|
Rank | Posts | Team |
Club Captain | 124 | No Team Selected |
Joined | Service | Reputation |
Aug 2015 | 9 years | |
Online | Last Post | Last Page |
Dec 2020 | Nov 2020 | LINK |
Milestone Posts |
|
Milestone Years |
|
Location |
|
Signature |
: |
|
| We Has the saying goes "you pay your money and have the right to have your say" and that should always be the case however when some find it really hard to give credit when its due then it gets boring. From his very first day Radford said the culture of the Club was in a poor state,he had players who clearly were not good enough and others who thought they were better then they thought.His first task was to change it and over the time he has and still some feel the need to have a dig.Make no mistake we witnessed some very poor showings but you could see that the culture was changing.Now we see a squad who play with passion ,fight every inch of the way ,a squad who respect the coach,a squad who respect the fans and that has been created by Radford
|
|
Rank | Posts | Team |
International Star | 2490 | No Team Selected |
Joined | Service | Reputation |
Mar 2015 | 10 years | |
Online | Last Post | Last Page |
Mar 2020 | Mar 2020 | LINK |
Milestone Posts |
|
Milestone Years |
|
Location |
|
Signature |
73680_1515668157.jpg [size=85:3idnpzvq]Cup Winners: 1914, 1982, 2005, 2016, 2017.
Cup Runners-Up: 1908, 1909, 1910, 1922, 1923, 1959, 1960, 1980, 1983, 1985, 2008, 2013.
League Champions: 1920, 1921, 1936, 1956, 1958, 1983.
League Runners-Up: 1957, 1982, 1984, 2006.[/size:3idnpzvq]:d7dc4b20b2c2dd7b76ac6eac29d5604e_73680.jpg |
|
| I imagine that most of us at some point have been critical of Radford, I certainly have. Nobody is going to have a pop at someone expressing their concerned opinion and criticism when performances weren't good enough. Unfortunately, a lot of people do so without seeing the bigger picture.
The problem we had on here was that certain people took it way too far. Online petitions calling for him to be sacked, false accusations of him bullying some youngsters in the squad, personal insults thrown his way - and that was just on here. I can't imagine the crap he had to put up with from 'fans' having a go at him in the street.
As fans looking in, we have no idea how bad the situation was when Radford took over. The laziest argument someone can make is "well Gentle took us to two 6th placed finishes and a cup final, then the following season under Radford we come 11th". An unbelievably naïve & sloppy argument, made without any insight and taking into account no other variables.
2014 was a write off. The new players that season were all Gentle/McRae signings, we had a huge cap management issue they had to start sorting out - to continue bringing this season up and pinning it on Radford is again lazy at best. As a club we had to effectively start again from scratch, rebalancing the cap, shipping out the deadwood, changing the culture and god knows what else. This isn't done overnight, and we took a hit for it with the 11th placed finish.
People are also right that Radford was appointed a little too early in his coaching career, but Pearson obviously saw something in him (that as fans we're not privy to), and we know now that he is capable of learning, adapting, recognising the issues and fixing them.
2015 was nothing to write home about, even though the league position was much improved. We still had the Gentle/McRae legacy to put to bed, done so in the end by offloading Westerman and Lineham. We seemed to sort out our defence, baring a couple of blowouts, we were defensively very good, and you could see the effort going into it from the players. The stats show we weren't that far off, we were just woeful in the oppositions 20. The end of the year showed us a much better brand of rugby and the emerging of some promising youngsters, along with some excellent recruitment for 2016.
Now we're seeing the product from all that effort, and Radford has to take a fair share of the credit for that. We're sitting at the top end of the table, yet we still have improvement in us. Season's naturally ebb and flow, you can't play to your peak every week, we'll lose a few games, but at the moment it's looking good and hopefully we're all pretty happy so far.
|