I’m fine with the result here, but people are talking about the players’ attitudes and someone mentioned they know the hotel was a bit ordinary. I wonder how much effect ‘state of the art’ facilities have on the players. No doubt they improve all the physical attributes and surface level conveniences, but part of me feels that combined with ‘being the Broncos’, having a first-class ride could breed complacency and laziness, a weird sort of expectation of winning because we have the best options in the league for a lot of things, or at least that may feed into it.
Just speculating here of course, but to me how things work feels almost too ‘professional’, as in there’s no heart or desire that gets bred from having a gym the size of a small supermarket. Or having basketball hoops in the car park. Get them working some half day jobs around trainings. They have a heap of free time that they must get bored, and thus distracted.
Perhaps I’m romanticising the old-school things a bit, but there’s a vibe of ‘oh well’ when things get tough. Some look annoyed, others it’s just kinda water off a ducks back, quite similar to Darius's ‘it’s just a game’ mentality.
While a lot of things go into it, actually wanting to play and win shouldn’t become your job if that makes sense, because it’s not going to last unless you have a psychopath like Bellamy threatening your family members in order to win
Again I’m just verbalising a few thoughts or perceptions, happy to have them disproved or refuted
