Quote: Once were Loiners "While there are some glaring problems (today's prop and centres are bottom of the league stuff even on paper and we have frighteningly little depth in some areas) the team isn't quite as bad as it looks in terms of ability. Letting in 40 at home is as much about effort and teamwork as anything else. I've seen worse teams on paper do better if they put the effort in for 80 minutes. Its a cliche but true - get your defence sorted and make yourself hard to beat first, then the attacking play will follow.
The season this feels most like is 1983-84. Team fell to bits under Dewhurst and got no better under David Ward and Alan Smith as caretakers. We got in Maurice Bamford. Took him a little while to get going (I think we nearly lost to Blackpool in the John Player in his first game) before he turned us into a competitive unit. The team was unrecognizably better within weeks.
I don't think we'll see such a turnaround under any coach during the season, but the key was bringing in a real outsider as coach for the first time in a decade. Get it right and we'll be looking forward to next year. Get it wrong and we'll be back here next year with the same story. Over to you GH.....'"
A lot of good points. Makes me feel old. Queensland slaughtered us before Bamford came in, think 58-2 if memory serves.
I went to that game at Blackpool we were pretty poor. Losing with a few minutes to go when Dave Heron and John Holmes worked a runaround and we scored off a pass that was at least a yard forward, we then went 17 unbeaten and won the John Player. He got the spirit right. They were in terminal decline but he got a tune out of Holmes, Dick and Ward and they were players other could follow, particularly Wardy who bled blue and amber and had attitude that in comparison could make JJB & Peacock look mildly disinterested.
It’s a different world now but if you run harder with and without the ball than the opposition you’ve got a chance and we need that now.
It feels to me just the like the 80’s, an out of touch, useless board/ senior management.
Never thought I’d think that with GH.