Couldn't agree more with this assessment. I gave him a pass for last year, based on having inerited a poor squad with far too much dead weight. But after a full offseason the signs are not good:
- No sign of defensive improvement at all. Surely it can't be impossible to turn even a weak squad into a defensive unit that's at least sufficiently competent that it doesn't ship seven tries to the bloody Dragons?
- Clearly second best in conditioning/fitness. Clearly the team hasn't trialled enough, or at the right intensity, and that could on its own cost us the next couple of games.
- Discipline still dreadful. We will be the most penalised team in the comp this year and a fair amount of that is on the coaching staff.
- General lack of tactical nous. I actually spotted this in the nines, amazingly enough. We didn't go in with any ideas about how to play the format. There's no direction - no idea about how to play to our strengths and neutralise our weaknesses. Look at Souths: they have amazing forwards and mediocre outside backs (other than Inglis), so they play a style that suits the cattle. We just have… some players. There's no identity - do they still want to play 'Tigers football' or to be a structured team? What the hell was the game plan even meant to be yesterday?
- Persisting with utter nothings like Thompson and Anasta. The latter, in particular, simply has to improve or he should get axed before March is out. I never bought 'he was moved around a lot' as an excuse last season and playing a zero alongside a young half is not acceptable.
- Desperately mediocre signings like Lulia go straight into the team. This is a nothing player we should not have signed and should not be anywhere near first grade.
- Still can't get anything out of Blair, yet still picks him. If Parramatta can dump Sandow to reggies why is Blair guaranteed a game? 45 metres yesterday: pathetic effort.
Look, I know it's one game and blah blah overreaction. But I held back from saying anything in pre-season (I thought a lot of people on here were being wildly over-optimistic about our prospects) because I wanted to see if Potter could get a couple of things right. Specifically: better defence, and a better game plan.
There was no evidence of that yesterday, and that was in a game that had to have been one of the half-dozen targets of matches we could actually win this year. The Dragons won't score 40 points in two consecutive games for most of this season - it cannot be overestimated how much of an embarrassment that performance was.
I'd give Potter a month to show that there might at least be some grounds for hope in terms of the defence. There are two more winnable games in the first four rounds - I'd say a bare minimum is to be 1-4 and not humiliated by Souths or Manly. If we can't manage that then we might as well get rid now, officially or unofficially, and have a decent amount of time to line someone competent for 2015.
