: Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:27 pm
I think people need to grow up.
No, it's not nice when the fans boo the team. It's not nice for the players to hear it, and it's not nice to hear it either, to be honest.
However, the reality of the matter is thus: If the team play with enthusiasm, if they get the basics right, if they actually manage to complete one on one tackles, they will be applauded - even in defeat, as per vs. leeds.
If the team don't do any of the above however, if they knock on in the first set of the game (basic, basic, basic handling skills), if they consistently give away stupid penalties, if they cannot tackle, then it becomes more and more likely that the fans' frustrations begin to manifest themselves as boos.
A lot of the above can also be down to fans' expectations being too high, which results in "booos" for performances that in years gone by (DVDV era perhaps) would have seen the team politely clapped from the field. However, the current expectations I don't believe are unrealistically high, in most (obviously not all) cases the expectation level is based on *past performances* of the same players that are in the squad now - we have seen this group of players play some tremendous Rugby League over the past couple of seasons, and to see them performing to their current standards is quite simply bewildering.