hmmmmmmm

And once the players cross the white line, it's up to them to execute what the coach has been telling them.

I'm pretty sure the gameplan hasn't been to throw passes to the touch judges, have zero defensive line speed and kick straight down the throat of the opposition wingers and full back.

I think our current position is the fault of all three parties. Many of the players are not playing as well as they have in previous years (some down to poor form, others down to age / fatigue).

The coach is not the strongest, and doesn't seem as switched on as our two previous coaches. His ability is not necessarily his fault though. he's just the guy in the hot seat

but I think that all of the above is in some way trumped by the role Hetherington has played. Players is his responsibility, both signing, and retaining. If players are not good enough then that's down to him signing them, or not signing better players. If a player is out of form there's not a lot he can do about that. But he also has the choice of who to work with the players.

My opinion is that in a salary capped sport you have only a few ways to get an advantage. One of the ways to do that is to get the best coach that you can to do the job. Even if we had wigan's squad we'd likely still be less successful than them because we have a poorer coach. the other main way is that you have a tightnit group of players that want to play well for each other. ironically these two main methods of getting the most out of the salary cap tend to be at odds with each other (player power etc), so we are indeed lucky to have had both concurrently for a long time prior to our recent slump

So if there passing has been so bad, their tackling non existent etc ... why has their not been a marked improvement over the season. If everyone in the stands can see the glaring holes why are they not battering the tackle bags all week?

Rugby, like most sports is a very simple game at heart yet our squad has gone from hero to zero in less than two years. Its not all Brains fault, Ive said this a zillion times, Bluey had a bad year and the players also need to step up. But the buck always, always, always stops with the coach.

These players have spent 20 years at amateur and professional level learning how to pass, catch and tackle.

They know the fundamentals, but for some reason they're not doing them out on the pitch under pressure. Even if you flog them in training, they're not going to miraculously improve at this stage in their careers.

Ok, different approach.

If under TS and Bluey (though I accept his last year was shaky) the players were world beaters (quite literally). What has happened?

I could accept that a few have, for whatever reason, not turned up much this season. What I find very difficult to understand is why the vast majority of the 17 have failed to turn up for most games.

To me that does not sound or feel like a problem with individual skills. It feels like a collective problem.

Then you need to look at the common denominator. In this case its the coach.