barham red wrote:
Its a real difficult one for me, I'm telling myself its only a friendly and the team aren't up to speed yet but, ands its a Kim Kardashian sized but, this game looked like it could have been played a week after the regular season. Same failings and same team shape.
Bang on BR. This is the crux of the problem for me. We looked like a Middle 8 team going through the motions and a better imitation of last year's side than I honestly thought possible. The mood in the stadium was sombre, bordering on anger and dismay at times and without immediate improvement, we face another long and disappointing season.
Chezzie said in various media soundbites beforehand words like "real competition for places in the squad" and "strength in depth" and "trained the house down" and "can't wait to get out there and compete and blow the cobwebs off" and "Matty Marsh is maturing in to a good player by taking on the line more and developing a good kicking Game" and best of all "I'm less concerned about the result, but more focused on the performance."
After the game, he says - "we were flat from minute 1" and "we didn't compete" and "we were soft in the tackle" and "there's plenty to work on next week" and "Huddersfield bossed it".
These are frighteningly familiar noises. I think the enormity of the task has just dawned on him and he is beginning to realise that there is a whole gulf in class and approach between top 4 and bottom 4 in SL at the mo.
Any team needs to put down a performance marker for the season, for the fans and for the coach in terms of where they are on the transition scale, whether in a preseason friendly or not. On the basis of yesterday's game that marker was clearly flying 6 bloody enormous banners stating, NO LEADERSHIP, NO SECOND ROW, NO DEFENCE, NO INTENSITY, NO CREATIVITY, NO DESIRE.
Get it up on the walls of our changing room, Chezzie and get it sorted out or foxtrot oscar and let someone else get stuck in.
