2020 Pre Season and Trial Games

I've always said that the difference between good defence and bad defence is 10% extra commitment from the entire team, which is why you see sides turn around their defence very quickly when the team is happy and motivated to win, so I don't mind O'Brien going for our hardest hitting group and expecting them to go hard in both attack and defence, rather than picking some work horse types. Go hard or go home I say.
 
pre season is over.
My thoughts.
The boys all bought into the new order from day 1, or even before day 1 for most of them.
We heard early on that most of them had been training off their own bat and the first tests showed that they were as fit as they were in season last year before they did a single training run.
We had a pretty good run with injuries. Even the guys who ended up injured got in a pretty solid few months of training.
The new coach took a fresh look at all the boys and moved some of them around _ barnett to lock, Momoisea to second row, Mann to 5/8, Lino seems to only be doing halfback now, Watson to hooker/lock. All these changes seem pretty sensible, but we'll have to wait and see how they work in actual games.
Every pre season seems good, but my feeling is that the coach has asked a lot more of the players, and the players were all ready to give a lot more after they had spent at least a year with not much faith in Brown.
We have a very young squad, and even guys with a lot of experience like Sione, the twins, Barnett, Fitz and others have a lot of improvement in them due to having been poorly coached so far.
I think we will see massive improvement this year. The groundwork has been done. The boys are very fit and all have a better idea of what their role will be.
The unknown factor is the coach. He's never coached a side before, so we don't know if he'll have the knack of putting together winning game plans, but my feeling is that he will.
I have a very good feeling about the year ahead.
 
Billy said:
pre season is over.
My thoughts.
The boys all bought into the new order from day 1, or even before day 1 for most of them.
We heard early on that most of them had been training off their own bat and the first tests showed that they were as fit as they were in season last year before they did a single training run.
We had a pretty good run with injuries. Even the guys who ended up injured got in a pretty solid few months of training.
The new coach took a fresh look at all the boys and moved some of them around _ barnett to lock, Momoisea to second row, Mann to 5/8, Lino seems to only be doing halfback now, Watson to hooker/lock. All these changes seem pretty sensible, but we'll have to wait and see how they work in actual games.
Every pre season seems good, but my feeling is that the coach has asked a lot more of the players, and the players were all ready to give a lot more after they had spent at least a year with not much faith in Brown.
We have a very young squad, and even guys with a lot of experience like Sione, the twins, Barnett, Fitz and others have a lot of improvement in them due to having been poorly coached so far.
I think we will see massive improvement this year. The groundwork has been done. The boys are very fit and all have a better idea of what their role will be.
The unknown factor is the coach. He's never coached a side before, so we don't know if he'll have the knack of putting together winning game plans, but my feeling is that he will.
I have a very good feeling about the year ahead.
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Nice summation Billy. I think as far as game plans go, it will be more about what we are doing this year than what the opposition are doing. If we play to our standards we will be ok more often than not.

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My biggest takeaway from the whole pre-season was how filthy the coach was with the second half in the dragons trial game.

Plenty would be happy to say it was the second or third stringers and it doesn't matter, but not him.
No excuses, the message is you always have to maintain the standard that has been set.
 
I have been purposely ignoring most of what has gone on this pre-season, including not watching any of the trials...for the past several years I have been developing expectations but this year I am going to turn up on Saturday afternoon without having seen our new players in action, our new structures in development or any of that.

After several years of unfulfilled potential and disappointment I want to sit down without any preconceived expectations and see what they bring to Round 1 that has been different to the other years I have suffered through.

I might have family season tickets but they are going to need to earn the right to see me back every home game this year...

I do hope I'm inspired to see all 12 home games in 2020 - that is my hope
 
Personally im hoping we don't lose a game all season but if we lose the first four or five games it will be interesting to see what will be written about Obrien ..
Especially when he now has a better side than Brown had , people say how bad our season was last year under Brown but in reality we won the first game and then lost 5 in a row by 10 points all up .. Then we won 7 straight playing the best footy ive seen them play for years ...
Then it all went to pieces and Brown got the boot but imo it was the players fault we lost all those games , they were playing good footy and then THEY stopped playing good footy the coach didn't coach bad games into them .
The coach got them there they improved every game right up to rd 13 or 14 and then the players threw in the towel not the coach .
Ah well all over now until they lose a few games straight this season and if they do that at the beginning of the year OBrien will have a gun to his head real quick.
Billy says they spent a year with not much faith in Brown but I don't think that's right they looked to have faith for the first 13 or so games until whatever changed happened and the players threw the towel in … One of the things that really XXXXXX me off last season was when the team were going well it was everyone else that had them playing well except Brown but when they went bad it was all Brown , He is probably happier now away from this cauldron ...
 
Ethan my lad you just know what will be written about Obi. Refer to 2017, 2018 and 2019 for a preview if the wheels fall off. For mine I anticipate a 9-12 finish as per last year.

The cattle in the barn will need to show a vast improvement over last year.
 
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All coaches deserve 2 years to show what they can do, but if O'Brien can't get results after 2 years, I'll be calling for his head.
Head coaches are on the big bucks to do an outstanding job. If they don't do an outstanding job, it's time to give someone else a try.
The same standard as for players really.
If players don't deliver for a couple of years in a row, they get cut and no one turns a hair.
 
I’ll be interested to see what he does with the Origin players after seeing how Brown handled it. Seemed like a few guys were flat. And it trickled through the rest of the team.
 
As I said before I was happy as Larry with last season right up until about rd16 after that not so much ..
 
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