Because if you want to dismantle what is there and rebuild it involves a huge amount of change, takes time, and meets with a lot of resistance from people who have believed in and been part of the old ways.
It's been eighteen months. It's not a lot of time. This year's side has two players from last year's backline.
Measuring solely against last year is not exactly objective.
In answer - if there is a long term losing culture - it will require long term and deep seated change.
I don't see why both of those statements are difficult to accept.
We haven't won anything for 26 years. We have been mentally soft even when we had strong rosters in that period. And the second part is surely common sense?
The only problem with this 'mentally soft culture' business - is that it`s a myth. In the last 26 years we`ve had how many different coaches? Let`s see: Cronin, Hilditch, Peard, Smith, Hagan, Anderson, Kearney (and a couple of others). And we had Fitzgerald for most of that time and that changed too. Then, of course, the player rotation has been what you would have expected over that length of time (i.e: there`s no-one from the 1986 team still playing for us). So the culture comes from where?
In the time since this club began in 1947, we have enjoyed some periods of being consistently competitive - the second half of the seventies; the eighties up until 1986; and most of the Smith years. Did we have a losing culture in the fifties, and sixties and nineties that needs to be addressed now?
Now, the way I see it, those wanting a 'culture change' and wanting us to become a longstanding competitive side like Melbourne, for instance, are living in dream land. It`s never going to happen. There are only four teams who are consistently able to challenge for the title and could be seen as a realistic chance of taking out the premiership in any given year: Manly, Canterbury, Melbourne and Brisbane. That`s it, folks. The rest of the field has to be content with periodic bursts of success. That`s us. We are lucky we weren`t born North Sydney supporters. (They must have been wondering when their 'culture' was going to change, eh?)
And when Parramatta did achieve some measure of sustained success, what was the common denominator? There were alot of factors involved as there always are: the right young stars coming up at the right time, etc, but the common thing was that on each occasion we had a brilliant coach. Terry Fearnley, Jack Gibson, John Monie, Brian Smith.
It seems fairly obvious to me that if we want sustained success again (and by that I mean say, five years of consistently challenging for the title), we need: 1. A good playing roster, and 2. A very good coach. Right now, we haven`t got either. We don`t need to change a culture, we just need good players and a good coach.
