Tough lessons will help us

Hello everyone, welcome to the 24th ‘Churchie’s Comment’ for the year in your favourite rugby league newspaper — The National.
The SP Hunters returned to their home away from home, Bycroft Oval, for their postponed round-12 clash with Mackay Cutters.
Mackay have had a disappointing season on the ladder but have been quite consistent with their efforts, remaining largely in the contest for every game this season. I wasn’t fooled by their position on the ladder and knew that we would need to be up for the contest.
The first half of the game was one in which the Hunters looked extremely well oiled in patches.
By that, I mean in 10-minute patches, we looked to be playing well. Heading into halftime, I felt the scoreline flattered us in terms of our effort as a team.
Addressing the players at halftime, I said our first-half performance was a “rocks and diamonds” effort. We looked bright and shiny at times, but also looked dull and disinterested for the most part. The players were urged to play as a team and be more consistent with their effort.
I felt the team needed to start strongly in the second half, and be more vocal and energetic.
Three minutes into the second half, Junior Rau scored to complete his hat-trick of tries. The whole set of six in the lead-up to the try was hugely disappointing. Paul Aiton was sent out to address them that they weren’t to get carried away with themselves because the try was not a reward for good play.
Sometimes as a coach, you can see things happening before the players can, you get a sense that the desire just isn’t there. You can hear on the sideline, that the communication isn’t at the level you need. You can see all this coming, you talk about it pre-game, at halftime and send messages out during the game. Ultimately, it’s the players who need to respond out on the field.
The second half just wasn’t played as a team, they were all looking around for someone else to drag them out of the momentum swing. Apart from a couple of players who were urging everyone to be better, it was an uninspiring performance.
This level of competition is difficult, you only need to be off your game by a few per cent and you can get a harsh reality check. Sometimes in life, you don’t always get what you deserve. We got exactly what we deserved on the weekend.
After letting the game against the Falcons slip three weeks back and now the Cutters game, sandwiched in between was a great win over Northern Pride, which means we could have had three wins on the trot. That would have put us on the verge of the top-eight.
We still remain an outside mathematical chance to make the finals, but we would need to find more consistency for that to happen.
While disappointed after the weekend, I am disappointed in the performance not the result. When you get the performance right the result takes care of itself. I have said this all year that we are an inexperienced team and these are the lessons you can only learn from by going through them. So while tough to digest, it has the potential to help us in the long run.
Until next week, stay safe, play safe and let’s all respect and be kind to each other.

Cheers,
Matt