Doom and Gloom

[ay2oh]

Reading this message board recently there seems to be an air of despondency around the club who it seems can do no right. A number of players released should have been kept, the new signings aren’t good enough, the head coach is out of his depth, the clubs communication is poor and the season ticket prices are too high.
Although we haven’t pulled up any trees this season let’s remember England took most of our coaches and we have operated without a backs coach for a large part of the season through no fault of our own. Add to this we had 10 internationals away for the first four games and have had our fair share of injuries.
I for one am a little disappointed with how things have gone but one more win and we would have been top four contenders. The signings to date have been good IMO but would have liked a couple more certainly another centre and no 8.
However, let’s get behind the boys as I’m sure that next season with a new backs coach( if rumours are true)and with a full compliment of players we will be right up there. No doubt there will be lots of people that disagree with me but that’s ok.

[westwinds31]

Agreed. Everything has to be now, instant success and if it's not forthcoming it's "sack the coaches". There's no patience. All we want to see is improvements, that's the frustration for me. There are obviously factors around why that hasn't happened and I understand that.

[Leicestertinytiger]

The problem with this take is that it’s too simplistic and a bit hyperbolic. I’ve seen no one on this forum not support the players or the club - just voice their frustration.

If you take this season purely on its own merits then yes, fans should be patient. DMK is a proven coach and our actual stats when it’s comes to defence, scrum and lineout are good. We’re in the bottom two for attack but hopefully that is being rectified with a new attack coach.

BUT you can’t just look at this season on its own because that’s not how things work. Basically from 2017 there’s been a high turnover of coaches and players, granted it all isn’t the clubs fault. But at the end of the day you see Exeter and Saracens with settled coaching and playing squads and people are rightly asking questions. Yes you can go into the nuances of each one but at the end of the day it’s not a great look the way things have been for 5+ years when we’re the biggest club and with that comes expectations.

[RagingBull]

I guess a question could be when do expectations become a hindrance?

How long was Borthwick going to get to find success? I still feel that season we became very fortunate in a lot of things out of our control. The bulk of our squad was not England internationals we had no Lions. We basically had the whole team for the whole preseason which lead to an amazing unbeaten run.

The only game I can think of with major player availability issues was Wasps away.

So like how much does that one season change the expectations?

[TigerFeetSteve]

I think when 3 games from the end of the season is the first time we've had our first choice pack on a pitch together it says something.

Cronin Montoya Cole
Martin Chessum
Liebenberg Wiese Reffell

[sk 88]

If the season ends as some fear it will be our third worst season in league rugby, the third worst in my lifetime.

In our last 9 games we have: lost by 33, 17, 10, 14, and 23. And one where we threw it away on the final play to lose by 2.
We've beaten: A championship team by 8 with a last second score, a team that might as well be in the Championship by 6 and hanging on by a thread, then a 1 point victory where their kicker missed a 90% kick in the 79th minute.

This is a prolonged spell of really very poor performances. I'm not going to apologise for not being happy with that.

We HAVE to win this weekend then at least 1 of Sale or Exeter.

[DeadlyDunc]

I appreciate this is not the point of the thread but I just think we've lost (for a wide ranging and multi faceted set of reasons) many of our best players this past 2-3 years and replaced them with bang average.

As noted on other threads, come the summer we'll have lost Genge, Dolly, Nephi, Green, Jasper, MVS, Brink, Wiggs, Ford, Burns, Potter, Moroni, Scott, Porter, Ashton, Nadolo plus squad players like FVW, Muri, Gopperth, Socino, Taute, Hegarty.

The players we have kept by way of replacement are Rogerson, Cracknell, Bassett, Shillcock, FTT, Kata, Hatherall, Brown, Whiteley, Watson, Cronin, OHC, Pollard, Wilkinson plus Beets, Smith, Perese for next season.

IMO the quality between the two lists is pretty stark when you think that Reffell, Heyes, Chessum, Steward, Martin & JVP were already in the squad so not stepping into fill gaps, they were already key squad players.

If I am generous, then I'd suggest Hegarty - Shillcock ; Kata - Scott ; Brown - Muri ; Watson - Ashton ; Ford - Pollard are about equal notwithstanding injury or dips in form. Hopefully Smith ; FVW will be an improvement.

That equates to 6 out of roughly 20 as balanced but none (with the exception of maybe Smith) significantly better IMO. We know we can't replace Wiese in a direct sense, and there is a hope Perese will be as good as Porter but even WITH Wiese its still a vastly weaker squad than what we had even 2 years ago.

All this is to make the point that DMK has a tough job. Indeed, once the RWC took players and we got injuries to key players like JVP, Martin etc - anyone would have had a tough tough job to get this squad to compete with the top domestic teams as the quality - outside of our best XV - just isn't there compared to previous years.

If we are where we are for next season in terms of recruitment then we realistically have to hope the likes of L Chessum, Carnduff, Ilione, Perese, Beets, Hurd, Woodward all step up and hit the ground running and their performances go beyond some of the squad players we've played this season.

[jgriffin]

A lot of complainers were asking for more youth - Carnduff, Illione, Woodward, Beets, possibly others like Chessum, L. that's quite a few to go along side Chessum O etc. I think next year will be the crux of McKellar's tenure, and will very much depend on the quality of further coaching appointments.

[Leicestertinytiger]

I’ve always wondered that season about how much did Ford basically run the attack, especially in the backs, behind the scenes in training.

I think Pollard is the better player. I’ve no real evidence but just get the feeling that Ford was almost like a player / coach that season and added so much on the training field. Something we don’t get to see.

That 21/22 winning squad also had insane strength in depth. Mainly because academy players were breaking through so were probably paid below their worth. Plus we picked up Moroni etc after Covid who again were probably on reduced contracts. I would be hard to get that sort of quality under the salary cap in normal circumstances.

[RagingBull]

If the season ends as some fear it will be our third worst season in league rugby, the third worst in my lifetime.

In our last 9 games we have: lost by 33, 17, 10, 14, and 23. And one where we threw it away on the final play to lose by 2.
We've beaten: A championship team by 8 with a last second score, a team that might as well be in the Championship by 6 and hanging on by a thread, then a 1 point victory where their kicker missed a 90% kick in the 79th minute.

This is a prolonged spell of really very poor performances. I'm not going to apologise for not being happy with that.

We HAVE to win this weekend then at least 1 of Sale or Exeter.

Of those losses you mentioned
2 against Leinster who have beat us by 31 points last season
1 against La Rochelle away

Don't disagree it's a prolonged spell BUT the poor spell is imo more the since the break when we have done worse than expected. We where the better team v Ealing in every other facet outside of the front row in which we had a 4th choice TH and a 3rd choice LH with a 4th choice Hooker in the middle against 2 props who arguably would be second choice props at least for 90% of the Prem league. How many times have we won games off the back of a scrum alone? (Also both props going end of season)
Yes we beat Quins because of a last minute missed kick, but same time it took quins 80 minutes to get into that position to win despite being at home. The majority of the game we outplayed them. Certainly watching that Glous game switching off for 10 minutes is def an issue though.

Just before La Rochelle we beat Sarries by 9, Bath by 13.

There is certainly a very valid worry that McKellar has some managing issues, both post preseason and post mid season break we have looked sluggish coming out of it, as well as his selection policies in some games. Exeter away a big one for me. It's def a big case of lack of premiership exposure.

[TigerFeetSteve]

That 21/22 winning squad also had insane strength in depth. Mainly because academy players were breaking through so were probably paid below their worth. Plus we picked up Moroni etc after Covid who again were probably on reduced contracts. I would be hard to get that sort of quality under the salary cap in normal circumstances.

That's massively underrated thing there.

We took a stance during Covid that caused a standoff and player loss.

So we had recruitment to do.

We had JvP, Steward, Martin, Reffell all break through similarly.

Potter, Porter & Wiese all signed as (relative) unknowns.

Moroni signed on a cut price deal with collapsing clubs.

Got lucky with injuries, had Montoya away, OTY early retirement, Clare injured, so the unknown Nic Dolly as 4th choice gets rocketed up to an England call up

Then as we try to manage all those guys onto new contracts that mean Steward etc are on International wages not Academy wages, that coincides with clubs folding so we can't take advantage of cut price deals for players as we have very limited space for new deals.

I don't think we have done bad deals, but after riding a wave to the title the next waves in the transfer market have smashed as as we've been paddling out rather than us being ready to ride them.

[mol2]

Was the salary cap not reduced?
Ultimately to make like for like swaps was always going to be unlikely.

For me loose head is our biggest weakness. Cronin is a decent bench option but rarely injury free and looks unfit. Behind him the others are even weaker. We have effectively failed to replace Genge with a Premiership quality replacement.

Backs look and play disjointed rugby. Injuries have hit our wing options, moving Freddie to wing effectively wastes an international full back. Coaching is an issue, no attacking structure or running rugby.

[TigerFeetSteve]

Was the salary cap not reduced?
Ultimately to make like for like swaps was always going to be unlikely.

For me loose head is our biggest weakness. Cronin is a decent bench option but rarely injury free and looks unfit. Behind him the others are even weaker. We have effectively failed to replace Genge with a Premiership quality replacement.

Backs look and play disjointed rugby. Injuries have hit our wing options, moving Freddie to wing effectively wastes an international full back. Coaching is an issue, no attacking structure or running rugby.

Loosehead is one where I think we've made a significant step up tbh...

We've replaced a 2nd choice with a starter. Our current 1st choice is now one of the best 2nd choices around. And our 3rd choice is getting older and will hopefully push both of those soon

[sapajo]

I appreciate this is not the point of the thread but I just think we've lost (for a wide ranging and multi faceted set of reasons) many of our best players this past 2-3 years and replaced them with bang average.

As noted on other threads, come the summer we'll have lost Genge, Dolly, Nephi, Green, Jasper, MVS, Brink, Wiggs, Ford, Burns, Potter, Moroni, Scott, Porter, Ashton, Nadolo plus squad players like FVW, Muri, Gopperth, Socino, Taute, Hegarty.

The players we have kept by way of replacement are Rogerson, Cracknell, Bassett, Shillcock, FTT, Kata, Hatherall, Brown, Whiteley, Watson, Cronin, OHC, Pollard, Wilkinson plus Beets, Smith, Perese for next season.

IMO the quality between the two lists is pretty stark when you think that Reffell, Heyes, Chessum, Steward, Martin & JVP were already in the squad so not stepping into fill gaps, they were already key squad players.

If I am generous, then I'd suggest Hegarty - Shillcock ; Kata - Scott ; Brown - Muri ; Watson - Ashton ; Ford - Pollard are about equal notwithstanding injury or dips in form. Hopefully Smith ; FVW will be an improvement.

That equates to 6 out of roughly 20 as balanced but none (with the exception of maybe Smith) significantly better IMO. We know we can't replace Wiese in a direct sense, and there is a hope Perese will be as good as Porter but even WITH Wiese its still a vastly weaker squad than what we had even 2 years ago.

All this is to make the point that DMK has a tough job. Indeed, once the RWC took players and we got injuries to key players like JVP, Martin etc - anyone would have had a tough tough job to get this squad to compete with the top domestic teams as the quality - outside of our best XV - just isn't there compared to previous years.

If we are where we are for next season in terms of recruitment then we realistically have to hope the likes of L Chessum, Carnduff, Ilione, Perese, Beets, Hurd, Woodward all step up and hit the ground running and their performances go beyond some of the squad players we've played this season.

Your bang on! Nothing wrong with supporters setting high expectations as no one but no one ever aims low. I have been a season ticket holder for some 15 years and each season I see Tigers continue to go through turmoil both on an off the pitch. That said, 2022 was the most outstanding season since 2013. I welcome the day should it ever come when we have a settled coaching team and reduced player churn. When I look around me I see less and less familiar faces as many season ticket holders have given up unhappy with the status quo. Tigers are a very well supported team and I go every home game with very high expectations as do Tigers of their players and staffs. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with jam today rather than jam tomorrow.

[INTHESINBIN]

I agree. I am mostly an observer on the forum, occasionally posting. Nonetheless, I believe it's crucial to recognise that players do pay attention to what is said about them on forums and social media platforms. While constructive criticism is valuable for highlighting areas of improvement, we are now living in a culture where it seems acceptable to relentlessly criticize individuals, especially on social media sites. No player goes into a game wanting to make mistakes or have a below average performance, and I can only imagine how unsettling it would be if every misstep or bad day at work I had was met with harsh judgement and slander from those they are hoping to support them.