For me the crux of what’s been wrong over the last three seasons is our inability to do the full 80. It’s not losing, we expect that we know we are not the best. It’s our inability to win from a winning position, it’s the now dreaded half time team talk for me.
How many games have we lost the last few years from being ahead at half time or certainly well in the game. That’s the bit I can’t accept.
Even if you look at our four victories only the Hudds game could be called anything like a complete performance.
Wigan and lowly Leigh nearly came back to pinch it and even HKR dominated for the last 20 and were unlucky to go a man down.
This is the killer for me, it’s like a just enough mentality. No joy or desire to dominate or climb the table. Just enough to stay above Leigh, it’s pathetic at times, you can see the cue go on the rack.
I know in some games the effort has been there but the mental toughness isn’t and there seems to be an invisible trigger point where we decide we can’t win. That wasn’t the Trinity of a few years ago.
There is something wrong and it’s deeper than just not being able to afford the best, we’ve never been able to afford the best.
Put simply I. I longer think we are a team, the players don’t play for the coach, for each other or for the club and that will prove disastrous at some point. The last few years we’ve been lucky with London and Leigh and Toronto but that can’t last.
My theories may be wrong but like everyone else I believe something has to give.
