Quote ="Mrs Barista"Great post, and I totally respect your opinion. I'm not calling for Gentle's head, but I can see why AP would be entirely dissatisfied with our start and putting pressure on. At the end of the day, it's a judgement call. If Gentle has enough runs on the board with AP to give confidence that 2 from 9 is a player availability issue only, that's one thing. If he thinks there are more fundamental issues around motivation, organisation, structures, player development, recruitment etc which won't improve, I think that's something different. I don't know which of these it is. But I see little evidence of us mitigating the loss of key players through structure and doing the basics right ie completion, quick PTBs, dummy runners, organisation on the 5th tackle.'"
I completely agree - all I'm advocating is giving the guy a few more weeks to see which way it turns. At the end of last season I felt more positively about Gentle as our coach than I had probably since the all too short Brian Smith era. Our recent performances are unacceptable but, for me at least, he has still got a few runs on the board.
Your point about some of the more fundamental aspects of our performance is a good one. Some (organisation, last tackle options) will be addressed when Holdsworth and Ellis return, others (quick PTB) are more worrying and need to improve irrespective of who is on the pitch.
