This time of year is notorious for high hope, great expectations but more pertinently, big disappointments.
There’s quite a good chance we’ll lose this week. We have quite a few KPP’s out (King, Ottens, Harley, Playfair and Carlton will field a near full-strength line-up. Carlton have more incentive to win matches at this time of year than we do (membership, confidence, blooding young players who will play through season proper). They also have a record of performing well in this competition even when they’re not going well (hello 2005).
My point is, if we lose this week, DON’T PANIC. It’s all too easy to say how bad we did this or that but in reality, it counts for naught. The club is focussed on round 1 and rightly so. Think back to this time last year in the lead up to the Kangaroos game at Manuka. There were high hopes and many people came away thinking, oh dear, didn’t Ottens play poorly, we’re not as good as we thought we were, etc.
There’s quite a good chance we’ll lose this week. We have quite a few KPP’s out (King, Ottens, Harley, Playfair and Carlton will field a near full-strength line-up. Carlton have more incentive to win matches at this time of year than we do (membership, confidence, blooding young players who will play through season proper). They also have a record of performing well in this competition even when they’re not going well (hello 2005).
My point is, if we lose this week, DON’T PANIC. It’s all too easy to say how bad we did this or that but in reality, it counts for naught. The club is focussed on round 1 and rightly so. Think back to this time last year in the lead up to the Kangaroos game at Manuka. There were high hopes and many people came away thinking, oh dear, didn’t Ottens play poorly, we’re not as good as we thought we were, etc.

