It seems to me that the real problem is what has happened to the start of the season. BA says he does not know or at least he does not want to share with the great unwashed. I have a theory and I would be interested to hear what others think.
Now we must assume that our team is not the problem as we finished 4th last year and we had looked pretty good in our trial. Also, having watched many of the pre-season training session I can assure everyone that they looked pretty awesome.
So what happened? I think we started the season in a very alien place. In preceding seasons we have begun the year as hapless losers or the laughing stock of the league due to the club's farcical management. Jump to 2018 and we have become "title hopes", we have better management, a great coach, a new stadium and a team that believe in themselves. So what happened? I think we started the year expecting things to just happen. And of course they don't "just happen" without the same effort as 2017. I think you can see in our game against Penrith, I time when the players began to think "this is pretty easy" - the foot comes off the group accelerator, we stall, lose confidence and start losing. I am interested to hear what others think - let's hope Round 7 was the recognition that 100% effort is always required
Replies
Our forwards stood up, ran hard and offloaded. Another player that was copping crap was Tony Williams. He has being out standing for a few weeks now. His hard running and spin & offload has done wonders with second phase play. Mannah has been trying but I think he suited to the bench, he played strong again last week. Gutho has added spark & have no doubt the group loves playing with this guy. He just a likeable bloke & in the right spot always backing up.
Hayne had some nice touches, none more than that last past for our first try. No doubt he had plenty to say at training, he would have taken it upon himself to get into our players & expect them to play with attitude. But in saying that, the pressure was on him to come back, obviously to early so now he finds himself injured again. I hope he back soon, his left side looks solid when he on the field.
you forgot to mention the jersey - its the root cause of everything apparently
2. Getting rid of Peter Gentle and esp Brett O'Farrell and not replacing them.
3. Brad can't do everything - probably a good manager but is not a tactical coach. Not replacing a defensive coach until Round 7 is amateur stuff.
The competition is SO close. All you have to be is off by 1 or 2 % and you will be smashed. The Storm don't get smashed because they don't make the above silly mistakes. We prepare like a pub team and we expect them to play like an NRL team??
This year is gone but let's put the bricks together for next year.
I actually believe that the appointment of our new AFL fitness guru is a positive. The players said that it's the hardest pre season they have done and he does have some radical and positive views on injury prevention including ACLs and soft tissue injury prevention. I would persist with him for sure.
Find a new wrestling coach and give kidwell a future at the club.
Employ someone like a Brett Kimmorley or similar to sort the offence out.
NEVER ever go into another year without the proper coaches and support staff.
They are probably more important than the individual players. Look at the tigers - pretty average players but they got their back office sorted out and it shows.
Good points...I don't agree with Peter Gentle and Brett O'farrell specifically but I do agree with a light on coaching staff. I wonder if we were planning for the talked about "cap" on football staff. And we definitely missed Semi.
Hit the nail on the head there Walpy. Semi was our strike weapon and X factor. We needed to replace him with some big skilful forwards and didn't and suffered as a result.
Last Sunday what was different - offloads. For the first time BA got the team, and forwards in general, to offload and create second phase play. And didn't it look good.
Only took 7 weeks (this season and over 4 years overall) but at last the penny dropped, lets offload rather than bash and barge and we might actually win a game.
Fathead once again speaking a lot of sense.
Completely agree Fathead. I’ve been banging on about the need for a football department review for ages. Now we’re doing it on the fly. Bernie is penny pinching and it shows.
Mutt's but we have the great Brad Arthur as coach ? Why would you need to review the footy department when we have the great BA as the boss of the footy department?
Surely in Brad Arthur's 5th year as head coach our footy department would be one of the best in the comp ?
How could anyone argue with Muttman? Well, apart from his Mrs of course :)
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 6 Next