Re: London (A) : Mon May 02, 2016 2:16 pm  

Actions have consequences and for some,they have failed miserably and should walk.Recruitment has been an abject failure and costly...heaven knows what business acumen has been employed.Putting in long hours doesn't profit the Club if the decision making is flawed.So far professionalism is sparse on the ground.

Re: London (A) : Mon May 02, 2016 2:32 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

I'm not even going to bother to talk to anyone who says we don't need halves anymore, if indeed apart from Ferres there is any such living person, which I seriously doubt. What next - we don't need boots?

Agreed. Having said it for 2 years almost, just feels pointless even mentioning the half back situation anymore.

The saving grace is that once we get a new coach we can draw a line under this shambolic first half of the season. As Leigh found out last year, this part of the season counts for little.

We don't have bad players. Its just they're not performing. A good coach can sort this. Welham, Gaskell, Sidlow, Clough, Ferguson, O,brien, Clare are all good SL players. Just need to get the best out of them.

The disgraceful lack of 7 hasn't just caused an issue in creativity, it's caused chaos in our backline with us giving various full backs, wingers, centres, second rowers all a go at playing 7. Hence we've had no consistency in the back line. I don't think we've had the same back 5 play two games in a row all year. That's why we're leaking so many tries out wide. We've not been able to form any partnerships so we lack communication and cohesion.

A decent coach and signing a 7 will transform this team. That's how big a deal it is Mr Ferres! In an ideal world we'll get both sorted, get some consistency in the backline and start playing with a bit of confidence in time for the middles (which is all that counts)

I'm hoping the new coach will get this sorted as Ferres has proved he is completely incompetent in sorting this issue out.

Re: London (A) : Mon May 02, 2016 2:39 pm  

Indeed. The large amounts of money charged to the fans to pay for a full time team of a decent level has been criminally squandered, without spending it on what should have been the clear Number One requirement. And it makes it even worse that this is all with us having Gaskell. We have literally pis,sed 2 years of Gaskell in the Championship up against the wall, by not giving him a top scrum half to work with. It makes me poorly.

Re: London (A) : Tue May 03, 2016 11:56 am  

Interim head coach Diskin said: “We had practised exceptionally well all week but mentally we weren’t up to speed today.

“We didn’t carry anything out that we had done on the training pitch – nothing that we did transferred on to the field.

Same old excuses.

[Bullseye]

Re: London (A) : Tue May 03, 2016 12:00 pm  

Some of our players are mentally weak. Whoever takes over as coach has a huge job.

Re: London (A) : Tue May 03, 2016 12:16 pm  

With regards to the scrum half situation. Yes, it's poor on behalf of the club not to have replaced Siejka. However, given the timings it's not a huge surprised that we've failed to sign a replacement.

Given Siejka was released in November, the point pre-season starts, then the majority of available 7's would be virtually non-existent. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find any clubs that have signed half backs after this date.

Siejka's first year at Bradford was hardly earth shattering, but he was contracted for a further season, so the club can be forgiven in not seeking a new half back during the off-season. Especially given that at the same time we had Mullaney and Addey able to fill in.

The trouble is, when Mullaney goes we've lost one of our major strike players who has not been replaced (we got through most of last year without a 7 and didn't do badly but we suffered more without Mullaney than Siejka).

There's a lot of negativity towards Ferres for the signings made, however given the budgets he has had to work with, he's managed to assemble a good sized squad with a lot of SL experience and, IMO, has only made 2 poor signings - Mathers and Luakei. I think it's more down to the coach's inability to get the best out of the squad than the signings as the reason we are were we are at.

Re: London (A) : Tue May 03, 2016 12:23 pm  

I'd add Baile to the list of guff signings, and maybe Uaisele as well.

Re: London (A) : Tue May 03, 2016 12:34 pm  

We need to draw up a list of people to send to Thailand for a racist orgy.

[Bullseye]

Re: London (A) : Tue May 03, 2016 12:47 pm  

Plenty of players have been recruited that have hardly been used or have been used in really odd ways. It’s as if the recruitment was done in a scattergun approach and the coach didn’t know what to do with them.

Baille
Uaisele
Walker
Mathers
Lauaki
Mendieka
Halafihi
Walshaw

Have any of these got to double figures in full appearances?

For me Mullaney has been a huge loss. His girlfriend wanting to go back to Oz at the last minute really left us in the lurch since I think he was earmarked for scrum half. We played some of our best rugby with him there in 2015

Re: London (A) : Tue May 03, 2016 1:00 pm  

While i'll accept we may not have had the best of the rub of the green, that is massively offset by
(a) the fact that we are the ONLY rugby league side in the entire world, professional or amateur, that does not have a scrum half; and
(b) we are the ONLY rugby league side in the entire world, professional or amateur, that does not think you need a scrum half