STUNG after being booed off the field, the Waratahs players yesterday held a lengthy ”truth session” at which they vowed not to let their supporters, or themselves, down again this season.
When the players assembled for a training session in Moore Park yesterday, they were still stunned by the public backlash that followed their appalling performance at the SFS on Saturday night, when they were on the wrong end of a 20-point defeat to the bottom-rung Cheetahs.
The Waratahs were loudly jeered by the home crowd during and after the game, with many long-time followers later rating it the worst effort by a NSW team in decades.
The embarrassed players organised a meeting that was not attended by the coaching staff. Each player involved in the loss was allowed to make ”honest comments”, with the general consensus being they had committed the cardinal mistake of believing they were better than they actually were.
Back-rower Ben Mowen said after the meeting the team had ”definitely underestimated the Cheetahs.”
”Preparation-wise, we didn’t do the work that needed to be done for an opposition that had pushed a lot of teams and showed a lot of heart,” Mowen said yesterday. ”The way we were beaten suggests we did take that for granted.”
Looking to Saturday night’s match against the Brumbies in Canberra, Mowen said: ”We won’t be underestimating anyone from here on in.”
The player meeting also included video analysis of the Cheetahs game. Mowen admitted watching the replay had proved a lot easier ”than looking at each other in the eye”.
He added that the Waratahs’ collapse was not the fault of the coaching staff, as ”all the responsibility fell on us [the players]”.
At the meeting one of the main issues discussed was pride in the Waratahs jersey, and in each other.
”There was a lot of things we had to address, most importantly how we represented each other,” Mowen said. ”We talked about why things went the way they did. Obviously that’s not something we want to repeat, and it is something we won’t forget.
”We now have to play with a lot of heart and a lot of passion for each other, because the Cheetahs performance didn’t represent the way we play at all. The good news is we have another game this weekend. If that had been the last game of the season, I don’t think you would have been able to get that taste out of your mouth for a long time.”
Asked who spoke, Mowen said that ”everyone had a voice.”
”No one in this team is more important than anyone else, and that has been a strength of ours … That didn’t happen on the weekend … we didn’t show each other respect, or play for each other,” he said.