Showing on Sky Sports Arena tomorrow (9:45am I think) as part of the ‘RL Takeover’.
enjoyed some of the games shown so far, nice little distraction whilst working from home
Showing on Sky Sports Arena tomorrow (9:45am I think) as part of the ‘RL Takeover’. enjoyed some of the games shown so far, nice little distraction whilst working from home
The Neil Kelly is certainly remembered as a “good period” for the club. SL was far more intensely difficult during that era but one could argue, taking away the promotion in 01, was Kelly era of 02-04 better than Betts best seasons of 14-16?
Under Kelly, his promotion made him a legend and the club was not volatile as it was under James Rule.
Thought Kelly did a fantastic job with a small squad on our first season back in SL before things unravelled to a degree. Not necessarily his fault, would certainly regard him as one of our better coaches.
We started to fade under Kelly when O'Neill set fire to that kid in Aus. Certainly Relf thought that he should have been sacked on the spot. The team lost some of its spirit after that, maybe Ned lost some of the dressing room.
His real mistake was sacking Crompton, who was his Assistant Coach, to give his brother a job (that he never got!).
Neil Kelly is the best Widnes coach of the Summer era.
If this is the Home Match, I remember we played the Leeds team off the park that day in the first half. We also beat them at Headingley IIRC.
Think the 2002 team was the better team, but I think the Betts 2014-16 team deserves a bit more credit having listened to some of the stuff said by Brown and Isa recently.
We started to fade under Kelly when O’Neill set fire to that kid in Aus. Certainly Relf thought that he should have been sacked on the spot. The team lost some of its spirit after that, maybe Ned lost some of the dressing room. His real mistake was sacking Crompton, who was his Assistant Coach, to give his brother a job (that he never got!).
What was the background to the O’Neil instance and what was the reason Kelly got sacked? I always believed the 2003 team was actually better than 2002 but lacked the consistency. By 2004, it turned into a stalemate.
The O'Neill incident was the boozy pre-season trip to Australia for the World 7's tournament.
Kelly got sacked after the embarrassing 56-8 defeat at home to Wigan, live in front of the sky cameras in July 2004.
Little over a month later, we played them at home again (one of those daft fixtures where we played the same team 3 times) and won 20-16.
Kelly IMHO, did himself no favours letting Cantillon & Demetriou go.
The final straw was that thrashing at home to Wigan, we'd already conceded a club record score on Sky TV at Hull, 70 odd.It had got to the stage where a humiliation was followed up by a plucky win or two followed by another humiliation.
I'd agree 100% with JD and probably agree with Cantillon , who was a great option from the bench. Millard was starting hooker and steadier than Cants .
The Dolphin incident definitely split the dressing room and eventually not dealing with it cost Neil in the long run.
The Vicar
Cantillon was a brilliant player at second division level but no other SL club snapped him up after he left Widnes.
His speed off the mark just wasn’t quite as effective against the full timers. Devastating in the second tier though and fantastic to watch. Along with Paul Mansson who was superb at that level.
Double figures in the try department in both 2002 (12 tries) & 2003 (11 tries).
Definitely worth keeping hold of...
Just watching this game, our intensity in attack and defence was off the charts, everything was frantic with purpose.
We started to fade under Kelly when O’Neill set fire to that kid in Aus. Certainly Relf thought that he should have been sacked on the spot.
Now don't exaggerate.He would've been jailed had that happened, nevermind sacked by Widnes.
I've watched the first 20 minutes then had to work 🙁 so will watch the rest tonight. However, it was obvious that we had a side that wanted to play aggressive and work hard for each other - whilst throwing in some talented players like Weston, Hughes, Spruce that were effective in SL. We were a good team to watch in that period and more than matched some of the 'big boys'. It's a shame we couldn't build on that and I see similarities to Denis' team that did work hard for each other but that can only last for so long if you don't keep adding to the team.
Also - how good is it to see a grass pitch!