Now is the time

Some of you may have noticed the lack of posts over the past few weeks, there is a reason. Instead of coming on shouting all guns blazing, I thought I'd wait until the cup competitions were over to see how we looked. Now we are out of both the Northern Rail Cup and the Challenge Cup, something that not many people expected at the start of the season, I think we can start to see how our season it going to shape up.

The main point that has stood out to me over the past few games is the lack of discipline the side has. Daft penalties are been given away left, right and centre, it just isn't acceptable. I know many fans have said that the ref has been bad, but how many weeks can we use that excuse for? We need to make sure we are well drilled and play as close to the rules as possible. We must make sure we don't give the referee any opportunity to penalise us.

Another point that is worrying is our defence seems to be leaky to say the least. I don't seem to remember us conceded so many soft tries in recent seasons gone by. For example, yesterday Andrew Henderson for Gateshead was allowed to scoot over for two very easy tries from the play of the ball. Our defence just wasn't awake at all. Also the effort and commitment on display by some players in defence leaves a lot to be desired.

Going forward I'm not as concerned. Yes we look a little bit clueless at the line at times, but we've scored a total of 60 points against two Championship sides which is certainly acceptable. McNally is chipping in well so far and Theoharous looked extremely impressive in the first 20 minutes yesterday. Attack is slightly worrying at times, but if I was Ged, then I would be concentrating on our defensive effort.

Speaking to a couple of Thunder fans after the game and they expect a backlash against them in the first league game next week. I have a feeling they could well be right, maybe it's a hopeful feeling! If I were the coach, then I would want us to keep Gateshead to under 10 points and put in 80 minutes of solid hard work. Hard work and defence wins games in this league. We certainly have enough fire power to score tries in attack, but we need to get back to the, dare I say it, Steve Mack days of mean defence. So if I were Ged, it would be tackle bags and more tackle bags in training!

On the subject of Ged, he seemed to get a fair bit of flack yesterday, some I would say is justified. Whilst I'm still not 100% convinced about him as the guy to really take us forward long term, I still have faith in his coaching ability. What I am very concerned about is the signings he has brought to the club. Anyone who was at the Gateshead game will have witness what was a shocking, reckless high tackle by Lavulavu in the last second of the game that sparked a mass brawl between both sets of players. He was rightly shown red for it and had quite a bit of anger directed at him by the Haven fans as he walked down the tunnel.

To put it quite simply, the guy is NOT Championship class. Yes he might be trying to make it, maybe trying too hard, but he is giving multiple silly penalties away in a game and we can't afford that. The tackle on the Gateshead lad was awful and he deserves a lengthy ban from the RFL. I for one do not want to see that kind of thuggery on show, especially when the game was effectively over. I certainly do not want to see him in a Haven shirt again.

Another gripe about yesterday was Dexter Miller sat warming up the bench for 74 minutes of the match. Why bring him over to Gateshead to only throw him on with 6 minutes left? Dexter is a big unit and hasn't looked too out of place when he's played so far. Lavulavu was obviously out of gas way before the 74th minute so why not throw Dexter on then?

I haven't got all the answers, I simply observe what's going on. To summarise, we aren't too far off but we need to clear out the dead weight and concentrate on our defence. I still have faith in Ged's coaching ability and feel that as long as we don't have a massive string of losses, he should be given the full season to see what he can do.

In relation to the topic title, now is the time that the club/coach need to come out and lay it all out to the fans. The HavenFans forum is like a war zone at the moment with plenty of emotion flying around. Perhaps the launch night on Thursday will provide us all some answers...we live in hope.