Snake
Snake's Alive!
I've watched enough RL to know that clean outs don't work. Neither does sacking a coach.
Trench Robinson coached his side full of stars to a 15th place finish in 2016. He has won 3 premierships. Shane Flanagan has won spoons and a premiership. Brad Arthur keeps making the finals in spite of winning a spoon with the Eels. The Dogs have gone on a signing spree and haven't fired a shot with the alleged 'attacking genius' behind Penrith's GF appearance last year. There is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that a 'black and white' approach to running a club does not guarantee success, nor does it mean failure. There are too many shades of grey to simply approach things from a 'we are failing' so lets sack everyone and everything will be better tomorrow.
Blooding rookies, moving players into different positions, getting rid of stock, etc. is not going to change things. The problems we are having concern so many variables that one solution is not going to change overnight. This same squad can turn it around. Des can turn it around. This sort of thing happens in RL all the time.
Take a guy like DCE for example. He hasn't suddenly forgotten how to play RL. He captained QLD to a series win last year and played really well. The reason he is struggling and the reason our attack is faltering is because we have no 9. There is absolutely nothing for DCE or Foz to play off the back of at the moment, hence they look ordinary. We need deception around the ruck to hold up markers and generate quick play-the-balls, then you'll see DCE and Foz run into some form. Backrowers are also going to look pretty ordinary because they too require ruck speed to punch into holes off the halves on the edges. At the moment, there are no holes. The flow on effect is the errors and forced passes and desperate plays because things just aren't clicking in the middle. Then the confidence crisis kicks in and you just keep finding ways to shoot yourself in the foot.
To compound things, we have no Tom. He will be back though. If we had Manase, we'd be doing better in the middle. Maybe Lawton will help improve things around the ruck. There is hope. I've even seen Parker play well when things are going our way. He is no world beater but he can hold his own on a good day. Those good days will come again. We are just a team down on confidence and down on players in key positions and the flow on effect of that is evident in the first three weeks of our season.
Keep the faith.
Trench Robinson coached his side full of stars to a 15th place finish in 2016. He has won 3 premierships. Shane Flanagan has won spoons and a premiership. Brad Arthur keeps making the finals in spite of winning a spoon with the Eels. The Dogs have gone on a signing spree and haven't fired a shot with the alleged 'attacking genius' behind Penrith's GF appearance last year. There is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that a 'black and white' approach to running a club does not guarantee success, nor does it mean failure. There are too many shades of grey to simply approach things from a 'we are failing' so lets sack everyone and everything will be better tomorrow.
Blooding rookies, moving players into different positions, getting rid of stock, etc. is not going to change things. The problems we are having concern so many variables that one solution is not going to change overnight. This same squad can turn it around. Des can turn it around. This sort of thing happens in RL all the time.
Take a guy like DCE for example. He hasn't suddenly forgotten how to play RL. He captained QLD to a series win last year and played really well. The reason he is struggling and the reason our attack is faltering is because we have no 9. There is absolutely nothing for DCE or Foz to play off the back of at the moment, hence they look ordinary. We need deception around the ruck to hold up markers and generate quick play-the-balls, then you'll see DCE and Foz run into some form. Backrowers are also going to look pretty ordinary because they too require ruck speed to punch into holes off the halves on the edges. At the moment, there are no holes. The flow on effect is the errors and forced passes and desperate plays because things just aren't clicking in the middle. Then the confidence crisis kicks in and you just keep finding ways to shoot yourself in the foot.
To compound things, we have no Tom. He will be back though. If we had Manase, we'd be doing better in the middle. Maybe Lawton will help improve things around the ruck. There is hope. I've even seen Parker play well when things are going our way. He is no world beater but he can hold his own on a good day. Those good days will come again. We are just a team down on confidence and down on players in key positions and the flow on effect of that is evident in the first three weeks of our season.
Keep the faith.
