Spirit of 55 on Warrington Wolves' win over Leeds Rhinos

WIRE looked suspiciously like a team that was hoping for and maybe even expecting an easy game.

As if they were looking forward to getting a win without doing the usual hard work required to get a victory in Super League.

Their running is becoming too lateral, so they are missing out on the go-forward that they can sometimes be so dangerous off the back of. Only when Daryl Clark came on did the necessary, direct forward running start to happen anything like as often as it should.

Steve Price has some decisions to make regarding the make-up of his best 17.

As with all. coaches he is charged with not picking the best players, but with picking the players that will make the best team. Sometimes that can be the same group of players, but often it is not.

He needs to be confident that everything that needs to be done in a match will be done by the players he selects.

Combinations all over the pitch need to be as good as possible, for example the best centre and the best winger do not necessarily make the best centre-winger combination.

It might involve playing one or two players in a position where they are not at their best, but them playing there make the team as good as it can be.

Sometimes, it can also include an exceptional player not being selected at all.

Over the last few years, it has been a bit like Warrington have been playing fantasy rugby league, putting together a group of excellent players and adding a different superstar or two each year.

The difference being of course when you play for real, the team has to be so much more than the sum of its parts. As well as the ability of the individuals, a team needs to be a cohesive unit that covers all bases between them to be winning Grand Finals.

One aspect that this team seems to be missing is a leader.

Many people in life are followers, many others like to plough their own furrow but only a few are leaders. Lots of people end up in leadership roles, but that does not make them leaders.

All of Wire’s best players are ones that to me are best when they are doing things on the fringes, putting finishing touches to things or creating something off the cuff, or they are dangerous runners either out wide or down the middle.

Watching Wire is like seeing a world-renowned orchestra, but without a conductor. Or a collection of thoroughbred horses with no jockey to ride them.

They need someone to step up and take on that leadership role, even if it is not natural to them. Someone who even if they themselves are having a shocker on the day will still take the responsible to make sure everyone else is doing their job, getting all those runners running in the right direction at the time.

From first receiver this player also needs to take responsibility for guiding the team through the plan for each set of six.

At the moment far too often it looks like a series of individual, unconnected plays until they realise that they are on the last tackle and then kick the ball.

The followers will be glad to have someone to lead them, whilst the lone furrowers will have to be reminded that the team only has one ball between them and one plan of what to do with that ball.

Unless someone picks up that conductor’s baton and the jockey’s whip then no matter how talented the individual players are, this team will not have anything like as good a chance as they should have to win Super League this year.

No team in the league is looking intimidatingly good, this year could be as good a chance as Wire get for a while to end the wait.

A bunch of blokes running forward more and sideways less should not be too much to ask for. Finding a genuine leader might be much more difficult, but it could be the difference between winning the title or not.

Playing two matches a week will be physically tough, stepping into a leadership role might be even tougher, but when you are trying to achieve something then do not ask for it to be easy, ask for it to be worth it.