I know nothing about coaching league. But I have half an idea about leadership and blaming others for a loss shows a lack of accountability and gives the weak minded players an excuse for the loss. They missed double the amount of tackles. Made less metres, tackle breaks and line breaks. They had the advantage of 6 extra penalties, a man in the sin bin, our 2nd rower off after 8 minutes, our starting prop off after 20 minutes and our hooker on HIA. They had home ground advantage. They still lost.
For me, it shows a lack of mental resolve and inexperience. Barrett will never improve as a coach/leader until he learns to own the losses. Bellamy or Bennett would have said "we got what we deserved, we didn't tackle well enough". Ok, how do we improve?
One things for sure, Ivan will be reading the riot act to some of our players, even though we won. Leota was dreadful, a penalty machine with 77 metres and 20 tackles. Come on Moses, you are bludging right now. Liam was out of control, doing his angry man impression. I love his aggression, but not if it means he is going to get sent off, sin binned or give away multiple penalties.
McLean's inexperience was shown up a few times and Toleau over-played his hand with some dreadful dummy half passes. That said I think those two and Patea show a lot of promise, they weren't overawed by the hostile atmosphere and the fact we were behind for 74 minutes of the game.
The good stuff came from some of our young blokes and the usual troopers, Yeo and Too. Lindsay Smith and MG2 put in good shifts. Smith is a quality player and has improved this year. Laurie was excellent and his ball playing gives me hope that he can be the Luai replacement next year. He reads the game pretty well and is much quicker than people think and is fearless in contact.
Our halves were very effective, and did what was needed when it mattered. Cleary has ice in his veins. He just doesn't panic and delivers just as well in the last minute as the first. Actually you could argue he gets better when the pressure is on and starts to focus more.
One last thing, I want Yeo (because he is captain) to nail Turuva's boot to the wing so he can't keep running in for a tackle or intercept. He is the leading cause of line breaks and tries at the Panthers, he really needs to get that out of his game.