Now we have an upcoming game with a new broom, and either the game is irrelevant, if you believe we're down, or else one of a long series of win-them-all must-wins if you're an eternal optimist, I return to the question of making an effort.

Somebody recently posted a ludicrous post to the effect that it was ridiculous to accuse any SL player of lack of effort. i respectfully and totally disagree (even our own players and coaches have done it) but what I am wondering is, will we now see a quantum leap in the APPARENT effort from the team?

It is a good day to ask, as another team that suffers from a similar malaise, the England soccer team, has a bit of a crunch match on today too, and there is I think a good parallel to be drawn:

England played Italy - when not in possession, they regularly just surrendered huge swathes of the midfield. They basically let Italy walk around and take the time to do what they wanted. Now I don't care if basically the coach even wanted this, the fact is there were huge gaps of effort, people just dropping back and basically waiting around.

What I love to see though is bust-a-gut effort as demonstrated by the Chile team, who comprehensively out-Spained Spain. When you watched them endlessly harass and chase and gang up on any Spain player who ever had the ball, for 90 minutes, that is what I call effort. Like Barcelona typically do. No space, no time on the ball. Forcing mistakes and showing no respect. And when someone goes on an attacking run, 3 or 4 or more players busting a gut to make supporting runs, every time.

We could do similar. When the opposition has the ball, we could sprint back to the line and then run out and meet them. We could have two or three players in every tackle. And when we are attacking we could have nobody stood about but players running lines and angles and giving the opposition food for thought. But most times, we don't. We can do it, on odd occasions our defence has proved it can be immense, but most times, as a team, we simply don't make enough of an effort, and fundamentally that isn't the reason why we have so many defeats, but it is most cdefinitely why we have endured so many paggerings. People talk of loss of confidence but you don't have to have any confidence to run and work.

Chile out Spained Spain because they knew they could beat them. If that game had been played 12 months ago (or even before the Spain v Holland game) they wouldn't have shown anything like the same commitment because they wouldn't have had the same self belief. Effort is a state of mind.

I partly agree, but I don't see why even an out-of-form Chile couldn't harass and chase the Spanish all over the pitch in similar fashion.

What about Leeds/Leigh, with a bit more compsure Leigh would have won.

More startling breaking news. We have hit rock bottom says Chev Walker: www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... ock_bottom This will come as a hell of a shock to us all. We had been under the impression that we were skipping hand in hand with Jesus over rainbows toward a top 8 finish, but apparently things aren't quite as shiny as we thought.

More startling breaking news. We have hit rock bottom says Chev Walker: www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... ock_bottom This will come as a hell of a shock to us all. We had been under the impression that we were skipping hand in hand with Jesus over rainbows toward a top 8 finish, but apparently things aren't quite as shiny as we thought.

You lost me when you started talking about football.

In theory they should be able to. Although an in form Spain would have matched them in the harassment levels and then out passed them. Professional sportsmen and women should be able to maintain a consistent level of effort. But in practise it doesn't work that way. They go into the game probably expecting to give their best but energy levels vary from "flat" to "heroic".

Effort varies from game to game and also within games. Think back to that epic Halifax v Bulls game in 1997. For 60 mins we were totally "out enthused" then completely reversed that for the last 20 mins. That was a very committed and professional team so how do you explain the difference in energy, or effort, levels during the course of the game?

You are, though.

It's normal for performances to vary, a lot sometimes. We all know what being "on form" is even if nobody can explain it, we all know how a game can change in a breath if a team gets "on a roll", even if we can't explain it. We all know that having looked beaten, a team can suddenly be transformed by scoring a try, and the momentum in the game reverses, but it's hard to explain. So I would say it's normal.

As regards my point, if I was a Chile fan and they played with that effort and commitment but lost, I'd clap and cheer them off the field. And in our case, it isn't so much variations, you'd always expect them, it's the opposite really, it is the sheer number of times we have played unmitigated crap, with a number of players both visibly, and according to the coach, "not turning up". I would always naturally tend to make and accept excuses for the players but many of them have been so consistently poor that i won't do it any more, and when the coach confirms to me he has numbers of players that don't turn up then I know it isn't my imagination.

Of course another well known effect is the New Coach Effect. I'm hoping we will see some of that, but I worry that if those players who don't want to turn up stay in that mindset, then what the rest do won't help. You can't play rugby with half-a-dozen non-triers in the team, and that was what Cummins suggested he had got.

Players stop trying when they believe their effort is pointless week after week. It is utterly demoralising and takes leadership to rally people in that situation. Lack of effort is a subsidiary problem stemming from the main problem, the squad is extremely poor.

There are three main reasons for this. The first is obviously the financial shambles impacting upon the club over the last 4 years and more recently the loss of key players.

The second one is that the players the club have signed are worse than the ones they replaced ie Adam Henry. Keeping Walker and Foster and releasing other players looks like a mistake, although difficult to quantify given the financial mess.

The third is that a number of key forwards have gone backwards. Sidlow, Nas, Olbison, Addy appear to have lost weight/size and have considerably less impact than in previous seasons.

To suggest the current problems are down to a lack of effort is simplistic. Effort collapses where there is no hope. It has been evident for months that the players didn't believe in Cummins and turned up waiting to get beat.

An important question is how we can display our ideas and team strengths to the rest when we feel we must proceed with caution and realise whast needs to be done for the future .

You mean me, the physcology of sport ls an infinitly difficult subject, you have used a contrast between the England approach and Chile's, I'll provide you with another ,the Ivory Coast game, they were poor and losing until Didier Drogba was introduced, it was like a completely different team and they scored 2 goals within 10 minutes

Now RL is an even more difficult sport to quantify as the physical aspect of the game is much more intense and involved, football doesnt have the level of physical competition that RL has

The ability to instill confidence and belief into a sportsman is incredibly difficult as is shown by the wages paid to the top coaches, in football we currently have Jose Mourinho who posseses that special something , Brian Clough was able to make average players perform to much higher levels as explained when some of these players left to play for other clubs

In RL Alex Murphy was able to instill confidence like no other coach, Ian Millward took a bunch of no hopers at Leigh and turned round the whole club, then improved a team full of quality at Saints, failed miserably at Wigan

That something ' special ' is what everybody is trying to find, but finding it is the hard part

And we of course had Sir Peter Fox so we have seen water turned into wine first hand, well, at least the ancients did.

All you say is perfectly valid but the comment that it was ridiculous toaccuse any player of lack of effort is ridiculous itself. I'd accept that lack of other things such as confidence and self-belief are contributory factors but none of them stop a player busting a gut till the final whistle. And we can see from the terraces whether he does or whether he doesn't.

I should point out that this year we were apparently the first team ever to employ a permanent resident sports psychology shrink so it isn't as if th club exactly overlooked the psychology side. The question would be, WTF happened there?

I suspect we would win the league if it was decided by falling backwards off chairs into the arms of team mates.

Psychology is only going to work if players buy into it and also accept that the team's aims are achievable. The goal for the Bulls this season would be "avoid relegation" (which in itself isn't much of a positive). From a starting point of -6 points, a decimated squad and all the early season uncertainty it would have to be someone special to change minds. The overriding attitude this season has been one of resignation. There's no excuse for not trying but you can see the reason why it seems pointless to go out and bust a gut.