Here’s my take on everything...
The challenge of winning the league and getting in front of Bradford was always going to be a difficult one. They deservedly beat us at home and looked better than York.
Our realistic aim was always to get into the top five to make the play-offs. We’re then two games away from promotion. I don’t particularly like this system as the second placed team is the one that probably deserves to go up, but like it or not, they’re the rules. It doesn’t matter how well you might play during the regular season, second place doesn’t win promotion.
In effect, the regular season is a joust for places with the real business starting when the play-offs arrive. Our aim is to get there.
We were made to look better than we are by the way the early season fixtures fell.
We’ve under-performed in a number of games with the loss at Workington looking particularly bad. Not making excuses but this game needs to be put into perspective. We were without Richard Owen, Ross Osborne, and Charlie Martin. In my view, they are three key players we need in the side.
Looking at the longer-term picture for the play-offs, the best side we could put out would also include Liam Harris, Hakim Miloudi, and Frankie Mariano. In effect, the Workington side was at least six players short of the best team we could put out in a ‘play off’ game.
No team is ever at its best in every game. Wigan had a ‘crisis’ after losing three games running; they came back to beat Hull at the weekend. Wakefield went on a losing run of five or six games but bounced back to beat Wigan and Warrington recently. Huddersfield are getting their act their act together after a bad start. The same applies to Catalans. If there is a common theme to under-performing, it is generally influenced by not having your best starting team playing.
Each defeat exposes weaknesses and limitations. All teams have them. Each defeat knocks the players’ confidence. Without confidence, a performance can drop off by up to 30% to 40%. That’s huge. I believe the one positive thing the fans can do is to get behind the players and help them, as we did in the home match against Keighley. I thought the fans were great in that game.
Performances have clearly slipped since our peak. We probably peaked when we ‘nilled’ Newcastle at home in the cup. We’ve obviously got work to do to make the top five and the play-offs. I’m sure the coaching staff can see what needs to be done to put things right even if they won’t (or can’t) admit it in public. People like Peter Green and Rhys Lovegrove have been round the rugby league block a few times. I’m sure Richard Horne can turn to Lee Radford for advice if he feels he needs it too.
Sure, we’re not in the position in the league that we’d like to be in but the business part of the season is just about getting going. We’ve got to make the top five, providing we do that and get our best team out, playing with confidence at the end of the season, we’re by no means out of the race.