: Mon Feb 23, 2009 11:32 pm  

getdownmonkeyman wrote:

Yet we have a group of talented players??????

Yep. The things I noted as factors - concentration, skill levels, fitness levels, tactics and decision making - can all apply to talented players.

Skills need to be worked on constantly to be maintained and improved.

Fitness is a clear thing that can be improved through good training programmes.

Tactics, clearly a coaching issue.

Decision making, can be due to players not handling pressure well, or poor tactical awareness which can be worked on.

Concentration - this is one of our big areas, and I think this is through mental toughness and awareness of what is happening around them. Poor fitness levels can affect concentration levels.

The above things are factors in our lack of success, and none of these are factors which must have been caused by off-field issues.

People talk about all the years of under-achievement, yet for how many years have we actually spent the same as the top teams? 4 or 5 or so. These are the years that we should compare ourselves with the big 4, and I agree that we have underachieved in these years, as we should have been top 4 each of these years, but prior to that, when you look back at the squads, we had pants players in some positions.

: Mon Feb 23, 2009 11:38 pm  

I've said before, I'll only concede, that these players aren't good enough when they are given a coach with a pedigree and they still fail to deliver success. If that's the case, I'd then advacate a complete squad overhaul, until then, I'm still of the belief that we haven't had the correct man in charge to provide leadership and get this squad to realise it's potential. What makes me sad, is that I thought Cull could be that man, his passion along with the progress that we were making in 2005, I thought we'd get there but sadly never did.

I think Tony Smith would fancy his chances of getting this lot to a final given say, 2 years and a few tweaks of personnel.