At the start of each footy season, there are plenty of unknowns for coaches to contend with.
They don't know if their attacking strategies will work or if the changes to their defensive structure will be effective. The players they bought in the off-season may or may not do the job and maybe some of the players they kept should have been off-loaded instead.
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Full coverage of the St George Illawarra DragonsNor will they know for sure which, if any, young players will step up and perform far beyond expectations.
They won't know if they'll have a charmed run with injury or be blighted with a never-ending procession of players headed to the casualty ward.
Nor will they have much of an idea how good the other teams will be. And the Bulldogs are a perfect example of that - how many would have expected the 2008 wooden spooners to be up the other end of the ladder this year?
But one thing each NRL coach knows with absolute certainty is that a game of rugby league goes for 80 minutes. Which is why I'm so surprised at the difference in fitness levels between teams.
There are those who can go the distance without much trouble while others seem to struggle and start blowing hard before the first half is over.
Being a Dragons fan I really only pay attention to what the Big Red V is doing and several times I've seen them powering on at the back end of a game as fresh as they were at the start. While that's happening, their opposition is wilting and running very low on petrol.
Friday night's game against the Roosters is a perfect case in point. The Roosters came out full of fire in the first half and proceeded to play like a team much further up the ladder than their 16th placing suggested. The Dragons were able to handle them but still went in at the break down 12-6.
There were signs late in the half that the Roosters were running out of juice and that situation got worse in the second 40 minutes. They weren't able to score a single point while the Dragons racked up 28 of them, which was one point less than we scored for the whole game in our 29-0 Anzac Day win over them earlier this year.
Now, to me it seems a no-brainer that a coach needs to ensure their players are fit enough to perform at a high level throughout the entire 80 minutes.
It does you no good to power on for 40, 50 or 60 minutes if you hit the wall before the full-time hooter sounds. All the great plays and defensive moves in the world won't help you if you run out of puff long before the opposition does.
But it's surprising that some teams just don't seem to have the ability to last out the entire game.
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