I think the key to it was revealed in an interview Last gave.

As well as a huge emphasis on personal accountability, Last also ordered the players to concentrate on their own games and performances rather than everybody else's, making sure your own game was in order and doing all the little things asked, Last explained if everyone found they where doing their own job, the whole would take care of itself.

I thought that spoke volumes, for where we went wrong , too busy all griping about everyone else, and all downing tools or bickering due to teammates errors or mistakes

A result if this change is what we're seeing now, all backing each other rather than not

Good point. The players have also seemed to stop whinging to the ref about every decision. Fonua and Connor in particular were guilty of being more interested in what the opposition was up to earlier in the season. Its rare a player gets a decision overruled anyway.

Yeah we were beating ourselfs up way too much and I dare say throwing the towel in at any excuse, we seem a lot more together and professional, Last deserves huge praise for that

Some really great points on this thread. Having helped management teams for many years with team development and how that translates into performance, one thing that's often not explicitly covered in the text books and models out there is the fact that great teams always seem to need a common enemy (Alex Ferguson used to use the 'siege mentality' concept - "it's us against the world"). Usually in business the 'enemy' is other companies, i.e. competitors, but management teams can regress when they bicker with other internal departments from working in a silo-mentality - often fuelled ironically, I found, by internal competition amongst board directors! The key is to have people united in recognising that we as a whole team are under attack, and identifying who the 'enemy' truly are. The other concept that really unites teams, of course, is going through adversity together.

In a sports team situation the enemy is often the press, sometimes referees, etc, but perhaps with the adversity we've faced over the change of coach, covid (and criticism of having the first club outbreak), playing games at 24hrs notice, "lucky Bs" over getting into the play-offs, pundits assuming we're just there to make up the numbers, etc., etc., then perhaps that's been enough to galvanise us into a united team.

Here's hoping for the result of all this to see us at the KCom on 27th Nov!

Oh, and I'd like to assume that Andy Last has played no small part in facilitating the change!