Is it down to the lake cafe...so have I now you've mentioned it 

You make a good argument and I may agree with you. I will just challenge some points. 




1. "When my plan is played to we compete against big teams" - this may hold true if you ignore 


2024 CC Final against Wigan (CC) - lost
2024 Hull KR (league) - lost 
2024 Leigh away (league) - lost 
2025 Wigan at Vegas (league) - embarrassed
2025 Leigh away (league) - lost 
2025 Wigan at Magic (league) - lost 
2025 Hull KR home (league) - lost 


2. Agree with the 2nd point. Of course it will take a leap of faith as those players were all present at the start of 2025 when we lost against the likes of Wakefield and Hull FC at home. 

I am more concerned why we look a different team in the Challenge Cup games than we do in the league. It's like the team really focus on that and give everything whereas the league games are not treated like that. If we performed in the league as we did in the Challenge Cup we would be comfortably in the top 4. Indeed if those 4 cup game wins this season were exchanged for readily achievable wins over Wakefield (Home), Hull (Home),  Huddersfield (home), Castleford (away) we would be 4th now and well set for the playoffs. 


But interesting times and some hard games ahead. We will see. 

I agree to a point, we haven’t won in those big events. Wembley last year we choked, despite starting really well. If I’m being brutally honest, one thing I would question is kicking 2 points when they are down a middle forward and we’re only down a fullback. That decision gave Wigan a chance to get off the ropes and they never really looked back. Almost as maddening as the panicked play where we throw the ball wide early in the set 13 vs 12 four minutes in and lose Dufty to the sin bin. We choked. But, that didn’t happen this year. We were in control for long periods but ultimately got beat by a) a superb team who defended relentlessly and b) an individual mistake.

Without forensically analysing each game, it’s tough to say what went wrong with each, but what we can say with absolute certainty is that we’ll never win anything if we don’t learn some lessons. Wakefield away for example, we went behind early with a bit of lag from the cup game the week previous. But dragged ourselves into it just before half time. Then we drop the kick off. We had Saints 10-0 down at our place, let the kick off go onto touch. Cup final, failed to defend a kick. Even Cas last week, kick goes through and to a man we stand still, Fitz has a grab at it and nobody else is moving. If my memory was better, I bet there are 10+ times where we have released pressure by failing to defend a kick this year alone. That is my gripe with the coaching, control what’s in your control, practice defending your weaknesses. Sneyd again is an example, anyone doing video on us will spend 90% of the attack time on how to get at Sneyd. We haven’t found a way to protect him yet, despite having an excellent defensive centre who has just been moved to the right alongside an excellent defensive half (Williams). We have got Jake Thewlis, Wrench and Sneyd together who are all vulnerable, and Fitzgibbon who is aggressive and gets up off the line which ultimately exposes them further. 


This is the first week off we have had though, so it might be useful to work on those relationships and put some quality time on the training field, it’s difficult to do maintenance work on a moving production line. But we need to see some progress on that one, or Sneyd becomes a very expensive special teams player. 

Yes all fair, but the challenge was to the "Sam gets us up for the big teams". I listed 7 such games in the last 18 months where we lost fairly readily to challenge that preposition of yours. In the act of fairness I omitted the Hull KR CC final loss (as that was a very close game), the Hull KR playoff game loss, and the Wigan home game loss in 2024 where we played a weakened side. They were still losses though which makes 10. 

All ifs and maybes. The Warrington Guardian archive is full of various coaches over the years talking about learning lessons. I take it with a pinch of salt as the coach cannot say "we aren't good enough 1-17" to consistently perform which we all know to be the case currently. But there is the nagging thought in my mind, and others' mind, that squad strength notwithstanding we dont look particularly well coached this season, nor do we look hard to score against. 

We could counter that with games where we were expected of getting blown away or beaten comfortably and turned up and did a job, either being beaten by close margin or winning. The whole cup run this season, Wigan at Magic etc. 

I agree about our defence. It’s worrying. We are so good at pushing attackers back, it was a real strength of ours last year. When we do it well, we can be effective. But we are too indisciplined for it to matter right now. We can’t build pressure because we blink first. That is letting Cas out of the in goal three times last week, the Jordy Crowther ‘late contact’ on kick pressure a few weeks ago, Rod Tai’s hands on the ball at Wembley which we even lost a challenge on. We’re constantly letting teams off the hook and allowing them in to attack us. When it comes down to it, Hull KR at Wembley didn’t give away a penalty in kicking distance despite a barrage of pressure, the game was decided on Ben Currie giving one away. That is the difference between the two on the day. 


I don’t know the remedy, but it certainly isn’t publicly challenging officiating or trying to milk penalties in a lame attempt of whataboutery. 


Anyway, let’s see what the response is on Friday. There are more questions than answers right now.

Of all the points raised on this thread this for me is the most significant. 
If the Powell era "clear out" had brought in better players than we cleared out we would be in a different place. Powell would probably still be coach.