Quote ="JEAN CAPDOUZE"The club is down on performance, and perhaps fitness, from last season.
Let's see how the team plays when Scott Dureau returns (in July?).
If the team cannot recapture its 2012 form with Dureau in the side, then questions will have to be asked about the quality of the head coach.'"
I'm not expecting Dureau to greatly increase defensive solidity on his own, though extra organisation is always a help in those situations. Neither am I about to suggest chucking out a first-year head coach. After all, getting into winning positions doesn't seem to be too much of a problem, even without a number of key first-choice players. But there is work to do - that much is obvious.
If that work is tinkering in the margins of defensive systems/structures or something more fundamental, I don't know. If it's the former, no problem - work on it, fix it. If it's the latter, then we look at the off-field structure and the identity of key individuals in the coaching/conditioning staff.