inked in for a long future. No issues.
Jonny Lomax – Aged 30. He’s at that point that we’ve seen with all of our better halves over the years that they turn games less and less. He hasn’t scored a league try in two seasons, bar two nullified ones against Toronto – He’ll be around for a while, but we need to look at a replacement long term, assuming Welsby is not it.
Theo Fages – Looks set to leave – Replacement needed unless Lewis Dodd turns out to be the future.
Lewis Dodd – I’m hoping he’s a long term answer but this is yet to be proven.
Alex Walmsley – Aged 31. It looks like it’s caught up with him this season. He’ll certainly need replacing in the next 2-3 years.
James Roby – Legend. Perhaps greater than his predecessor even, but it’s caught up with him and it’s affecting our play. His inability to make metres from the play-the-ball now is killing our forward momentum because we’re too reliant on it – Replacement needed quickly.
Louie M-Scarbsrook – Looking his age. Past it. Need a replacement quickly.
Kyle Amor – See Louie.
Joel Thompson – Do me a favour. I’d sign his mum as a replacement.
Sione Mata’utia. He’s done ok for me, but he won’t be here for long. Replacement needed.
Morgan Knowles. No issues. Here for the long haul.
Matty Lees. No issues apart from injuries. Another in the for the long haul.
James Bentley – Gone. Replacement needed.
Iggy Paasi – Done ok in short bursts, but not sure he’ll be around for long.
Joe Batchelor – Not good enough. Replacement needed.
Aaron Smith – See Batchelor
Jake Wingfield – Looks promising. Could be in for the long haul.
Whereas the likes of Warrington can secure big hit signings, I don’t think this is something we’ve ever really been able to do since we started planning for the new stadium, which hasn’t brought us the riches that perhaps we thought it might. Therefore, future planning is going to have to come via the fabled youth system and through smart recruitment. The latter concerns me because we don’t seem to have done that very much in the last decade. Apart from a couple of full backs and forwards, our better players have come through the system; i.e. Makinson, Percival, Welsby, Grace, Lomax, Roby, Lees, Knowles etc, but we can’t rely on this wholly. We are going to need to stop picking off dreadfully average NRL has-beens in the forwards and we are going to need to be smarter with our cap money. I’d rather see us give a young up and coming reserve grade player from Australia a chance for a couple of years than a dump-truck like Thompson, coming over for a last pay day, whilst doing sod all to justify his salary.
So, if we look forward to, say, the beginning of 2024, there would appear to be a hell of a lot of rebuilding necessary and I think we are starting to see very real signs that we are coming to a transitional period very, very soon. I feel this Challenge Cup is huge as it may be our last chance of a major trophy for a while. Of course, it wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve been wrong, so if anybody can tell me that I am, well, I’d rather be wrong, quite frankly. :-)