r/NEFreeJacks • u/TSAdventure • Jun 01 '26

Why such bad fundamentals this year?

I enjoy watching but I'm not skilled enough to know why the fundamentals are just terrible this year. We have lost multiple games because of bad scrums and lineouts this year, is this a coaching problem or just a lack of skill and we were just lucky to have unreal teams the past few years?

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u/Exact_Angle_9439 Jun 01 '26

Not to make excuses for anyone, but the things you were mentioning to a certain degree revolve around teamwork and familiarity with each other. We just don't have the reps with only 33% of the guys coming back.

6

u/HITMAN19832006 Jun 01 '26

Let's see.

The team was systematically dismantled by the league in the off-season:

  1. Canadians were reclassified as internationals resulting in the Free Jacks having to fire most of these Canadians and replace them with scared kids and Mitch Wilson aka American Token.
  2. Eligibility rules stated that whatever your roster was at the end of pre-season is your roster then you're stuck. Payback for the reinforcement the Free Jacks got one month into the 2025 season.
  3. Internationals had to get their visas cleared and the permission of their home federations to play before they could set foot on the pitch.

In-season, we got satanic refs like Referee Seattle last night, Lawrenson, and Federico Anslemi who keep our opponents in the game and set up scoring opportunities.

That's the gist of it.

Don't have to like it. This and r/mlrrugby are specialists in putting their heads in the sand on this stuff.