tyr wrote:The media make a big deal of how Brian Noble always gets his teams ready for the play-offs and that's all well and good as far as I'm concerned. I am, however, beginning get fed up of finishing the season strongly, but having too much to do because we started so poorly. Each year, Leeds, Saints, or both get off to a flyer while we spend half a season getting ourselves sorted out.
In 2007, everyone was saying how, if we started like we'd finished 06, we'd be real threats but, instead, we seemed to have lost form over the off season, losing 3 of the first 4 rounds without even playing Leeds or Saints.
Last year, we actually kept pace reasonably well for a while, as we managed to grind out some victories while playing poorly. Even so, we lost 6 of our first 13 rounds, winning only narrowly when we won, but sometimes getting pulverized in defeat (a la Millenium Magic).
Logically, one would want to be playing well at the business end of the season but, realistically, you've got to finish top 2 to win it. Is Brian Noble so fixated on the end of the season that he doesn't pay due attention to the beginning? Is our pre-season substantially poorer than our rivals'? I'm just getting fed up of having to give up on a top 2 finish before the season is even halfway through each year. Hopefully that won't be the case this year but Sunday was not a good sign.
So am I ( the bit in bold). Good post and I agree you need a good start but really all that means is you need to consistently win games with just the odd loss here and there to get into the top 2. We have not been consistent for the last two seasons.
What you say about going into 2007 after the way we finshed 2006 was exactly what I thought. Very disappointing. We didn't play well at the start of 2008 though did pick up some points and first game out in 2009 we were terrible. It isn't good enough is it!
Dave
