No more excuses please!

[mol2]

We've had a season of poor performances blamed on injuries, England the Lions........
However today we had a near full team.
We played a poor team that has no front row and scraped a win.
Last week we played the bottom side who haven't looked like winning and scraped a win.

Most of our top players are back. Yes Croft and Manu are out but Croft's replacement is keeping out an up and coming Argentinian international.
Manu's replacement (Matt Smith) is so highly regarded he force an international centre out to the wing (Goneva) and a former England centre to full back.

Our scrum half spends half the match telling the ref how to do his job and our departing fly half and captain looks lost. However they are Tigers players and in spite of a French international scrum half and an up and coming Welsh fly half on the bench we can't bring ourselves to make the changes. Mele cones on for 5 minutes and Williams warms the bench.

Today's tactics - hope we get a scrum and get a penalty that's kickable!

This side is rudderless.
Where is the coaching? Our head coach spent the first half of the season banned leaving a support team of 2 recently retired players with no experience of coaching anywhere else but Tigers.

The Tigers way was once the best but quite frankly we play like "inbreds" utterly unable to adapt to a changing game.

[Smurphswillgetya]

We've had a season of poor performances blamed on injuries, England the Lions........
However today we had a near full team.
We played a poor team that has no front row and scraped a win.
Last week we played the bottom side who haven't looked like winning and scraped a win.

I see the word win twice in two sentences, so if you have a pipe I could make a suggestion.

[wardy]

Entirely agree.

It strikes me that all is not well behind the scenes. When two players from the same side face up to each other as Flood and Mulipola did, it is surely a sign of frustration. The coaching of this team leaves a lot to be desired - devoid of ideas and devoid of any penetration. The loss of Matt O'Connor has been mentioned on other threads and I think it's time to look at the coaching structure. I'm not entirely suggesting that Cockers should be shown the door but we desperately need an attack coach.

The time for excuses is over.

[drc_007]

Entirely agree.

It strikes me that all is not well behind the scenes. When two players from the same side face up to each other as Flood and Mulipola did, it is surely a sign of frustration. The coaching of this team leaves a lot to be desired - devoid of ideas and devoid of any penetration. The loss of Matt O'Connor has been mentioned on other threads and I think it's time to look at the coaching structure. I'm not entirely suggesting that Cockers should be shown the door but we desperately need an attack coach.

The time for excuses is over.

The problem with promoting from within when someone leaves is that you lose what the departing person had to offer but don't have an influx of new ideas. In retrospect it might have been better if Geordan had gone elsewhere for a couple of years and Tigers brought in someone else in the meantime.

[Big Dai]

We've had a season of poor performances blamed on injuries, England the Lions........
However today we had a near full team.
We played a poor team that has no front row and scraped a win.
Last week we played the bottom side who haven't looked like winning and scraped a win.

I see the word win twice in two sentences, so if you have a pipe I could make a suggestion.

"For when the One Great Scorer comes To mark against your name, He writes – not that you won or lost –But how you played the Game."

Often taken as "you played well and lost" but equally applicable to "You played like a bunch of dysfunctional donkeys but despite your best efforts to the contrary you still managed to win."

Stick that three lace holes up your own pipe!

[Smurphswillgetya]

It's strange and without mentioning any names (Mol2, Wardy, Mike etc) it seems that some people just wait with their knives until Tigers perform badly or lose. Never any praise when Tigers win though!

[mol2]

We've had a season of poor performances blamed on injuries, England the Lions........
However today we had a near full team.
We played a poor team that has no front row and scraped a win.
Last week we played the bottom side who haven't looked like winning and scraped a win.

I see the word win twice in two sentences, so if you have a pipe I could make a suggestion.

We are struggling against rubbish sides.
We could well have lost both matches which should have been bonus point wins.
The players were almost coming to blows (and not with the opposition).

[Noddy555]

Agree with most of what has been said so far, but I have a suggestion to make. I hear Ben Youngs is getting married this year in the summer, can't we persuade him to move the ceremony to next week and take a 3 month sabbatical as a honeymoon. Today he was just awful, hesitant, indecisive and appeared to have
little meaningful communication with either backs or forwards. At the moment they are all playing like a team of talented? individuals with no cohesive team
plan, always moving the ball sideways with only gradual forward movement.
Is it a coaching problem? If Cockers can't solve it maybe its time for him to move on?

[Big Dai]

Agree with most of what has been said so far, but I have a suggestion to make. I hear Ben Youngs is getting married this year in the summer, can't we persuade him to move the ceremony to next week and take a 3 month sabbatical as a honeymoon. Today he was just awful, hesitant, indecisive and appeared to have
little meaningful communication with either backs or forwards. At the moment they are all playing like a team of talented? individuals with no cohesive team
plan, always moving the ball sideways with only gradual forward movement.
Is it a coaching problem? If Cockers can't solve it maybe its time for him to move on?

You could be right mate. Man management is as important as technique development.

[Big Dai]

It's strange and without mentioning any names (Mol2, Wardy, Mike etc) it seems that some people just wait with their knives until Tigers perform badly or lose. Never any praise when Tigers win though!

If it were a praiseworthy win I would praise it, likewise a praiseworthy defeat

Rugby to me was always about the effort, the skills and how you played the game. Less about the result.

[MJ Chairman]

Problem is simple and I'm afraid a lot of it comes down to the bloke wearing the 10 shirt and captaining the side. If you get the chance watch the bt coverage and Austin's comments and realise that the issue isn't necessarily at Ben Youngs door.

[wardy]

It's strange and without mentioning any names (Mol2, Wardy, Mike etc) it seems that some people just wait with their knives until Tigers perform badly or lose. Never any praise when Tigers win though!

I'm entitled to an opinion just as much as you are SWGY. I'm frustrated that this team is not performing as it should given the quality of players at hand. And I'm certainly not one who takes the knife out at any available opportunity. Wash your mouth out!

[TomR96]

I completely agree! How many excuses do we come up with such as injuries and players on international duties... even though I'm sure other teams will be suffering the same if not worse. We had a pretty full strength side this week and last, and still can't put 4 tries past each against the bottom half of the league.

That is seriously worrying, and either a massive shake up is needed in the coaching. If players don't perform one week, then drop them! It's as simple as that. For the past 12 weeks, Ben Youngs hasn't been performing, and Cockerill still considers him to be England's No1 scrumhalf, yet only Tigers. What does Mele need to do to prove himself, he already did in the first round of the Aviva Premiership. Does Cockerill really think Toby Flood is suited to being captain, when he offers very little in attack, has a lack of passion and frankly looks like he doesn't want to play. Just give the captaincy to Salvi, who always offers 100% and always comes off the pitch with blood dripping down his face! That is passion!

The whole coaching staff needs out, and bring back Pat Howard!

[speedski]

Problem is simple and I'm afraid a lot of it comes down to the bloke wearing the 10 shirt and captaining the side. If you get the chance watch the bt coverage and Austin's comments and realise that the issue isn't necessarily at Ben Youngs door.

Have just finished doing just that..Flood seriously needs to stop shaking his head and sort him self out, or pack up and go grow some garlic.

I don't buy Cockerill needs to go, I think he just needs some support and stop being so afraid to use the bench. Williams should have been given a run when two kicks missed in such a tight encounter. I fear the only reason Flood stays on the field is because he was captain - I'm afraid thats just plain wrong.

[chinnjamie]

We were garbage, and that's an understatement. Flood was very very poor and took his anger out on Fluffy, which isn't the cleverest thing to do either. He seems to be trying to play his way into some form by keeping the ball all the time, but is succeeding in nothing but ignoring and annoying his backline.