So once he "assessed" the situation he can't assess the current game in hand? Where was the assessment last night?
I'm not arrogant or want to start a fight but FMD I really don't know how anyone can claim they know football but yet defend pay over last night's loss.
He can't assess and adapt. Can't develop a game plan let alone a back up plan and clearly still has no idea how to use a bench.
PS winning ugly is another way of saying we make it harder for ourselves to win, which means our players pay a higher toll to scrape a win. I don't want to win 30+ every game.
Well simply regarding last night, I just don't believe there was a reason to adapt before the game.
We had won 4 in a row and 6 from our last 8 and were up against the lowly Cowboys.
Why change a winning formula?
I'll say this though, Pay knows how to change a losing formula.
He saw what happened earlier in the year - assessed the situation - and was like, you know what? If we knuckle down our defence, we will fare better in attack.
This seems to be the plan every week since. We let 1 try in a game, CHN/Napa/Holland are no longer missing tackles and we are grinding out wins (I believe Lewis over Cogger is also due to this plan because of Lewis defence)
With regards to backup plan and the bench, it is a interesting thing that happened last night regarding Cogger/Foran. The Cowboys had used up all but one interchange with 20 to go and we still had 3 - 4. I'm not too sure what happened here with the Cowboys, but we should have been able to exploit it.
Also I think Pay should have taken into account the climate - you could see that the players were really struggling under the heat even though they have been around since Tuesday.
I don't believe there is a way to win 'not ugly' right now. Our strike players are limited and I think the defensive mindset gameplan is what suits us the best.