But doesn’t mental strength improve with appropriate guidance/mentoring and support mechanisms in place.
In other industries, mental strength is galvanised by good leaders, clarity of purpose/mission statement, by appropriate training, working to your strengths, feeling valued and by a proactive HR team. It’s hard to say if it is down to mental strength or down to not being quite good enough on occasions, flawed holistic directives (game plans), poor decision making at key moments (officials, players and managers all qualify) or just plain old bad luck.
There is a stark contrast in our away results and our home results; often things are seen as weaknesses when in actual fact the margins between what is perceived as success and failure are minuscule. You could argue that we showed good mental strength against the three promoted teams away from home, in hindsight three very good results; if you throw Swindon and Port Vale away games into that mix, then that’s not a bad return against the top sides; do we have a different outlook or different motivation at other times?
In all honesty, I’m down about missing out on the play-offs, but will take a standing eight count and return with gusto next season with high expectations; why bother if you don’t, but each to their own and I’m all for people letting off steam.
It’s not the end of the road, it’s a service station stop off (Burger King vegan/vegetarian selection is top notch
); come July the journey begins again.