i'm not gonna say that elliott should go, but i will say that he's been giving me the s**ts ever since he came to canberra. even last year, we were so boring to watch. elliott continues to pick boring, "defensive" players over guys who can do something with the ball. it's driving me f***ing bananas. like someone said on another post, the raiders game used to be among the highlights of my week. since elliott, i still eagerly anticipate the game every week, but am often bitterly disappointed. even when we win, we get these crap boring wins. we've only scored 30+ points 4 times this season, and on each occasion the opposition scored 20+.
i'm a big fan of playing rugby league the way it's meant to be played, and if that sounds stupid to anyone, well, wayne bennett said the same thing. it means enjoying your football, not just playing to win. it means scoring tries. rugby league, at its core, is about scoring tries, and stopping the opposition from scoring. elliott makes it so complicated, like, the forwards have to "lay a platform" and we have to "get our attitude right" or whatever. its like we have to be buddhist monks just to win a football game! if i was a coach i'd keep it simple - the best two attributes a player can have in rugby league is speed and size. and there is an argument that you shouldn't play exciting football (and by exciting, i mean not always going for penalty goals, passing the ball out) at the expense of losing your games. well, i think that when you play confident, and you enjoy your footy, and most of all, when you make your number one priority to score tries, then you've automatically given yourself a much better chance of winning. what do penalty goals say about a team's attitude?? it says 1) that you're not confident of scoring, and more importantly 2) that you don't want to play football. instead of going for the win, you're keeping at bay the loss.
just about all the enjoyment i've got watching the raiders over the last couple of seasons has been from either phil graham or mark mclinden (and before anyone bites my freaking head off, i am exagerrating when i say that). and what does elliott do? he drops graham for most of 2003. i still haven't forgiven him for that.
and these penalty goals we always go for at every chance :roll:. I vehemently criticise rugby union for their constant attempts at penalty goals, yet my league team, the Raiders, is exactly the same! what happened to the Raiders as an attacking specialist team? they are long gone. we deserve the criticism we get for being boring, as far as i'm concerned.
people say that 2003 was a great year for the raiders. i disagree. im not saying it was crap, in fact it was quite good, but i dont think it was great. i think for one thing, we would have been lower down the ladder if we had had more representative selections. two, i think to lose your last 3 games, two of them being finals, is very disappointing. i know toots was out, but it's really no excuse. i've always believed that "alls well that ends well", and 03 did not end well. third, we were extremely boring to watch, apart from some exceptional games, obviously manly and cronulla spring to mind.
