Ferocious Aardvark wrote:
I am not having that. The issue in the second half was nothing to do with fitness. It was about the team not being interested. They gave up. You can't even say that was due to several stiffs being in as our normal team has done the same several times, once we get behind, with us there is a risk we will put the cue on the rack, this is why we continue to get regular 50 point towellings.
Surely you'd agree that the reserves are all full-time professionals and so should have full fitness, plenty fit enough to match part-timers? And that as they were getting a rare chance, you could reasonably expect them to - if anything - play harder and with more determination than the regulars, to try to force themselves into contention for the big one?
No, they gave up. Simple as.
Well, yes and I gave solid reasons why that might have been the case, like sitting on their collective 'arrisses, with no reserve grade to occupy their thoughts, for most of the season. The bottom line is that it's part of Lowesy's remit to manage his troops and that includes their mental fitness to take part in games. This isn't a tirade against Jimmy Lowes, as I said earlier, he's done
exactly what he was tasked to do - get us into the 'big one' next weekend, but it's obvious that some of those squad members who took part against Fax, apart from not being 'match fit', looked 'disaffected' and that sort of attitude comes from the top.
It's not his fault that there is no 'reserve grade' and we certainly couldn't loan out the lot of them but they could have been used intermittently through the season and not just left out. They could have been used to give a break to the regulars a bit more often and made to feel wanted, and whatever the truth is don't know, but some of them didn't look as if they cared over much.
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