Difficult I totally accept, but ........
What are you expecting (not hoping, coz I know the answer to that already! 🤣) when you mob come to us next week?
P3, L3 for your last trio of fixtures, and even worse for us, on P4. L4, so hardly a confidence booster for either, is it?
Anyway, see you next Sunday!
Spelly.
If we don't improve on today I expect another loss.🤨
Not sure which Widnes will turn up now as in previous seasons in free fall after 3 months. You have now got what was our biggest ptop in Walker. A bad decision IMO not to offer him another contract. Losing is becoming a habit for both sides. If Swinton get some decent loans from Saints or elsewhere I expect another defeat as the loanees we tend to get are worse than our squad players & both regular centres will be missing next week along with our best winger Ince. Still got 2 props injured. Just hope Lyons is back next week at 6. So conclusion either another close win or defeat for either side.
A nervy Widnes win....otherwise the second half of the season collapse is on again!!
The May signing rush for next year seems to have a bad effect on many teams. It results in players holding back if they already have a good deal for next year, in an effort to avoid injury.
Regarding our team's last disaster it was, hopefully, a blip mostly on AC's part trying too many new partnerships at the same time. He hints at that in his post game chat, but whether that was forced on him by injury or it was just a mistake we will find out next week!
If we get back to something like our regular team we might recover, if not goodbye top six. This is a very competitive league and any slip ups will have to be paid for!
If Coleman doesn't tinker too much with the team I feel we can get back to winning ways. Joey Lyons back to playing number 6 and Robey to be dropped. Dixon to wing or fullback, but Owens won't be replaced even if dropping balls. A shame Edge is still out and Callum Field.
I think Fleming has a one match ban, and unless Edge is fully fit I would expect the centres to be Roby and Brand. This is probably ideal for Roby to show what he can do and put last week behind him. Roberts was taken off with a head knock, so he might not feature. I would hope we have learned our lesson and play Brooks at prop, replacing Roberts and with Lyons returning to stand off. Otherwise, I expect it will be the same team.
We dropped into panic against Batley because they were able to march us up the field and we couldn't stop them or retaliate. With better defence I would hope for no panic, and a return to the resilience that has turned games for us through out the season. Swinton are no mugs and if we repeat Sunday's performance they will punish us.
Coleman has talked about consistency through out the year, and whilst there have been changes in the line up (good for competition) we have been able to make them work because other areas were strong and we managed the changes. On Sunday we changed half backs, had another new face at centre, a winger on his second game of the season (something like that), a loose forward's first game for weeks and putting a prop in his second game for the club alongside a lad who shouldn't be playing prop up against a well drilled and big team. Some of those changes were forced, and moving things around does keep players on their toes, but personally I think that was too much for us to deal with, hence we panicked. We have coped with errors and individual drops in performance pretty well all season, and come out the winners. We couldn't on Sunday because we had no answer in the middle whilst Kirk and Murray were off.
I think if we learn from last week, then a cautious Widnes will win a narrow game. Fozard, Johnstone, Lyons and Gilmore have shown they can cope with tight games and do something special enough to win them. If we don't learn, and we don't have strength in the middle, Swinton are big enough to just keep punching up the field.
The number of changes was just too much against a no nonsense side and a strong pack.
Going back to the Betts era there was a coach's trick of playing players out of position just to see who could cope. Betts played Thackery and Flynn at full back in a two games. Thackery was a disaster but Flynn played well.
He knew the position well (Flynn's change was at Whitehaven and their speedy winger (Carter?) race up the wing , Paddy kept him to the outside then clattered him into the crowd!!!!)
That is right Sandgroper, and we saw Hanbury move to fullback and Isa to second row.
Change is good, it stops us having just a team and makes a squad. You are right that it also sees who can cope, as we might have to move things around during a game. But too many changes becomes chaos, and the organised way of playing that has kept us in the games so far went missing to be replaced by individuals trying to get control. Its a team game, and play like that against, as you rightly say, a no nonsense side, and we'll get beaten.
Right, I am going to put my choices for this week on the prediction forum, see if I can lift myself off the coveted thirteenth place.
Cheers,