Ferocious Aardvark wrote:
Sustaining it is not the key, having that rare ability to raise the level of performance that much in the first place is the key. All of a sudden, we looked like a team that is coached, with a game plan.
This. Very interesting reading Smith comments about his selections. I must admit when i saw the line up i thought they were baffling. But reading Smiths reasoning, and the performances that backed it up, fair play. Smith scouted Leigh the week before and he is a coach that will pick a particular team to win a particular game. If we need to go big, we'll go big. If we need a fast team, he'll choose a fast team. Whereas Lowes, i always felt tactically he just wasn't good enough. He had a list of who he thought were his best players then his favourites and went with them. The line up never really changed (hence our best player couldn't walk by time the middle 8s came) We relied too many times last season on our best players getting us out of poop and when it came to the middle8s, we were found out tactically. I don't think Lowes really studied the opposition and just seemed to hope our good players would play well ad rely on that getting us the wins..
Smiths comments last week after the Sheffield game were what gave me hope. Instead of Lowe's standard "we didn't do what we practiced" Smith said specifically what we were poop at. (Kicking game and defence on right hand side)
Weirdly i felt much happier after that agonising loss than i did after we pinched it after playing at home. We look to have some structure to us.
