Maybe I am "taking the piss" but lets be honest now
For five years every team has lifted when they play the Panthers.
For five years now we have lost 2 or 3 FG quality players to the salary cap.
The last three years the Ball and Flegg players have been getting pilfered by the clubs that just have to have OUR juniors because they can't get their hands on our FG standard players because they're locked up.
The end result, the cupboard is getting bare. We've also had the luxury of blooding players because we were littered with quality but that can't be realistically done anymore.
We're playing the hand we've been left with and it's not the same as we are used to. Plus, 9 out of 10 referees are more critical of us than other teams because of our success, so now every game is a struggle like a final.
The club will survive, we're in good hands.
f**k me dead get me a violin. All our juniors got stolen, evey team tries to beat us! can you imagine the opposition trying to beat us, how can Ivan coach under those conditions. lol !
Those are reasons we might have come back to the pack sure. Not reasons for us being so shit that we were last after half the season.
The players we still have are almost all, to a man, playing well below their best. I dont expect us to be the same side as the last four years, of course we wont be. But i expect the players we still have to turn up and play soomewhere near their best mot of the time, and that is not happening.
As a whole the team is not playing to their potential, maybe 1 game this year you can say we turned up for the full 80.
We arent a worn down, pilfered team who are trying hard but just arent good enough. We are a team that is consistently, for half a season, performing well below our best.