exiledrhino wrote:I'm no Agar apologist, as I don't think he was the answer, but one thing that doesn't seem to be acknowledged is that Smith got us to the GF completely utilising Agar's system / style. It was the following year we completely changed the playing style and tactics. At the time, that made sense, we got all our injuries back and put a decent run together having practiced that style in pre-season. We obviously got battered in the final, but we did not get there playing Rohan-ball.

KaeruJim wrote:Whatever Rohan's style is, and perhaps too much is made of it, I'm not sure he has the players to execute it. We are getting battered in the collision too often bringing it away from our line, fail to establish momentum, we lose the ruck too often and then pile pressure on ourselves by repeated basic mistakes.

The playing roster comes back round to Rohan again ultimately, but the first half we played against Saints in the league at home, we were more than competitive. Our main issue to me seems that we can't sustain playing well for long enough. Whether this is truly down to lack of structure, the need for some better quality players or a combination of all these things... I keep saying it but performances are multi-factoral, and not all of it is down the the coach.

Loiner at large wrote:100% agree I don't mind the defeats as long as we are competitive and can demonstrate some attacking structure establish field position and cut out basic errors.
Thats the concern for me that we don't appear to be progressing in any of these areas. We had some decent results last year against the top teams but in most cases they were in crazy games with no structure built on one fantastic half of rugby and some top individual performances mainly from Austin in the half dozen games he turned up in over 2 years. Thats not the foundation for consistent success. On paper in theory if we get all our players fit we should be competitive and I really hope that we can turn things around as there is no obvious easily attainable coaching solution currently available so hopefully RS can ride things out and deliver improved consistency and address the issues Unfortunately what I am currently watching every week tells me the July is out on if he can. With 2 weeks off to prepare we should hopefully see some improvements in the basics if we are working on the right areas

Exeter Rhino wrote:RS took us to a GF, and moved on a lot of the expensive (Tetevano, Sezer) or poor McDermott, Furner and Agar era signings and retentions (e.g. Dwyer, Sutcliffe) that most people were demanding on here. He also put faith in younger players like O'Connor and Walters that Agar was reluctant to do (Agar only had eyes for solid pros like Bodene Thompson). He's signed better players (Croft, McDonnell etc) but also made amends by moving on players that didn't work out (e.g. Olpherts). He's not the revolutionary we hoped for but he's been better than his predecessors. I think he'll leave the squad in a better place than when he arrived.

christopher wrote:Leaving the squad and club in a better place was a massive part of his remit imo.

Funny you mention Dwyer and Oconner, it was Smith who saw OConner as a hooker Nd ultimately he replaced Dwyer in 2022, suppose that was down to Agar aswell?