Quote bellycouldtackle="bellycouldtackle"In my opinion Trout, Spiers, Anakin, Kaye and Walshaw should have already played a few first team games this season. I think we have been slow in introducing these lads to the team. We have our SL life secured, now is the time to give these lads a go. Not all at the same time.
All have done very well at under 18 level, all have had a great season in the under 20`s. Only Walshaw will be eligible to play for the under 20`s next season without taking one of the three overage spots.
We need to see what they can do. What is the point of playing Griffin for example, a player who had a great start and then signed for Crusaders ( well done to his agent ) and his form and effort levels dropped of. ( his defence against Hull was pathetic ). I say play Walshaw in the centre and put George on the wing. Not because George is not a great centre but lets have a look at Walshaw, or indeed play Murphy at fullback and put George and Walshaw in the centres.
There is no point in us playing Lee and Smith again this season, we have seen that they are just not good enough. Lee`s defence is just the worst in Sl.
Last season I went to the last game away at Salford and had to watch Latu and Gleeson play for us when they were leaving after that game. Why ? Anakin should have played instead of Latu.
I hope I do not have to watch Smith, Hickey, Tony, Lee play for us again. Would love to see Walshaw and Trout get in the 17 this weekend then Anakin and Speirs for the next match etc etc.
Also no point playing Renaldi again, lets have Davey and Wildie as our hookers for the rest of the season.'"
I firmly believe that being an old fashioned coach JK has always believed that a first team jersey should be the hardest thing in the world for a young players to get. I fully agree with this theory and have never believed that a Junior should get a chance based purely on his performances in the reserves. He should get his chance when a senior player is injured or loses form and take it with both hands. This is done to instill the determination in young players to attain the standard of the first team players they hope to replace. This worked fine from 2007 to the middle of 2010 when I heard very few voices demanding young players be given a chance as we continually troubled the top six.
However due to the total deterioration in our first team exemplified by Hickey it's hard to see what young players are now aspiring to. In the case of some of our young players they would actually have to dumb down. Where as before many young players may have been frustrated by Kears policy they must now be utterly demoralised and bewildered which has no benefit at all IMHO.
Maybe it's been through his own apathy and general disillusionment with the game that JK has just taken the easiest option on this one - although in fairness it's not like he hasn't used a lot of young inexperienced players, just that most didn't come through our Academy. It's hard to know and easy to say from the outside when it's not your future on the line but that's how it looks to me.
Now however is the time surely.
I don't absolutely agree that Anekin and co should be given a run for the sake of it - if Kear really thinks they are not ready, he is after all still the Coach. FWIW what I would like to see is JK pick a first 13 of players who will be with us next year and stick with it for the rest of the season. This constant inability to settle on a team has been JK's biggest weakness for years, even when we didn't have a player crisis. He could argue that at the start of the season he needed to rotate players to find out what he had ant rest as appropriate. However by now he should know and I can't see how 5 games in a row can harm anyone.
His bench has also often appeared ridiculous, there is certainly no reason that during the remaining fixtures he can't pick a wild card for every game, what possible harm can that cause with all the pressure now off.
I also want to see some key combinations tried out. If he thinks Davey and Wildie might make a SL hooking partnership then let them go for it and drop Rinaldi. If he wants to make Moore his S/H then play Hyde with him and see how it goes. It may fail but at least we will know. If it does then we hit the ground running on game one next season which is vital. I think Kear as a Coach needs to drag himself away from the Aussie squad mentality and he's not alone there. Yes it has it's place but IMO English SL players by their nature are more suited to the TEAM mentality rather than the more structured SQUAD mentality.
If Kear is serious about staying as Head Coach he needs to drop the Professor of RL act and do the bl**ding obvious for once. He may be pleasantly surprised, I know I would!
