Re: Improvement : Tue Jun 05, 2012 12:14 am
No1 Saint wrote:
Effort alone doesnt win you games. You need intelligence and you need to get the basic's right. We failed utterly against Hull with ball in hand and it was simple stuff, soft penalties and coughing up possession early in the tackle count. At one point we even managed to give away a penalty in our own 20 with ball in hand !!
I completely agree that effort alone doesn't win you games, which is why I get annoyed when people say that players need to play "with passion" and "play for the shirt". That's all well and good but you need the skill to match the emotional side, having the skill is the primary attribute in any sport in order to win games. I said in my earlier post that we need to respect the ball more than we do and not make it easy for the opposition to get the territorial advantage, otherwise we will continue to do an excessive amount of tackling. We have to make it as hard as possible for teams attacking our line which means keeping them as far away as possible.
I think that's why a lot of people get frustrated with Saints at the moment. It's like it's harder for them to do the basics right than it actually should be.