Downsouth wrote:I am certainly not (normally) in the doom monger camp, HOWEVER, a number of players and coaches need to move on.
Of the current coaches, I would keep Geordan and would be happy for Aaron to stay as head coach under an experienced DOR. The rest can go. Having a proper DOR rather than a DOR/Head Coach/ Scrum coach should help.
Players to definitely keep: Genge (please tell me he will still be here), Cole, McGuigan, Barrow (Captain), Kitch, Slater, Wells, M Williams, Hamilton, Evans, O'Connor, Shazam, JPP, Thompstone, Toomua, Veainu
Players to move on: Tait, OTY, Kitto
Players who I would reluctantly move on: Croft, Manu (unless he can show he will be properly fixed - I hate saying this as when playing he is my favourite player
For the rest, including YBY, McCaffrey, Fitzgerald, Thacker (sorry) Logo (sorry) and Betham, if they left I wouldn't be distraught. I doubt Marcos or Smith will go anywhere and that is fine with me, but they won't be the future.
That's enough doommongering! On the plus side, the squad we have will be better in better weather - but that doesn't help if we don't make the play offs! Lets hope for sunshine in Northampton on 25 March
OTY, Kitto and Manu are all under contract for next season. How are we going to move them on? Theor agents will want us to pay out to end their contracts early. That will be wasting fantastic amounts of money which we will then not be able to spend elsewhere. The club is not a bottomless pit of money.
Croft was also one of our best players vs Chiefs and to my mind it was an error to take him off whilst Fitzgerald could have been replaced by Williams instead. He signed his last contract after an injury blighted period, he will not be on big money.
speedski wrote:If we cant get rid of the horror show that is kitto lets get rid of whoever renewed his contract. That decision has cost the club on so many levels.
He is awful, and what makes it worse is he thinks hes doing a good job.
I agree that he had a poor game against Exeter but probably his best game for us against Gloucester. You do not write off a young player on the basis of one game.
speedski wrote:If we cant get rid of the horror show that is kitto lets get rid of whoever renewed his contract. That decision has cost the club on so many levels.
He is awful, and what makes it worse is he thinks hes doing a good job.
I agree that he had a poor game against Exeter but probably his best game for us against Gloucester. You do not write off a young player on the basis of one game.
Kitto (22 when signed now 24) is still worse than Mele (27 when signed), we gave the latter the boot and the former after 2 seasons a new contract. This sums up all that is incoherent in Tigers recruitment and retention. Thought he was equally useless against Gloucester as I posted at the time.
Without hope we are nothing, keep the faith, a Tiger for eternity
Yeah that wasn't good. Take nothing away from Exeter who were very good, but...
Kitto was painful to watch. You could have read a book in the time it took him to deliver the ball from each breakdown. I'm not one to single out players for criticism but it really killed us. His poor ball to Williams coupled with Williams' lazy kick gifted a try, which pegged us back when we had started well. We then spent a long time camped in their 22, making nothing of it because the ball was far too slow to exploit any gaps. We looked sharper in the brief time Harrison was on the pitch, but that all then went to pot when Burns had to do a job there - for which he was completely unsuited.
I thought the penalty try was harsh - a fair enough yellow but it was too far out to be called for a penalty try. That didn't stop a probably try. Although I have no doubt they'd have made that pressure count eventually.
Aside from the try I'm afraid Rizzo belied his recent good form by giving away far too many penalties, which along with the early try pegged us further back. That he appeared to go off injured leaves us in a real tricky position for the coming weeks.
We've got a true international class backline who barely got their hands on the ball. Pieterson was a passenger - not because he played poorly but because he was criminally underused. It seemed we were pinning too much hope on Veainu running from deep which Exeter quickly had an answer for.
We lacked leadership out there. I'm not sure there's an easy fix to that. For whatever reason, Tom Youngs just doesn't seem to look the part but the problem goes a bit deeper.
The last few weeks have been good but it was rather humbling to brought back down to Earth against a side a level above the teams we'd played.
Oh well. At least that's the last league game without Cole and Youngs, and with Genge and Williams training with England. Also, either we win next week and have a shot at a final to build some morale or we lose and have a fortnight's rest ahead of the Saints match. Hopefully that will be spent heading away somewhere neutral for a spot of team building. We even have a fortnight's rest between Saints and Bath, so we should really be able to throw all preparation into those games like they are cup finals. Because that's what we've got now - a handful of cup finals where we need to pick up wins.
Iain wrote:Yeah that wasn't good. Take nothing away from Exeter who were very good, but...
Kitto was painful to watch. You could have read a book in the time it took him to deliver the ball from each breakdown. I'm not one to single out players for criticism but it really killed us. His poor ball to Williams coupled with Williams' lazy kick gifted a try, which pegged us back when we had started well. We then spent a long time camped in their 22, making nothing of it because the ball was far too slow to exploit any gaps. We looked sharper in the brief time Harrison was on the pitch, but that all then went to pot when Burns had to do a job there - for which he was completely unsuited.
I thought the penalty try was harsh - a fair enough yellow but it was too far out to be called for a penalty try. That didn't stop a probably try. Although I have no doubt they'd have made that pressure count eventually.
Aside from the try I'm afraid Rizzo belied his recent good form by giving away far too many penalties, which along with the early try pegged us further back. That he appeared to go off injured leaves us in a real tricky position for the coming weeks.
We've got a true international class backline who barely got their hands on the ball. Pieterson was a passenger - not because he played poorly but because he was criminally underused. It seemed we were pinning too much hope on Veainu running from deep which Exeter quickly had an answer for.
We lacked leadership out there. I'm not sure there's an easy fix to that. For whatever reason, Tom Youngs just doesn't seem to look the part but the problem goes a bit deeper.
The last few weeks have been good but it was rather humbling to brought back down to Earth against a side a level above the teams we'd played.
Oh well. At least that's the last league game without Cole and Youngs, and with Genge and Williams training with England. Also, either we win next week and have a shot at a final to build some morale or we lose and have a fortnight's rest ahead of the Saints match. Hopefully that will be spent heading away somewhere neutral for a spot of team building. We even have a fortnight's rest between Saints and Bath, so we should really be able to throw all preparation into those games like they are cup finals. Because that's what we've got now - a handful of cup finals where we need to pick up wins.
