[Mild Rover]

Re: Oh Dear - Things need to change.........QUICK : Fri Apr 06, 2018 11:08 am  

REDEOD wrote:

I actually think the teams conditioning is back to where it was in the Morgan era. It’s the recruitment policy that seems to have back fired, going for lighter more mobile forwards who are grafters but through no fault of their own are unable to win the contact rather than size and impact. Unfortunately the squad are carrying too many players of this ilk.

In the Morgan era I think, to some degree, there was enough quality around that a different approach was more feasible - for us and some of our rivals. Mobility didn't always work then (England at the 2008 WC for example, and we still took the odd hammering), but it was a bit more likely.

As quality has become harder to find, I think there's been a tendency to rely a bit more on athleticism/power to compensate. Cas have taken a different approach, and won a lot of games too. But we seem to be unthreateningly underpowered and conservative. I suspect our squad has really good fitness levels (as opposed to strength), and is trying to tire out bigger opponents. But even Sugar Ray Robinson struggled and lost when stepping up to light heavyweight - and realistically we ain't a RL equivalent of Sugar Ray Robinson.

Tbf, I think Sandercock's Weyman, Poore, Langley and Costigan 2014 round of recruitment was trying to get us that physical dominance, but none of them made it to the start line in 2015.

Re: Oh Dear - Things need to change.........QUICK : Fri Apr 06, 2018 11:50 am  

Mild Rover wrote:

In the Morgan era I think, to some degree, there was enough quality around that a different approach was more feasible - for us and some of our rivals. Mobility didn't always work then (England at the 2008 WC for example, and we still took the odd hammering), but it was a bit more likely.

As quality has become harder to find, I think there's been a tendency to rely a bit more on athleticism/power to compensate. Cas have taken a different approach, and won a lot of games too. But we seem to be unthreateningly underpowered and conservative. I suspect our squad has really good fitness levels (as opposed to strength), and is trying to tire out bigger opponents. But even Sugar Ray Robinson struggled and lost when stepping up to light heavyweight - and realistically we ain't a RL equivalent of Sugar Ray Robinson.

Tbf, I think Sandercock's Weyman, Poore, Langley and Costigan 2014 round of recruitment was trying to get us that physical dominance, but none of them made it to the start line in 2015.

Always had a lot of respect for Mick. Retired in 2015 with dignity after his knee surgery.

He returned home to run a farm if I remember right , he knew he wasn’t for to play and was taking up a cap space so he did the right thing for himself and more importantly the club , respect to the guy.

Unlike Campese who mugged the club off .