Close links inspire a spirited Bears quest
one of the highlights on the Queensland Cup calendar.
“The blokes that have been talking to them all preseason come back and there is a bit of a connection there,’’ Lenihan said of the troops that would address his playing group.
“They come back and speak about what it means to be a part of an army and what the day means to them.
“And even though football is a long way away from war, a lot of the key attributes are similar – people need to do a job for other people to be successful.”
The Bears have turned around their horror start to the season in the past fortnight, winning their past two games to gain belief that they can still compete for a finals place this season.
Lenihan said the turnaround had come after “forgetting about the word loss” and refusing to focus on the result of the match.
Instead, Lenihan asked his young playmakers to take ownership of their roles in the side and lead the Bears around the field despite being in the infancy of their senior careers.
Decimated by injuries to key players, the Bears have had to rely on players that may have been considered fringe squad members at the start of the year.
But Lenihan said forcing the likes of five-eighth Keanu Te Kiri, halfback Daniel Schwass and hooker Chris Law to dismiss the notion they were just “fill-ins” had helped them take ownership of the team and improvement had come.
“It was probably a little bit of a daunting situation because we had a side that was largely successful last year and those blokes weren’t a part of it,’’ Lenihan said.
“And then this year we needed people to come in and throw their weight around and direct the football team but they probably thought they didn’t have the right.
“So we had to sit down and talk about how important it was to have someone out there telling them where to go and giving them some direction.
“As soon as we gave them permission and the team needed them to do this, they really stepped up and improved in that area.”