weststand-rich wrote:Hi Cp,
so was IL implying that these players had mental health problems or just that they weren't 100% committed to the cause. With Fielden, Feka and Barrett I would guess their state of mind has been (respectively) bottle gone, distracted and worried & no longer ar*ed.
It's baffling. It can't be all the coaching. This particular team has turned in some royal wins against Warrington, Bradford and Leeds and then vacillates to give us our most recent displays. How can they play convincingly well and then so badly in such short time??
They would never use mental health as the discription. Focus / motivation / confidence - well being is how they would describe it but essentially that is your mental health.
The inconsistency is the juxtaposition of two conflicting factors.
The players individually are quality players. If you put the Wigan team on paper are they not decent? far better than most? Those players are talented so at times they conjure magic up by drawing on their individual talents. That is what happens when we win or when we get a good spell of play. The old oh your a one team scenariofrom last season.
The foundation / the bedrock is the game plan / the system of play. If that is solid it allows you to have something consistent to battle through the war of attrition that makes up large parts of each game / season. It allows you to react /overcome crisis. A sending off / injuries / a refereeing mistake / some players not at their best.
Individual magic is inconsistent. It is rare/always has/always will be. It is the icing on the cake. If you rely on it, you will never achieve anything. Whatsmore, players get frustrated, they lose confidence, self belief, their heads drop, they lose respect for their coach/club, they want out.
RL players are very ordinary people, they often have a talent that they cannot even understand. Only a handful of players have the know how / rl brain to knit it together / to ensure the coaches system / game plan is executed. Now if those generals think the coach/system is not good enough you get events like Huddersfield. The players subconciously or deliberately stop even trying to execute the game plan and the foot soldiers are more and more confused. The best on field general I have seen was Wally Lewis, Shaun Edwards was the best British general. Wally Lewis could not work alongside Wayne Bennett. Lewis went. Shaun Edwards could not work alongside John Dorahay. Dorahay went. Think back to the Dorahay season. Same inconsistency, some God awful matches. Match thrown v Cas (Regal Trophy) sudden miraculous recoveries Hull in the cup, when it really mattered pulling it out the fire. - Similar tolast season play offs. A GREAT Wigan team managed that for a season, had it gone beyond thinfgs would have got worse. Do yoy honestly think Trent Barrett rates Brian Noble. Forget what he says now publically. It may be that the truth will come out when he leaves, writes an autobiography etc.
The essence of a teams structure /system of play is DEFENCE you need a team to defend. If you ever play football, defence operates at different depths vertically. The sweeper can sweep up mistakes happening in front of him. RL does not work like that. you have to fulfill your end of the bargain otherwise the other team are gone / try scored. Your end of the bargain is often not the tackle. Players can tackle. Your end of the bargain is moving up in a straight line. Minimising the option inside and outside of the ball carrier. Defence in RL is the embodyment of a team. No team, no defence. It is also the bedrock of the game and gives you consistency of performance week in week out because you know you have to dend X sets in a match, make X tackles. Do it right and when you havbe the ball you can walk in tries. Wigan won matches on defence, Saints win matches on defences, Aussies win matches on defence, Melbourne's attack is not considered great, their attack, discipline to the system of play is OUTSTANDING.
All of the above is about coaching philosophy - THE COACH The matter that IL and JL want to ignore and they do so at their peril because if you do not have the right coach, modern day RL breaks down quickly and badly. If the coach was not fundamental then why are Saints far far improved under Anderson, why are certain coaches far far more successful than others given comparable resources, why have coaches? why coach? go back to captain coaches.
Of course not. THE COACH IS THE INTERNAL HEARTBEAT OF ANY SPORTING TEAM. That is how important he is.