Match 30: Widnes Vikings (Away - Qualifiers)
fevnut's musings
Looking to the future
First of all let’s make it clear that we are writing before
this week’s fans forum. We are really looking forward to hearing what John
Duffy has to say. Although we haven’t been winning, we have had some really
tough matches but the way the team is playing with ball in hand suggests that
we could be in for a very enjoyable time watching our team next year. Mark
Campbell is going to tell the fans about plans for next year and we’ve been
thinking about what we want to hear from him. No doubt some of it will be about
the stadium development plans and if what he has suggested comes to fruition it
will be so good for the future stability of the club to develop those extra
income streams. But what we really want to hear about is the plans for the team’s
future. It would be great to hear that there will be some recruitment but we
are hoping that it will not involve wholesale changes in our squad.
Over the last few years it seems that we have started each year
with a huge number of players to integrate into our structures and that makes
it so difficult to get a team playing together. When Jamie Cording made his début at the beginning of 2014 he became Heritage Number 988. Our most recent débutant, Connor Farrell, is Heritage Number 1064. That's a staggering 57 débuts in four seasons. Some of the best playing partnerships
take a long time to develop and wholesale changes militate against them ever achieving
their full potential. Just look at the Melbourne Storm, Queensland and
Australia spine of Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith. All brilliant
players individually but the combination of them together is huge. The whole is
many times the sum of the parts. And it’s not surprising that they seem to have
a telepathic understanding of what each other is going to do when you bear in
mind that they started playing together for Melbourne in 2004. Yes, they must
be approaching their ‘use by’ date now, but that’s after no less than 14
seasons of experience and growing mutual understanding.
So, let’s strengthen the squad a bit but we think that our
current players have far more potential than they have ever had the opportunity
to develop. There is no doubt that we could do with an extra halfback. We’re a
bit relieved that the rumours surrounding Scott Murrell have proved to be untrue.
No doubt he would do a great job for Rovers in the short term, but looking to
the future should mean that we recruit players much younger than Scott who is
now 31. We could do with a cheeky
halfback with lightning quick acceleration - an Andy Kain type!
It’s sad for Fev that Jordan Baldwinson is going to Wakefield as
many of us were hoping that Post Office Road would become his permanent home so
maybe we also need another prop forward, particularly bearing in mind how
injury prone Andy Bostock has become. It would be great to recruit a player of
his type because over the last few years the team has suffered when Andy is not
available.
Of course, the best recruitment policy would be the
re-introduction of a reserve team. We do understand why the last attempt had to
be abandoned but we would hope that our chairman is using all his considerable
powers of persuasion to make the RFL see sense and bring back a proper reserve
team structure.
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Recently, on facebook, there has been a discussion about fans
airing their views. Some, apparently, think we should sit back and just be fans
but it seems to us that being a fan involves discussing issues with fellow
fans. I don’t see how you can be truly involved with the club without having
opinions. We will continue to put forward our views but those views are
developed by listening to what others have to say. We love to hear other people’s
opinions so long as they are constructive and well meaning. How can you be
passionate and not want to talk about it?!!
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