This has been a repeated problem with Warrington sides. It happened under Price too. When we start to get into a rut we can't get out of it and we get mired in bad form for ages.
It's because we have a complete lack of leaders in the squad. We don't have the characters who can step up and turn round a losing situation, either during a game or in a run of form.
So this is why every year we get people on here saying "if you look at our squad in terms of ability there's not much between us and Saints" but every year we are a million miles away from Saints in results.
When you have a side that folds and gets mired in to runs of bad form and can't get out of them, you've got the wrong players if you want to compete for the Grand Final. You can make excuses and say "it's just confidence...everybody gets affected by losing/when the crowd is on their backs..." ok sure, but the type of players who will win a Grand Final won't be.
I remember seeing Jamie Peacock once talking about Bradford's last title winning season in 2005. Their mid season form was up and down and they were getting stick from the fans and media and when the pressure was really building they went to Wakefield and Wakey stuck 60 points on them. It was the lowest point that Bradford team had ever been in. Peacock and a group of other senior players got the squad together and basically said this is how we're going to turn this around and they became a juggernaut for the rest of that season who smashed everybody on the way to winning the Grand Final. After that year, a lot of those senior players (including Peacock) moved to other clubs and Bradford never got close again.
We saw other seasons where Leeds or Wigan had embarrassing defeats mid season and their fans were demanding McDermott/Wane get sacked. By the end of the season they were winning the Grand Final (often against us). But in our case, we respond to a setback by being poop for the next 10 weeks.
