Was Michael Bradley right?

I disagree with how Bradley went about it - as many have already said, the succession of heavy away defeats did serious damage to moral, of the players and the supporters.

Having said that, I think most would agree that Lam needs to be very conscious of player fatigue, and be strategic about how he rests key players. Surely if he is smart he can avoid resting our key players en masse like Bradley did, but still avoid playing them every week.

RonanL wrote: I disagree with how Bradley went about it - as many have already said, the succession of heavy away defeats did serious damage to moral, of the players and the supporters.

Having said that, I think most would agree that Lam needs to be very conscious of player fatigue, and be strategic about how he rests key players. Surely if he is smart he can avoid resting our key players en masse like Bradley did, but still avoid playing them every week.

You going tomorrow?

Would people not agree that Bradley didn't have the squad to pick from that we do now, and if he kept playing the same 15-20 every week they would eventually be injured or fatigued anyways? I would not advocate sending the Eagles to play away games but a happy balance can be found between playing the best 15 into the ground and sending a scratch team to be nilled. There will need to be rotation in positions such as hooker and fly half anyways if the new players are going to be brought up to speed. You also have to have trust in the squad, if Duffy or Henshaw aren't fullback we still have about 3 or 4 genuine options there, if the team can't perform with changes at 1,2,3,4,6, 10, 11,14 and 15 between games for instance then we're not in the position of depth that we thought.

phatguerilla wrote: Would people not agree that Bradley didn't have the squad to pick from that we do now, and if he kept playing the same 15-20 every week they would eventually be injured or fatigued anyways?

Not buying that. Bradley's last few seasons post-dated Borders dissolution and pre-dated the Italian teams joining the league. Also one of our European games we could send out the Eagles and still slaughter Sacrificar Los Matadores or whomever.

That's effectively 6 fewer games per season.

I still have nightmares about this!

www.ercrugby.com/eng/matchcentre/12213.php

ConnachtCows wrote:

RonanL wrote: I disagree with how Bradley went about it - as many have already said, the succession of heavy away defeats did serious damage to moral, of the players and the supporters.

Having said that, I think most would agree that Lam needs to be very conscious of player fatigue, and be strategic about how he rests key players. Surely if he is smart he can avoid resting our key players en masse like Bradley did, but still avoid playing them every week.

You going tomorrow?

I'm hopeful!

Whatever about any merits that the Bradley Doctrine may have had at the time, things have moved on so that it's just not an option any more.

We're now in a situation where we should be seeing ourselves as a mid-table side, maybe towards the lower end of it, but we're in that region. Ideally, we want to get to the top of this group and a policy of shipping heavy away losses and B-Teams is not going to cut it when the top two criteria for seperating teams tied on points are overall wins followed by points difference. To get to the top end of the midfield pack, every point matters.

We saw in the 2011/12 season that 2 extra Losing Bonus Points helped us pip the Dragons by a point for 8th. Even last season, we pipped Cardiff on points difference alone.

As much as I appreciate the discussion, I have to disagree with you Swifty.

First and foremost I am a Connacht fan whether the team is playing home or away, as I am sure you all are as well.

I always refer to Jonny Wilkinson in the below interview, and have probably posted it in here somewhere previously (from the 6 min mark):

"its difficult when people ask about the season, 'where do you think you will finish?', without saying well we want to finish first, there's no point in saying 'well I hope we finish 3rd or 4th' because it means you're actually choosing to lose games, we're not choosing to lose any games in this season..."

That is the attitude of a winner. There is no point in losing games before your season begins because you are targeting them mentally as a loss before you play a minute of competitive rugby.