In Sport when a team is bad they largely remain regardless of manager change just look at Leigh. However, playing Craven on the wing and Whitley at centre then throwing Whitley out of the team proved how clueless he is.
We had the farcical situation where Whitley wasn’t getting picked for the team that got relegated but was picked for England Knights’ tour of PNG.
That team Cummins picked for the London game was ludicrous: Ashall, Runciman, Whitley, Inu, Ah Van, Finn, Mellor, Houston, Heremaia, Dudson, Dean, Hansen, Hauraki.
5 second rowers in the starting 13.
Shortly to be followed by dropping Whitley and Craven from virtually all the rest of the games and selecting at least one matchday 17 with no props on the bench when props were available within the squad.
The appointment of Francis Cummings merely confirmed what some of us already knew about the club.
What we didn’t know at that point was, how much Weasel Rule and the Brothers Grimm had been screwing out of us.
That team Cummins picked for the London game-Ashall, Runciman, Whitley, Inu, Ah Van, Finn, Mellor, Houston, Heremaia, Dudson, Dean, Hansen, Hauraki. 5 second rowers in the starting 13.
Poor selection but still good enough to beat London.Players had given up the ghost.
But given we lost marginally, I think it is fair to argue we could have won with a sensible team selection. Would we still have gone down? Probably but that defeat was a big nail in the coffin.
But given we lost marginally, I think it is fair to argue we could have won with a sensible team selection.
We'll never know.It just shows how bad things were though when we are discussing how we could have or might have beaten a Championship team at home.
James tweeted before that it was two years since our last SL game, another defeat against HKR. Cummings had fifteen games in charge with fourteen defeats our only victory against Halifax, says it all. Would love to know what happened to a team that promised so much and yet in that year delivered so little. Still haunts me now
Did it promise much?! The writing was on the wall when nothing was done at the end of 2017 to significantly improve the squad.
Yes James it did. We were top (or near) of the table for over a month and playing good rugby, rugby which I did enjoy watching. I know we had that blip after Easter but we came back and finished seventh in the league. You are in a better position than me being more involved in the game, perhaps you can tell us what really happened after that and why our board would not invest. Your interview with Kevin Brown was really eye opening perhaps you could expand on that please.
The year we were top of the league was 2016. We lost Kevin Brown and Corey Thompson (among others) without replacing them; spending less on the salary cap each year to ensure wages of directors were still paid.
Correct James, and also the re-signing of shite like Stefan Marsh, Macgraff Leuluai, rewarding mediocrity, year in, year out.
We should never have been in a position, after 7 years of SL, to rely on that Marsh tackle in France. What happened at Board level, was nothing but embezzlement of the Sky funding. Don't forget, apart from selling Brown, and non-recruitment of worth, the Fraudsters never even paid the rent, and got us up to our necks in debt with the Council.
Paulie xx
In truth, I think we did well not to get relegated in 2017.
Or maybe if we had, we would have gone into Admin anyway, just a year earlier?
Interesting to note, linked to current conversations, in our last proper SL game before the Middle 8, we played Tom Olbison at Prop and had Ted Chapelhow and Owen Farnworth on the bench....
But given we lost marginally, I think it is fair to argue we could have won with a sensible team selection. Would we still have gone down? Probably but that defeat was a big nail in the coffin.
I honestly think we lost because of a stupid Finn pass that was intercepted and put them ahead. We came back and was all over them till Sammut dropped a goal and broke their spirit. I remember so much Sammut practising drop goals at warm up, why none of the coaching staff never picket this up, I will never know.
The turning point was not giving Isa the contract he wanted. We were largely progressive off the field by retaining our key players fending off interest from other clubs while signing some shrewd signings Galea, Manuokova, Hermina etc.
But letting Isa go was the first example of the club changing course and focusing solely on asset striping at the club.
Back in 2014 our squad depth was pretty decent we even sent Joseph and Johnson two solid props out on loan, 3 years later we were relying on the Chaplelows and Olbinson at prop. Pretty staggering really.