Quote ="nathan_rugby"Would you rather the club uploads images where they look unhappy, not gelling as a team, on phone to wives/girlfriends missing them, on facetime to new born babies etc?
Sight seeing trips and down-time? Do they have down-time at home? Yes. What is the big deal.
The club have travelled to Catalans enough to make an assessment that to stay out there for the duration was probably better than all of the travelling and disruption.'"
Like I said it could be just poor timing of the camera shutter but what I want to see in a training session is focus and intent in a players face when running plays etc. not somebody taking a ball in and laughing with his mate in the background laughing with him.
I did says players have down time when at home, but there is a difference, downtime at home will be time spent with family, also preparing themselves mentally for the game at the weekend, time to focus on what they have to do as an individaul to influence the outcome of a game, if they are off on sight seeing trips around France they are not having that time to prepare themselves mentally for what is going to be a really tough game.
I fully understand the reasonings behind staying out there, the travel disruption etc. but I question the itinerary whilst there, too much focus maybe on team bonding etc. and not enough on the task ahead, which in my opinion led to us being to complacent about how tough it was going to be, the players and coaches will know Catalans are a real force, especially at home, but I personally don't think they got the balance right and it showed on the day
