frank stokes
I discriminate indiscriminately
good points but those sides did not consistently lose to the good teams throughout the season...Thats a very short sighted view. Tell me, how do they get better in the big games if they dont ever get to play in them?
When we won the comp in 08&11 we gradually improved from 04 by playing many "big games".. (8 finals games before winning the comp).
When we won the comp in 96, we gradually improved from 93 by playing many "big games". (7 finals games before winning the comp)
When we won the comp in 87, we were there abouts for most of the 80s and eventually learnt from playing many "big games" (11 finals games/play offs before winning the comp).
Based on the rhetoric from some on this forum, Bozo should have been sacked in 86 + 94 and Des in 06 + 10.
So here we are in 2022 and the side has now played 5 finals games since 2019. What does history suggest? We are on the cusp of another premiership and sacking the coach because we lost in round 10 is not the answer.
I am not just talking about finals, this side is consistently proving to be inadequate when faced with a challenge and it is not just that they lose the 'big' games but the fact that they are consistently blown away early and mount a 'challenge' when the game is all over...
imo, there are serious structural issues with this side that have been obvious for the whole of Des's tenure (and, yes, he 'improved' the side when he took over from Twent)... they may have been masked by a fantastic season from Tom last year but beating up on teams that are worse than us (and there are plenty of REALLY bad teams in this competition) does not give me comfort that we are a top-8 team and 'competitive'... we are miles off the pace and we are not building to a premiership anytime soon...
...imo...