Stephen18 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2024 7:08 pm
sapajo wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2024 4:19 pm
I have often posted that Tigers lack genuine pace and a ball carrying threat. I thought we solved that issue signing OHC and Watson not to mention Wiese.
Strikes me that OHC as has been widely muted is a different player from when he was at Irish, Watson is still long term injured and Wiese is off.
I am left thinking we are therefore back to square one lacking genuine pace and a ball carrying threat.
Anyone care to comment if they agree or disagree with my observation?
Your right tigers do lack pace, and have done since Johnny may, but we also seem to lack the creativity to use pace, so it would just be wasted if we had it.
Looking at the games today and yesterday those most teams seem so comfortable with ball in hand and offloading, and that not down to missing an attacking coach for 1season these are core skills that you’d assume pretty much all professional rugby players should have.
It's lack of clarity, not skills. The Saints players know exactly what they're supposed to do in almost every situation, which leads to quick decisions and accuracy. We repeatedly look unsure of what to do, which leads to hesitation and mistakes.
Why is this? The two easiest answers are:
1) Saints have had Vesty telling them what to do for years, so they know exactly what he wants and it's almost second nature. There's a really good article with quotes from Freeman illustrating the thought processes they go through in attack. Contrastingly, our players have had about a million different coaches over the last few years, no doubt all telling them different things.
2) Saints have better coaches than us.
It might be either answer, it might be a bit of both, it might be neither. However, consistency and clarity of message from coaches is critical and we have not had that recently. If that is the issue, you would expect significant improvements after a few more matches and a good pre-season...