Ledesma is making the huge jump from forwards coach to head coach. I won't even begin to judge him until 8 or 9 games.
Fair enough. Would it be fair to judge him on on how our forward are doing?
Let's give him a hand and given his past jobs and that he was a hooker, just judge him on scrummaging alone, shall we?
There is not a single metric or scenario that makes him look good. Not one. That's the problem.
This is not a bunch of guys randomly picked who got together 15 min before kick off. This is supposed to be a 2 year old franchise who plays together more than any professional team in the world (since jags = pumas). Let me say that again because it is important: more than any other professional team in the world. The had a pre-season too ffs.
We hire a coach who's specialty happens to be scrums.
First game the key scrum, the do-or-die one, we lose it.
Second game starts and we lose every single scrum we feed for 40 min.
But let's say he needs time, it's a technical formation, whatever.
The thing i cannot, i simply cannot get my head around is the tackling. It is simply unacceptable. These are not a couple of isolated incidents than happen to end up in a try, magnifying the exposure or something. This is a crystal clear trend. Our backs (maybe 10-12 are a bit better) cannot tackle. Every semi serious attack our back 3 have to defend against is a disaster. Penalty tries, tackling each other, covering the wrong places.
The magnitude of the above is so big that i do not see a realistic solution. Those 3 are not going to learn how to defend/tackle in 1 week, and the opposition we're facing is arguably better in that part of the field.
I remember cursing cordero for his unpredictability and defense. I'd cut an arm to have him back.
Let me be apolitical for a min:
2018
1) we win 1/2 games this season (say Reds at home, maybe rebels if we are lucky)
2) We lose all game in TRC
2019
3) We win 1/2 games in SR
4) We lose all games in TRC
5) We don't make it out of the group
If all of those, 1 to 5 actually happen, what then? Out of TRC and/or SR? I am asking because, to be honest, the above scenario doesn't look that far stretched to me. I actually find it reasonably realistic (if you don't please tell me which part is unrealistic).
Infuriating and sad, but realistic.
/end rant