There's a fascinating segment in the James Graham interview with Flanno, from about the 25 minute mark, worth a listen but I've paraphrased it below.
I could take my foot off the pedal when I was at the Sharks, when I had the Mick Ennis’, and Gals and Luke Lewis, Wade Grahams, Andrew Fifitas. I could take my foot off some weeks that Gal and senior players drove the attitude and competitiveness. Maybe this group, we just haven’t got that killer instinct last year – I think we’ll have it this year. I think we’ll compete really hard and we’ve got to find that killer instinct moving forward
I used to like the think at the Sharks, if I didn’t go to a training session, or if I didn’t go to the game, I reckon they’d nearly get the job done without me. That’s how senior and experienced that group were. Now, if I didn’t go to the Dragons team meeting the day before the Parramatta game and I just put a video camera in there and I just watched that group, I think I’d struggle to think who’s going to talk, what’s the messaging gonna be, who’s gonna be the leaders in that group. Obviously everyone would go to Ben but it just can’t be Ben and that wasn’t, y’know, Ben’s best subject, He was more about follow me when I get on the field. But I’d be really surprised if anyone stood up and we got some really good conversations in that team meeting if it was just players.
But next year, now I’m gonna have Damien Cook, Clint Gutherson and then a lot of other players have had this experience now of “we had an opportunity, and we blew it”. So now when it comes around again hey – we’re not blowin it.
