Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 6:44 pm  

Dita's Slot Meter wrote:

More realistically, do you think he actually is telling them to do these basics correctly, but the players are simply not good, or intelligent, enough to carry out his instruction?

Goodness me, we aren't basking them to crack the enigma code or rid the oceans of plastic - we're asking them to move up quickly in a line.

I don't think the likes of Morgan Smithies are going to get headhunted by NASA but they seem able to understand.

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 7:10 pm  

Being a coach at the top isn’t necessarily coaching, more about managing and creating a plan.

If you watch the Smith teams of 2011/12, it’s overtly clear that the players were instructed to offload on opportunity. They were directed to pressure the kicker and try and charge down. These are obvious traits instilled by the coaches to get the best out of the players available.

If you look at the South’s team that had the 4 Burgess boys in, they had a completely different approach. There was no such push for offloads, they saw the strengths being big men running hard and playing the ball as fast as possible, no messing around.

Wane’s teams are similar. Boring to a point, as the forwards don’t do much with the ball, but suffocate you in defence. The wingers pick up the slack and do the donkey work coming away from the line. Then it’s all about shape, running the right line and the pivots waiting for the defence to guess wrong, rather than them guess right.

The problem that we’ve seen last season and parts of this, particularly in defence, is that we’re not doing the same thing. Look at Minikin for the first try on Friday. We have the numbers right, but he shoots out for no reason, with the rest holding a straight line. Same with a number of examples early in the season with Matautia and Drinkwater doing polar opposites.

These are things within the gift of a coach. It’s not as simple player doing something wrong as with a dropped ball, they are just doing something different. If everyone did what Minikin did on Friday and shot out of the line and took a man, they wouldn’t score. Human error is unavoidable, but their is evidence to suggest that the players either don’t know the plan, aren’t following the plan or struggle when under fatigue/under pressure to recall that muscle memory to get it right, which boils down to preparedness.

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 7:17 pm  

MorePlaymakersNeeded wrote:

Of the two mentioned, Sinfield debuted in 1997 and JJB in 1999, before DP coached Leeds in 2001. For balance, Danny McGuire and Rob Burrow did debut under DP at Leeds.

What annoys me is that Thewlis has been moved to the wing to accommodate Dufty, and Riley Dean hasn't had a fair chance to show what he can do. Wrench is only playing centre because of Matautia playing in the halves. Otherwise, he'd also be on the wing, or one of him and Thewlis either on the bench or not even in the 17. DP appears to have no trust in our talent that has come through from our academy, but trusted Holmes (for a season), and Matautia for 2 seasons, when they were quite frankly not good enough.

Was thinking this on Sunday when Green was only 18th man and Russell got the bench spot.

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 7:20 pm  

Some interesting points raised here.

Why do people think we won 8 on the bounce at the start of the season under Powell?
Fair enough to berate him and the team after the last 2 performances in particular but it does make me wonder why things have changed so much.
I don't think it's down to one single factor such as Makaele leaving.

Reading some old posts, I noticed that one of the things that attracted some people to Powell was he was not afraid to blood youngsters, so were they wrong or has DP changed.

Favourites - this always makes me roll my eyes.
This charge has been laid at every Wire coach (and I suspect every coach of every club) since I started watching - even TS who was one of our most successful coaches ever.
However it does seem that DP thinks the way out of our current predicament is to play seasoned professionals at the expense of 'young blood'. It seems he's not seen enough from Riley to give him a fair crack of the whip. Would we be better with Riley in the halves? I honestly don't know.
Would it be fair to Riley? Not sure, but if he has a Wire future he has to step up at some time.

Going back to the central point - do coaches make a difference - yes they should - and in numerous ways. If you've got a decent team, it's about man management, tactics and trying to improve individual and group performances by that 1-2%.

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 7:24 pm  

I’ve come to find slot meters unwavering support of powell hilarious and his post on pep sums up the type of person we’re dealing with

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 7:40 pm  

DizzyHeights wrote:

I’ve come to find slot meters unwavering support of powell hilarious and his post on pep sums up the type of person we’re dealing with

If you think my support of Powell is unwavering, then you haven't been reading my posts correctly.

(As for Pep, it's purely a personal opinion, but if you think winning trophies with the sides he has managed is a better achievement than what Ferguson and Mourinho have done, then fair enough, but I think you're wrong).

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 7:57 pm  

DizzyHeights wrote:

I’ve come to find slot meters unwavering support of powell hilarious and his post on pep sums up the type of person we’re dealing with

He’s trying to save face after I’ve been telling him for weeks we’re absolutely shocking and that Powell should go. He said it was all fine though because we was top. We’ll be out the top 6 in 3 weeks time maybe then he’ll see the light.

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 8:01 pm  

Dita's Slot Meter wrote:

If you think my support of Powell is unwavering, then you haven't been reading my posts correctly.

(As for Pep, it's purely a personal opinion, but if you think winning trophies with the sides he has managed is a better achievement than what Ferguson and Mourinho have done, then fair enough, but I think you're wrong).

Weren’t you trying to justify how it might not be powells fault our linespeed is absolute tosh by doing the basics? Wouldn’t you say the basics of a side aiming to win silverware is making sure our defenders are running up and meeting the attackers head on set after set? Because I certainly would.

Pep has spent less than United in city’s period of dominance and they can’t get anywhere near city. Everyone will see how good pep is when he eventually leaves and the standards drop

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 8:09 pm  

DizzyHeights wrote:

Pep has spent less than United in city’s period of dominance and they can’t get anywhere near city. Everyone will see how good pep is when he eventually leaves and the standards drop

Yes, of course the standards will drop, they will have had all the trophies took off them and hopefully relegated... #115

Re: How Important Is The Coach? : Sun Jun 25, 2023 8:13 pm  

Dita's Slot Meter wrote:

Yes, of course the standards will drop, they will have had all the trophies took off them and hopefully relegated... #115

I think you and I both know that won’t happen, assuming you’re a United fan I can see why you’re clinging onto it, United had the treble and three in a row on English clubs and City wiped them both out in a month. Must sting.