It was an inflated crowd with the offers on along side the many white envelopes. Not a true reflection.

Can you believe it's 2 decades since Danny Lima played for us!

He arrived relatively unknown and became popular because his first few weeks he played well including on televised games, running in hard. After that he was so-so, but he did get the crowd going when he came off the bench.


Chris Leikvoll, who signed at the same time, had the opposite story. He started slowly and looked slow and lumbering and there was some quote in the press about how the coaches expected him to improve when the pitches got harder. We thought here we go, he's one of 'those' kind of signings. But over time he won respect and his handling was very good for a front rower, he was a good offloader.

This is something I used to feel about Radford towards the end of his Hull tenure. He was a good motivator, but when it was going wrong he always seemed to think that the solution was to roll up your sleeves and work a bit harder, and it's often more complicated than that. In 2016/17 there was enough quality and experience in the playing group for it to not matter. They knew when things were going wrong and they solved it. But when that team started to break up he didn't have the coaching nouse to get it back on track. I think that is probably where Burgess is right now.  

I'm not sure what Burgess and the performance can team can do other than work on defensive structures and attacking plays. We are defensively soft, especially on one side, and do not look threatening with the ball. The pack is outgunned on a weekly basis and we have no attacking threat in the centres. Plus then there is the question of heart and desire. 


We are playing in a manner very reminiscent of the tail end of the Powell reign. 

Coaches hardly ever say ... some of our players are not really good enough. But lots of coaches think it a lot. It's a bit like at school ... must try harder comes out but what teacher is thinking is this kid is not the brightest button.

Very true. 


Makes you wonder why he continues playing them, extends their contracts (or at least makes noises that he is going to).