Of late weve been in great positions to put big scores on opposition who are nowhere near our class, but weve been fading in the back end of games.
Whats your opinion of why this is happening after a good start to the season?
Mental?
Fitness?
The use of the bench and selection?
Injury?
Mid season slump?
All of the above?
Genuinely interested to hear peoples opinions.
Replies
Yep agree he has to balance facts with his aim to not provide excuses . Sometimes he has to have a ref blowup or snide comment it’s part n parcel of the role , and all the other coaches do it so he should just do it to keep a fair playing field imo
Yea, I like how BA doesnt give excuses, but you have to protect your players from scrutiny from the media. Players will try to ignore it, but it will eventually get to you.
It's the dog days of mid season, the extra gear is not required at this point of the season. Let the Panthers go full tilt in July & August, they don't get any trophies for that.
We are simply pacing ourselves at the moment, the unfortunate side effect is that it does lead to some sloppiness. When the time comes to really put the foot down we've seen from earlier in the season that we do have that extra gear.
Actually from what I saw of BA addressing the media after the game, he didn't look too upset with the result of the game, and it was more the players thinking they should have done better. That tells me the players are taking responsibility, which is what we want to see. So you could be right about the mid season thing, and that BA and the team have plans to change things up a little at the back end of the season. Just need to keep getting the Ws any way we can for the next few weeks.
I think that is why BA wasnt too fussed, becuase of the reaction of his players after that win, any other year we would be delighted with that win, but something has changed and just getting the 2 points isn't good enough this season, the boys realise if that was a top team we would have been hammered
When you look at the number of set restarts the Bulldogs got in the 2nd half it is no wonder we fell off. Eels were lucky to get 1.
We have to address this area or we will continue to struggle when the ref is doing his best to even up the game.
We defended well considering the amount of ball the Dogs had
Most of the set restarts we are giving away are from Reedy and Browny. I thought a lot of them were harsh calls on the weekend tho
I think most of it is mental. There's a lack of self-belief and we don't really have a real leader in that group who can push individuals to their upper limits. Gutho is able to push himself but lacks the ability to briing others with him.
Also, our spine is not in form (except for Gutho) and if it wasn't for the forwards, we would have lost a few more games this year.
The next few weeks will test BA's ability as a coach. Let's see whther he is able to make those subtle changes and improve the team's performance.
It all starts from dummy half, and Reed is absolutely buggered poor kid, atm he can't play 80 mins and needs a break, his passes are slow, and not direct. Opposition in attack are running straight at him making him do 60+ tackles each game. At the end of the day he's still a kid and needs a break.
I think Stone will come back onto the bench to relieve Reed for a bit reeds service is not as crisp lately I'm putting it down to fatigue