Dont panic. We were yet to put in a poor display, we put one in yesterday. We were lethargic, slow and lacked concentration for most of the game. Those kind of things i havent really seen the guys display yet this season. I think they will be better for the loss. The Tigers, well....they are lolable imo and I believe we will finish ahead of them.
I had a sinking feeling before the game, and when i realised it was blowing a gale in Newcastle I had an even worse feeling. Dont under estimate how much of a mental and physical toll the monday night game had on the boys. In particular with 3 quality players out.
I was looking at the draw the other day and basically its all down hill for us from the Melbourne game. Funnily enough, i thought that this would be the biggest challenge we have thus far faced as a side.
One thing i have noticed about this current generation we have is that they play MUCH better when they are expected to lose or they are behind, that is all Smith is it not...The real challenge is to get the lads thinking that they can and will beat anyone when they put in their max effort. Its rebuilding phase II, time to start to work towards building a winning culture.
I was really annoyed with yesterdays performance, It was pretty obvious after 10 mins we were not there mentally. So much so that I went to the NRL web site to check the score, something i never ever do. It was pretty clear, our line speed wasnt there, we were hardly making it out to our 50m line from the kick reception at the 20m line, the tigers were walking out of their own half with ease. I have no doubts we can turn it around.
We have shown in all but one of our games this year that we want to be succesful, they just dont now how to go about dismantling a side from the get go they should beat. Going from the mantle of being a battling underdog to a favorite is something they need to learn to deal with and only the best sides ever do.
