Fans right to be unhappy says Yorkshire CCC head coach Anthony McGrath
ANTHONY MCGRATH said that Yorkshire’s members and supporters are right to be critical after a fourth defeat in seven County Championship games left his side stuck in the relegation zone at the tournament’s halfway stage.
The county’s head coach said that he understood the frustration of the fans after Yorkshire lost by 163 runs to Nottinghamshire at Headingley.
Defeat kept Yorkshire second-bottom of the First Division - above the only side they have beaten so far, Worcestershire - and McGrath made no attempt to sugarcoat the matter.
“We’ve got to look at ourselves, not just the players, all the coaches as well, and we've got to find some answers,” he said. “As much as we talk, and everything like that, it's about performances. Our members, supporters, people who follow us - and we’ve got great support - are not interested in ifs and buts and whatever. They want to see results.
“I feel that. I’ve been a player here. I know that. I know the expectations and people should be critical. We’ve no problem with that. We've got to be better. But the one thing that won’t happen is a lack of positivity. It’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves.
“It's about understanding what it is to be a Yorkshire player and, for me, that means trophies and competing at the top. So, yes, the table doesn’t look great. But, as I’ve said all the way through, we’re looking up and that’s not going to change.”
There were one or two good individual performances during the Nottinghamshire match but McGrath made clear: “You can't win games with just two, three, four players performing. You've got to have more than that, particularly in this division.
“I've seen this division. I know what it takes to do well in this division, and we're just not playing well enough for long enough.
“When teams get on top, particularly teams who've been in this division for a while, they dominate you and they're ruthless, and we've got to find somehow that ruthlessness.”
McGrath did not hide behind injuries. Yorkshire were without both overseas pace bowlers for this game - the short-term stays of Ben Sears and Jordan Buckingham are now over – and Jordan Thompson has picked up a side strain that will be scanned on Tuesday.
“We've not had great luck with injuries and stuff like that, but I don't want to go down that route,” added McGrath. “The XIs we’ve put out - we’ve got a strong squad, but we've just not got enough guys performing to their ability at the moment.
“We’ve obviously got issues in each department, but I think the last two weeks in particular, against Surrey and Notts, have been tough to take given that we’d played really well at Chelmsford before those games. I think we’ve shown good signs at various times but I think it’s obvious to see from the performances overall that we’ve lost a bit of belief.”
However, McGrath stressed: “One thing I can't complain about is the effort within the group. They're so dying to do well, the team, and we’ve got a great set of lads, but you need more than that, unfortunately. This is professional sport, and the higher you go, it's not about skill, it's what's in your head, so we've got to get that kind of robustness, that resilience and that mental toughness.”