Quote ="hally's hot air"Your constant optimism and refusal to lay any sort of blame is very commendable but its akin to a fly smashing against a window that keeps believing its been set free! carl has been brilliant for this club and I know all fans appreciate what he's done but does that mean us supporters should just put up with failure after failure and be happy with that? if that's the case i'd advise you to adopt Bentley comps or toll bar as your team as its a damn site cheaper and less stressful.'"
We seem to live in a world where everybody wants to blame somebody for everything that doesn't turn out as they would like. We need to accept that sometimes others are better than we are and the way forward is to improve to the higher standard. Looking for a scapegoat might provide personal satisfaction for us occasionally but it doesn't actually solve anything. I prefer the learning by mistakes and experience route.
In snooker in the 1980s Steve Davis came virtually from nowhere and by his level of dedication and attention to detail set the bar higher than it had been probably since the days of Joe Davis. The other players could have sat back, found somebody or something to blame and carried on operating at their lower level. Or they could dedicate themselves more, practise harder and stop swilling gallons of beer and thus raise their games to the new level. They chose the latter route paving the way for the emergence of Stephen Hendry and the others who have followed. A similar thing happened in golf when Tiger Woods appeared on the scene in the 1990s.
Team sports like rugby league are slightly different in that the participants are dependant to a considerable extent on their colleagues to achieve success. However there is a similarity in that with better players around them ordinary players will be encouraged to improve their performances to the benefit of the team as a whole.
If you really need to blame somebody (the buck stops here etc) then blame the players who are the ones on the pitch making the mistakes or failing to stick to the game plan. No coach worth anything would ever send his team out to make mistakes and get beaten. So at the point where they cross the white line the players are as prepared as they can be to take on the opposition and try to win the game. If the opposition are better in personnel and technical skills they will, or should, emerge as winners and the losers have to go back to the "drawing board" to analyse what went wrong and work out how to put it right. This might involve bringing in better players, or changing the tactics or applying the tactical plan more precisely.
So let us not waste energy on finding somebody to blame all the time. Rather let us focus on ways to improve ourselves up to the standards set by the better teams. I think you will find that is the way the NRL operates which why Australia is head and shoulders ahead of everybody else in the rugby league world.
