getting some game time and throwing 1st XVII players into the friendlies I think has to be the way to go. You can't second guess injuries, they can happen at any time even outside of match play so trying to cotton wool early doors IMHO isn't really of benefit. Obviously getting younger squad members game time is crucial too so a balanced approach is fine but not shying away from ensuring everyone gets a decent wedge on the field.
What I would like to see is more thought into rotating players earlier on and if we do have younger squad players in the XVII then bloody well use them not wait until last 10 minutes of the second half. Radford has been guilty of that too often and it's a wasted sub spot and thus forwards particularly are more fatigued.
The other aspect is mental strength, again we went into free-fall too often and against crap sides too as well as folding badly from strong starts.
I didn't think we were too bad physically at season end I just think that we failed mentally at times and this cost us and we end up chasing or letting in soft tries too often including the Leeds play-off game.
