And despite all the above, it as disturbingly obvious once Host went down that an aging winger would be vulnerable defending 4 in. Problem is that Mary intended on using his backrowers for 80 minutes (as indicated in the pregame article on Leilua) and couldn’t adjust. He should have rotated other players in that position to keep them fresh. Or adjusted the defence to allow Aitken to defend further in, this reducing the load on Nighty and Nichols. Or something. If a moron like me could see the danger of expecting Nighty to punch out a full game, it shouldn’t take 4 rapid tries for the guy paid to win us games to see it.
And sure, that specific situation may not happen again, but as mentioned as nauseum it’s indicative of the greater problem Mary has with adjusting, he’s had a super charmed run so far with lack of injuries, form of key players and individual brilliance getting us over the line when our Plan A doesn’t dominate the game. But you’d be stretched to make a claim that this doesn’t have potential to cost us big time in the finals.
Yeah this is the worry. During his tenure he’s improved (again, from a very low base) a number of facets of his coaching;
Building/overseeing an effective Plan A
Improving, or at least letting players improve attacking structures/set plays
Team cohesiveness and morale
Mental resilience of the team in close tough matches (recruitment obv a big part of this too)
Team fitness/some skill building (a little)
But - his tactical use of the bench, ability to adjust tactics in game, conservatism in player selections, trust in younger players - are all deficiencies that I wish we saw evidence of improvement.
At our best, with our best 16 (and option of using our 17) the team can beat anyone, and they can sustain it for 4 weeks. We could win. And in the same way he’s ultimately responsible for the bad, he’s gotta get some credit for the good.
As with every team there’s plenty that needs to go right for that to happen. And if he was a better coach in those areas then the list of variables that could prevent that would be shorter.
For all that though - he ain’t going anywhere this season or next, so here’s hoping anyways.