I have no loyalty to Long, but I don't see what he can do. With no halves to work with he's got a job on. People in here seen to think you can slap a 6 shirt on someone, and with a couple of a training they'll be able to do the job.
You could turn Gale into a prop overnight, so why expect the opposite. The skills are not compatible. The game has clearly been to make the best of the situation, but the team gets slaughtered for running on the 5th.
With Gale now back, and others joining him as he gets back up to speed we'll hopefully see a bit more structure. If not, and it's still rubbish then absolutely Long needs to take some flak
Its not just a case of having your halfbacks available and the play will work, its also doing the basics right on the early tackles to put yourself in a position for your set plays to work, forwards hitting certain parts of the field to manipulate numbers on tackles 1,2,3 etc...Not necessarily bursting tackles but drawing in numbers, we'r terrible at doing that and thats coaching imo. Our pack make good yards but theres no plan to it, no direction when we start sets in good field position...Then we put that 2 option, left edge play on regardless of wether we'v worked the numbers to enable it to work or not, which very often we havnt.
I agree getting a settled halves pairing and FB will improve execution of our plays, but for me, what we do on tackles 1,2,3...hitting certain areas of the field in good field position sets to work numbers, needs to improve massively, and that can be done with good, clear coaching and with the players currently available.
If it were as simple as signing or producing better players, there'd be no need for an attack coach.
Having good structure in place can have a beneficial effect when having to slide lesser players into your team and still allowing your attack to function, it shouldnt be understated.
Can work both ways and the answers somewhere in the middle, a good team needs both. Still early days but for me, theres enough ability and the platform/field positions there for our attack to be better than it is at the moment.
Thats just not true, I wish you were running saints, they might never of replaced Cunningham with Holbrook.
They had a load of crap players under Cunningham, Holbrook signed Ben Barber! BEN Barber would have made Cunninghams Saints look a bit better than Matty Smith!
They had a load of crap players under Cunningham, Holbrook signed Ben Barber! BEN Barber would have made Cunninghams Saints look a bit better than Matty Smith!
If you dont think coaching matters or that Holbrook over Cunninham made a massive difference, then you dont know what your talking about imo...Sorry if that sounds harsh.
If you dont think coaching matters or that Holbrook over Cunninham made a massive difference, then you dont know what your talking about imo...Sorry if that sounds harsh.
Not harsh at all pal, never said it doesn't matter. Class players in the right positions make all the difference, that's what I'm saying. A fit Gale for us, full of swagger makes all the diference. Give us 4-6 weeks and then we'll judge this team better....
Leeds team under Dean Bell vs Leeds team under Graham Murray tells you all about the impact a quality coach can have with limited player turnover. Bizarre to suggest otherwise.