I think a lot of pressure was just lifted off Hodkinsons shoulders with his new contract and hopefully he plays well enough for the rest of the season to silence his critics. He will never be counted as a running halfback, but he makes up for that with other attributes that are balanced by having an instinctive running half in the side with him IMO. He is one of only a few halves that can plot a field goal, either by kicking himself or by getting it to a better placed halves partner. And i think that his short kicking game is better than he gets credit for. If he was a bit more quick and elusive he would be close to the complete package, but speed is his major downside. I think at times we will miss his cool head next year.
My only concern is that we're probably lacking an organizer next season. I think Mbye and Reynolds are both opportunists, both can do some playmaking but probably prefer to play by instinct and in broken field than to plot where the ball needs to be in two tackles time. My pet hate for Mbye is that he often removes himself from kicking duties by getting tackled on the fourth which adds pressure to the other half. Reynolds started last year having come ahead leaps and bounds in his ability to place good short kicks but has probably regressed a bit early this year. Lichaa is coming along nicely and may assume some more responsibility for steering the ship with time, but for now he doesn't seem to fill that role too much. In time the side may work out that they have to support his scoots from dummy half, but for now he often goes alone and that reduces the advantage. They're all areas we need to improve this year and next.
I think next year our game plan is going to have to change again with Hodkinson gone. The style we used in 2012 is never going to be as effective since they changed the decoy rules but i think that we're going to have to revert to a style similar, that is more reliant on creating lots of chances to break the line through frequent ball movement. Everybody in the side needs to work hard on support play for that to work well.
I'm not giving up on this year though. I think we can take out the premiership if we get our act together.