Cardiff Blues
A Constant Work in Progress
Mark Hammett
By cardiffsteve
October 13 2014
I count myself a believer in the hackneyed idiom, "Rome wasn't built in a day"...
Indeed, I watched Dai Young take the club from less than no hopers to the verge of a HEC final. Maybe an extensive period of bile and frustration is actually necessary if a decent rugby side is going to be built.
So, when Mark Hammett talks about us being at the start of a three year cycle, I'm inclined to go along with it.
Here's the problem. Two actually:
We've already had two years of a coach telling supporters to look to the long term. This isnt Mark Hammett's fault. And it may well be that he's a better man to make this work than Phil Davies. However, the club as a whole needs to be aware that supporters have a finite amount of patience.
If further excuses need to be utilised this season, I recommend changing the record.
But more to the point, what if performances aren't improving? What if they're going in the opposite direction? Because make no mistake, whilst the opening weekends of the season were far from perfect, they were far more impressive than yesterday's display at the Liberty.
Next week's Grenoble match now looks like a huge one in the context of our season.
A confidence boosting win, followed by hopefully an easier challenge against semi pro Rovigo and we can return to league action at home to Munster with some confidence. Then we can use the LV Cup to experiment a little, look at some fringe players and ease Gareth Anscombe into the squad.
If we cant get that win, well its not hard to see a real implosion happening.
As heads drop, players might start to question what they're being asked to do (frankly, some of the body language yesterday suggested they may even be doing that already) and perhaps start looking to the assistants who had some success when left to their own devices at the end of last season.
And then how long before the board start to wonder if they've made the right appointments off the field? Yes, its only October and maybe it'd be better to wait until at least November before punching the panic button.
On the other hand, can anybody blame any follower of this team for getting short of patience?
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13/10/2014 11:56
Also it does not help having players lined up to come in but can't do so until the WRU magic this money they dont have for the duel deals
Well it worked, in part. Plenty of fans were hoodwinked and, sadly the dinosaurs, were proven right. No pleasure can possibly be taken for seeing our once great club race head long in to the second tier of Europe.
I fully understand why many supporters have stopped. We have been promised time and time again that success is around the corner only to find it a mirage.
The Ospreys and LLanelli build teams that seem to have "it". Pontypridd player "die" for the jersey. Ours seem to be happy to collect their wages.
I'll still be supporting my club long after he current crop of players are gone, both the good guys and the wasters. I'll probably near the next 3 or 4 promises from Thomas of "jam tomorrow". Sadly Thomas has gambled on the "theatre goers". They are people who only support success.
Quote:cardifflose
None of this can be laid at Hammetts door, he has joined and in doing so adopted a squad and coaching staff, a coaching staff where we have an acclaimed backs coach yet cant string anything together, a defence coach some said is only second to Edwards yet we ship on av 21 ponts a game, a squad that we all think is good yet some say he thinks up to 15 players are not good enough, even if we win every game from here on in expect some BIG BIG changes next summer.
Also it does not help having players lined up to come in but can't do so until the WRU magic this money they dont have for the duel deals
Only 15?
Its true he inherited a squad and a situation. And of course it takes time and that needs to be understood.
The caveat to that is that McIntosh and John got better performances out of more or less the same group at the end of last season. I think that cant be dismissed.
The biggest worry for me about yesterday was the body language and petulance. They dont look a happy group of players. That might be because theyve been losing and need a win to get some confidence. It might also be that they dont have faith in the gameplan they're going out with - in which case this slump could easily become a crisis.
13/10/2014 13:36
I agree totally with this.
Matthew Rees isn't the leader here that he was at the Scarlets, and his form is poor,
Gethin has never been much of a passionate leader,
and Warburton....well.
We still are looking for a Rush or a Tito.
The Ospreys have that in Dan Biggar and AWJ even without the players they have lost.
Not looking for any positives, however I have to say that Navidi worked his socks off.
Admin of theArmsPark.co.uk,
Make Noise and You Will Be Heard!
13/10/2014 15:52
13/10/2014 20:06
13/10/2014 23:03
Not to mention his petulant attitude and the look on his face that he's not the one who has done wrong (except ignoring the offload/pass option, trucking it up with no support and getting turned over).
As previously mentioned he is limited at what he can do, but what he can do he is undoubtedly world class. But only when he can. He's a finisher, a great finisher, give him some space and he will score tries for us all day everyday. But to do that he has to be put into the right positions.
But lets face it look how we are playing, terrible kicking game which has us penned into our own 22, unable/willing to string more that 2 phrases together until the last 10 minutes or so and when we do play the ball it's lucky if the ball makes it futher that Gavin Evans or everyone driffts accross so there is no room out on the wings.
If I was him I would be annoyed, knowing what I can do but time and again failing to be put into positions that I can do it, knowing that other winger at other teams are getting tries and putting my Welsh spot at risk. I wish I saw more of it from this side.
But maybe your all right, maybe he should just do like everyone else in the backs to and just look uninterested like - warning about to make an unholy sin - Patchell did at the liberty after Gareth Davies came on.
The fact that he has needed to come in field shows that a) it's trying to get something to happen - which while misguided with his skill sets show's his wanting to make a difference to a very poor back game plan. b) our attack just isn't producing the situations which would get the best out of him.
Plus as someone pointed out on another forum he mutters to himself even when we are winning, shouting "I could have had three tries!" Now I don't know about you but that is a quality I want in a player, to strive to improve, to score more, to beat more defenders etc.
(Edit - removed last paragraph, was a bit harsh on other players)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:10:14:19:09:12 by Beard from Tad Cymru.
Quote:bloogoo
There's very few players that can make an average team look threatening. These results seem to be down to a mixture of coaching, leadership on the pitch, a lot of players simply not being good enough and confidence.
Agreed 100%
Quote:bloogoo
There's very few players that can make an average team look threatening.
Think I might settle for an average team - at the minute, we look far from even that
