Can’t believe how accepting people are of the coach not trialling players. Dean Pay is far too relaxed going into this season.
Out of all the teams this year we have the most reason to run a first grade team in the trials:
New spine-
with a fullback who has never played fullback Bar 40 minutes where the raiders did nothing that required fullback intervention
Unsettled halves pairing
Halfback coming back from significant injury time off as well as mental health problems
Hooker who is being told to change up his game plan and run more (will need time to find the balance between running and not running, don’t be surprised to see him running too often for the first couple of weeks till he gets used to being “unshackled”).
Forwards: Starting Prop and whatever the hell Tolman is this season not having played actual game minutes for months.
Bench nowhere near sorted from the look of things.
Allegedly we have a new play style, meaning we will take time to get used to this style. Why not get used to it when wins and losses don’t matter? I’m all for giving a new coach a new chance, but remember Pay isn’t free from criticism. He’s a rookie coach and he’s going against everything the best coaches do in pre-season so people will rightfully question his decisions. If we come out firing in round 1 and destroy the Storm and keep that up for the first few weeks of the comp then I’m sure Pay made the right decision. However, if the Storm blow us off the park early on because combinations struggle, Mbye is shit at positioning himself, or our players run out of steam at the end of the halves because they have no match fitness, then it’s all on him and this decision.
