No, not every year. I suspect you'll find it's only in years where we've consistently conceded lots of tries in the last 15 minutes of games that it felt prescient to discuss it.

Is this a poll?

Mental.

Whilst the mental side of things does have some bearing on what happens on the pitch (I suspect that precious few sides who go onto the pitch thinking they will lose actually go on to win, for instance) I'd suggest that many of the 'top sportsmen' ruminating on why they lost a game - against other top sportsmen - are mainly looking for any excuse, other than the obvious (and probably more accurate one), that the other side were better on the day.

That's pretty much right, I guess. The one thing which really bugs me is when we have a lead, a decent lead, yet we play like we're 15 points behind with ten minutes to go, whizzing the ball about as if we have to score on every play and then we finish up throwing a wild speculator and giving the ball away.



I'm not suggesting for a second that we 'shut up shop', just that we carry on as we had been doing earlier in the game. For me it's a decision making problem - is there a realistic chance that my off load will go to hand? - if yes then pass it, if not don't. It's not always a simple decision, I accept that, but we haven't been getting it right often enough.

So what is the reason they were better - mental or physical?

A bit of both I think.



I think they are tiring and maybe getting a second wind as they come through the other side. This will hopefully become less obvious when they reach full match fitness (in that the drop off mid game will be less obvious!) Back in the day when I used to do some running I'd be dead on my feet until I knew the end was coming up then I'd suddenly get a burst of energy... Now of course, I get the feeling of exhaustion before I get my trainers on...!



Mentally, I don't think its so much that the squad are used to losing, rather that they are trying too hard to win and not putting it up their jumpers! Or maybe they're not convinced that their defence is strong enough and would rather score more points than risk having to defend for a long spell! Personally I think they need to know when to put the ball into touch near their line so we can get our defence set up...

How do you coach players not to make errors? Seriously. There's a serious cost to sticking it up your jumper, and I do think a lot of passes decried as stupid would be lauded to high heaven had they come off. So how do you get a player to increase the percentage of passes they judge accurately as 'on' or 'off'? And how do get players to concentrate more so they don't knock on.

All the things you mention are mental decisions. Even pushing your body to physical exhaustion needs the mental strength to do it.

The mental side comes into any human activity TT, even getting out of bed means going through a decision making process, imo it's just that it can be over emphasised in sport, though it clearly has importance and it is often used as an excuse.

As bewaresheep said it's both, plus possibly they were more skilful and maybe had a bit more luck, better bounce of the ball and all that. In the macho world of pro sport I guess it's easier to say '[iour mental side wasn't quite right[/i' rather than admit you were outplayed. I suppose admitting you were outplayed might affect your mental attitude..............

In my heart I agree with you, but my head says not.