Not addressing the problem

I was at a rugby match recently. It was the final of a tournament, at the end of a long season.

Pretty quickly into the match, it became apparent that the hooker on one team couldn’t throw well. He couldn’t throw straight and he couldn’t make it past the first player.

So slowly but surely the lineout became a liability for this team. With each penalty they got, they couldn’t take advantage of kicking for touch because their lineout was just so unreliable.

I thought to myself, well maybe he’s nervous, this is a final after all.

That team ended up losing the game and you couldn’t help but feel there was a lot of missed opportunities with the lineout.

Then I found out later that the hooker’s poor lineout throwing wasn’t specific to the final. He had been throwing poorly all year.

Well, that changes everything.

Then the hooker’s poor performance is not game nerves it’s just poor skills.

I think that this is a great example of neglecting to address a problem in the long term.

Long term because the season is 7 months long and these poor lineout skills were seen throughout the season.

So who’s responsible?

First off, the hooker. This is a job specific to him, the team depends on him for it and it’s his responsibility to be good at it.

Second off, everyone else involved in the team, the coach and the players. His poor lineout skills affect all of them. If he’s not willing to acknowledge his poor skills, then someone needs to pull him aside and tell him.

Maybe it became easy to overlook because the team was winning anyway. They must’ve figured they didn’t have to address it. But they paid for it in the final when they came up against tough competition.

Not addressing a problem only exacerbates it.