When you run a guild, there are certain ways you are supposed to behave and react to different situations. You are supposed to be diplomatic. You are supposed to react without emotion. You are supposed to be infallible. Essentially, you aren’t supposed to be human.
See, I fail at that whole not being human part. I make mistakes, I react poorly, I am emotional.
We have been running two 10 man groups on Tuesdays to check out the new content before our 25 mans venture in for the start of our raid week on Wednesday. Both groups have seen success, and are largely equal. That being said, I loathe and hate the 10 mans. Not because of what they are, but because of the nightmare they become for a 25 man guild.
Regardless of what we do with them, someone bitches. Regardless of what we do, Brade and I have to split up and don’t get to play together. And regardless of the fact that we are one raid team, someone always makes the fucking things a competition between the two groups.
This is very, very difficult for me. I am a very competitive person by nature, which is something that I try to shelve because it’s not healthy. But the past two weeks the 10 man that I have been leading has lapsed behind the other group by one boss. We have one person in my group that rants about this to the point that it quite honestly makes me feel like I’ve failed my group and it is highly upsetting. Not to mention that I’m generally already quite upset by our lack of success.
Last week when they got Putricide and we fumbled all over ourselves sub 10%, I put on the good face that I was expected of me, “at least Monolith had a success”. Even though I was reeling from our failure.
This week I didn’t do as well. My group got to the blood princes and had them at 19% our third pull. As we worked through the fight I helped Brade get his group worked out from what we had learned about the fight. “Why don’t you try tanking the shadow guy, it’s working really well for Duff, I bet you could do it”. “There are actually multiple disco balls that need to be kept off the ground, we are using two people to help keep them afloat and splitting the room up”. “Try putting two full time healers on your non-shadow tank until your guy is empowered”.
And how did that end mr my group? After a few 19-ish% wipes were we fell apart for one reason or another, usually someone failing to avoid the bad stuff, in the end one of our members needed to log for the night and we decided to call it rather than pull in someone else to finish the fight off. Brade’s group? Even though it was late they gave it “one last pull” and got the boss down, utilizing the information that was working for my group. As I watched on his screen my heart sank. I had wanted my one last pull dammit.
I wanted to be happy for him. I wanted to be proud of the group that did it. But to be honest, I was frustrated that we couldn’t have “one last pull” to finish the fight out. I was disapointed that my group got sloppy and couldn’t finish the fucking thing after seeing 19% on our third pull. I didn’t want to deal with the “why do we suck so much” bullshit that was going to come from a certain member of my group because another week went by where we were the “weaker” group in his eyes. Even though it was what we learned about the fight that ultimately helped the other group succeed (you know…that whole one team thing I mentioned? Yea…it has benefits!). I loggged as the achievement spam hit.
It wasn’t what I should have done. I should have offered my congratulations to Brade’s group. I should have been diplomatic. I should have again put the other member in line, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t bring myself to sit there and listen to him rant about how much we suck, because no…we really didn’t, and our efforts helped their success, so even if we didn’t get the achievement spam we contributed to theirs. And there isn’t a damn thing wrong with that. Although I imagine that it was the fact we came so close, and provided a good bit of guidance to the other group, yet we failed to net the kill that caused people to feel more strongly about my groups lack of success. I know that was a good part of my disapointment, at least.
I was frustrated and upset. I wasn’t happy that my group couldn’t finish the fight off, but I damn well wasn’t going to sit online and be made to feel like I was a failure. Logging off was the best thing that I could do, but it wasn’t very leaderly. It didn’t set a good example, I know, but I am human. I have emotions. And disappointment is one of those emotions.
The entire incident lead to Brade and I having a massive fight at home. Probably the worst one that we’ve ever had. In the end Brade said “next week let’s just do one group”, but I know that isn’t what is in the guild’s best interests, even if it’s in mine, and isn’t fair to those that would be excluded, and would likely cause all kinds of stink. And while I would truly love to get to learn the content working through it with Brade, I know that I will put up a post asking who would like to attend again, and I know that we will be split into two groups again.
I am generally pretty good about keeping my emotions in check while raiding. I am generally pretty good about being diplomatic. But I am not a robot. I don’t need to go see the wizard for a heart. I’m allowed my disappointments every now and then, and becasue I am human I probably will still have occasions where I react poorly to them. But I will try to grow as a person from each experience.
In the end, I will get my group back in there tonight to deal with vampires and disco balls and suffer the never ending stream of “ball” jokes that spewed forth. In the end, everyone learned something last night that will help benefit our 25 man progression.
Falling Leaves and Wings 
In reality, both weeks were extremely similar. In both cases, your 10 man group has gotten off to a much better start. Our group takes pointers from your group’s experiences and has been fortunate enough to have some things come together a little faster.
I used to run raids quite a bit and I always had an issue where I felt like a failure if we didn’t succeed. I have come to learn that being is a raid leader is like being a quarterback in football. You can win without one, but at the same time they get too much credit when things go well (not really true in WoW) and too much blame when things go poorly (really common in WoW).
Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. Either the raid will beat the encounter during that week or they won’t. If not you have a week to think about adjustments. I think you and Brade both do a real good job leading raids. It’s a thankless job and there is a reason why a lot of people don’t like to put up with it.
It is very difficult to share your successes (or failures) when the person next to you isn’t celebrating the same successes (or failures). It is a challenge that is hard to overcome at times.
In all honesty, both groups are largely equal. I think what happened in my group was that after we saw how “easy” the fight was, people stopped focusing on the “hard” parts and made dumb mistakes, which ultimately is what ended up costing us our kill that night.
I will probably never be easier on myself…it’s just not who I am 🙂
That really sucks that you and your hubby have to split up for your ten-mans. Reminds me of trying to organize 3 Karazhan runs with what amounted to a 40-man raiding guild coming fresh into TBC, with a group of people lobbying for a fourth group but not wanting to actually take the time to lead it, and everyone all argueing over who got the “good players,” and a chunk of the good players complaining when they got split up because they were with the “bad players” and were just going to spend all night wiping.
It’s no-win. There’s no way to make that many people happy. Even now when you have a 25-man raid, and you have to split them to fill out 2 ten-mans (leaving 5-8 people looking for pugs or grumbling about being left out). And you KNOW there are just some players that are better or are leaders, and no matter how you split them, you can’t make everyone happy.
Blah.
It is very hard when I don’t get to raid with Brade. But we both recognize that with both of us being an intregal part of the leadership, we have to split up. It doesn’t make it any easier to do, and it doesn’t suck any less, but it’s something that we often have to do. It will be nice when interest for the zone starts to fade and we can run just the one group again.
Both of our groups are pretty equal…and honestly the one person complaining is likely just blowing off steam in his own way without realizing the effect it has on me. Once he vents it out, he’s pretty much done with it and back to being in a good mood.
I really do hate the 10 mans for this reason, but it’s a catch 22. You can learn so much by doing the 10 mans as a 25 man progression guild that they are invaluable. Ecspecially in this world of “rankings” (and we all know how I feel about those!).
I’d agree, you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. If this is truly a learning experience, then you should be able to group with Brade and put one of the other healers from his group in your place. Who cares if it isn’t optimal. Running two 10 man groups and having to split up from your significant other isn’t worth all the heartache/headache it causes.
Also, it sounds as if your problem with the guildie who gripes and complains about the other group having more success is an ongoing thing. If it is, it sounds like it is time to draw a line in the sand and tell him that if they are going to persist with that attitude, then maybe it is time for them to find another guild.
I know both of those courses of action have possible consequences that might be just as unpleasant as what you have now, but at least you won’t just have to sacrifice your own enjoyment so that everyone else can have things exactly the way they want.
Honestly, everything about running a guild is a “learning experience” 🙂
The problem with Brade and I grouping up together is that we are the raid leaders in our guild, so putting us both in one group truly disadvantages the other. I am not so selfish as to not regonize that and ignore that fact.
As I mentioned in my response to Kae, I’m sure it’s just his way of expressing his disapointment and he’s just oblivious as to how it affects me.
Say that your mic (or Brade’s) is broken and you have to be in the same group so you can both hear vent? 😉
If I want to group with Brade I’m not going to be devious about it, I’m just going to say “I want to play with Brade tonight”.
Plus…I talk waaaaay too much for that to even be a viable excuse! I’ve been known to go out that day and buy a new mic because of how frustrating it is for me not to be able to communicate 🙂
One of the more entertaining things about running in Brade’s group is hearing Beru in the background 🙂
i don’t lead raids but i’ve been on both sides: groups that do well compared to the other group, and groups that don’t do as well as the other group. it does suck and hurt a little when you fail, especially when you think your group is capable of doing so. and as much as a raid leader should be more objective, you are human and are not 100% perfect. we all have our bad days. we all have made mistakes before.
for one thing, i do think it will help to put that one negative member in-line and remind them to look at the bigger picture and how the 10-mans help the 25-mans (or something like that). or switch them to the other group so you don’t have to hear them. 😛
lastly, as my guild leader announced, “Couples who play together stay together!” 😀 good luck and i hope you can find a solution that keeps you and brade happy. 😀
The truth is, both groups do very well. But I do take issue when both groups don’t do equally as well. I felt the same way when we were doing TotGC 10 on our raid schedule and Brade’s group repeatedly struggled with Anub, while mine got insanity the second week we did it.
The difference is, he deals with that type of thing much, much better than I do.
If we manage to snake a kill on Queen this week in the 10 mans, next week we might do just one group on the weekend instead of the two on Tuesday night. But that is a big if…
I’ve had that exact thing happen, and taken it hard even though I wasn’t leading the group. My suggestion for next week would be to thoroughly shuffle the groups, if only to stifle any complaints about the appearance of an “uber” group and a “scrub” group.
We actually don’t have an “uber” group or a “scrub” group, they are both fairly equally distributed with members so that both groups will be successful. And it was my group that got Rotface down that fight night while he was bugged and spewing infections on the 25 man timer 🙂 But for whatever reason the past two weeks we just haven’t peaked our potential for play.
And I’m sure all it would have taken was “one last shot” before bed to have gotten our kill on the princes. Then again, perhaps not…our hunters were already beside themselves with laughter over having to shoot disco balls into the air…
Noticed an annoying typo in my comment.
“You can win without one” should read “You can’t win without one”
I knew what you meant 🙂 I would just go in and edit the comments to fix yours and delete this one…but I’m just too lazy!
(>.< wall o text, sorry! I have a point, I swear…)
It sounds like you have your frustrations but you haven't really vented them to your guild, yet. As in, they're not terribly aware how frustrated you are right now. Or at least that one complainer isn't.
My guild, although far less progressive than yours, had a bit of the same problem a while ago. We had an A-team doing the awesome content, but it left a lot of the guild out. And we complained. Yes, we; I did some of the whining. So our RL/GL told us officers to get our butts in gear and go lead something–doesn't have to be a raid, but just some guild event.
Before the DF I did a heroic race, and although it wasn't a raid, persay, it was hard trying to balance 2 groups of 1 tank, 1 healer, & 3 dps so that it was a fair race. I also had to deal with my group's success versus the other group, who beat us by one boss, versus encouraging fun & camaraderie.
But it was a hoot, they told me, and the guild atmosphere feels more awesome and happier now that somebody, not necessarily our amazing GL/RL, is leading something every day. I think because we all have tried the leader reins and now totally respect people trying to lead a raid or something going on.
Whatever it is, my GL asking people to step up has made the guild feel more awesome and cohesive, in my opinion. I don't know if it would be a total bust for you or not, but it's the best I can come up with.
Good luck in ICC! Both/All of your team! 🙂
We don’t really have an “A” team or a “B” team 🙂 So I don’t think it’s so much that is the complaint. I think people, including myself, were just disapointed that we couldn’t “seal the deal” at the same time the other group did.
At the start of ICC, we did have the 10 mans on our roster, and I split us into 3 groups, approaching a member that I think would do a good job leading the group to help us lead that third group. Now, we fed him a very strong group of players that would basically lead themselves, but they did very well. While we did this all 3 of our groups finished at almost identical times.
The problem now is that the later content is much more challenging than those first 4 bosses, which makes it a little harder to be able to split off into 3 10 mans.
I had a point in here somewhere….
Oh yes, I have delegated some! One of the other things I’ve done since the great burnout of Ulduar was make others organize their own alt and 10 man runs for older content.
It may be possible that people aren’t aware of some of my frustrations. I do try to deal with them privately. I have a handful of people that I vent to, and just get a good rant out of my system to, but largely unless it’s a huge problem I do try to just deal with it privately 🙂
Sounds to me like you need to delegate more. You probably think that nobody else can do it, but put them on the spot and they might surprise you.
I don’t know you, I haven’t been reading your blog for more than a week, so ignore me if you will, but this I believe to be true for anyone:
Anything in game leading to real life fights must be changed.
Think about where you will be in, say, 3 years… probably not leading WoW raids, but you will hopefully still be in your relationship. Don’t jeopardize something good that’s possibly permanent, with something that is unquestionably transient.
I’m not sure if I’ve made this common knowledge here on the blog or not, so only those that may want to dig through these comments will know 😉 But Brade and I met through WoW waaaaay back when Nefarian was challenging! I think that it is probably fairly safe to say that gaming will probably be a part of our relationship in the future, even if it’s not WoW, because it is part of what brought us together to begin with 🙂
That having been said, you are correct. Something in game should not lead to nastiness at home. And it is fairly rare that it does.
Brade and I almost never fight. Ever. Like I could probably count the number of fights we’ve had in our relationship on one hand. This is largely because I’m a hot head and hugely emotional and I tend to rant my way to calm…and he is almost always calm. He also has this amazing resiliance to my ranting. I’ll just be going on and on, and he lets me. When I’ve finally shut up, he will just look over and ask “are we done now” and we both have a laugh.
*offers tea, cookie and hugs*
I know exactly what you mean when you say you aren’t happy raiding without your husband, and I’m rather inclined to agree with the people who have suggested you need to rearrange your teams so that you and Brade are in the same group. If the two of you are the only really viable raid leaders you have, what happens when you’re both away? Training up alternative leaders won’t fix the problem over night but it could make your team stronger in the long run.
I also think you need to do something about your complainer because I doubt you’re the only person they’re upsetting. Letting off steam to diffuse one’s frustration can be very helpful (I do it all the time), but not when it is distressing and demoralising the whole team because it is being done publicly. Perhaps they have a good friend that they can talk to that won’t take their grumbling too seriously? Or perhaps one of your officers could redirect their comments into a less public forum?
You are probably right that I should let my complainer know that he’s distressing me. And the last time when I pointed out the “good” things, he was quick to acknowledge them and move on. I really do think that he is just venting and sometimes just says things to vent. As an example one tidbit that I did catch on Brade’s screen after I had logged was someone from the other group commenting that we had some good attempts, to which he said “no we didn’t” and the other person said “Brade said 19%, that is good!”. This kind of deflated the complaining a bit. I really think that he was disapointed and this was his way of dealing with it 🙂
As for changing the groups around…it’s something to think on. And I honestly don’t know where I will come out once I’m done giving it some thought. But I will think about it!
I’ve seen nothing but problems when a 25 man guild is split in two to do 10 mans. I think it’s doubly difficult for you because you’re so close to Brade’s group – you can see it on his screen and you’re raiding at the same time, right?
I think you need to put it out there in your guild that the two of you are a pair, you live together, and want to play together. Full stop. I don’t think it’s right that the two of you are in different groups and I doubt the rest of your guild understand what a sacrifice you’re making.
Ugh, tell me about it! I love the 10 mans for the insight that they can offer into our 25 man attempts…but I hate the 10 mans for the logisitical nightmares they become as far as planning is concerned.
Brade and I do play right next to each other, so we can observe each other’s raids.
While I do want to play with Brade, I raid with him 4 nights a week in our 25 mans. I don’t mind doing somethings without him! Honest! I really dislike those people that won’t do something without their other half, and I don’t want to be one of those people. Where I think the problem comes in here is that on learning things it nice to be able to celebrate successes and woe over stuggles together, and if you aren’t sharing those experiences you don’t get that option.
I don’t want Brade to define who I am as a person in, or out, of game. And I am perfectly OK doing things without him…just sometimes it would be nice to get to do things with him is all 🙂
Have a peach bellini, my dear – not in celebration but in sympathy.
*hugs*
I know I’m not a RL, or a guild leader, and sorry for what might come across as unsolicited advice from someone who doesn’t have a clue BUT I feel very strongly that you and Brade are letting the self-sacrificing aspects of leadership damage your own happiness to an inacceptable extent. I have immense respect for you Beru, I think you’re amazing, and I think you’re a wonderful leader BUT I think by attempting to be “fair” and “do what’s right for the guild” you are actually depriving the guild of one of its best resources – i.e. the relationship between you and Brade. You know each other, you trust each other, you’re practiced at playing well together, it makes no logical sense to seperate you.
And if you think having a raid group with such a strong bond as its backbone is “unfair” on another group – well … hell … they should go out and make friendships of their own. Raids are all about performance yes, but they live and die (in my inexperienced opinion) of the interactions within it. I mean, if you felt disappointed and demoralised by the Mouthy Guy casting your group as the sucky group, I can’t help but feel the other 8 probably felt exactly the same as you – it’s hard to pull it together and make something work when somebody seems to believe from the outset you can’t do it, and seperates himself from the team (which whinging about ‘why we suck’ effectively does).
Also even though you’re a leader, you have *as much right* as any individual within your guild to have a pleasant experience. It is not unreasonable (if you ask me) for couples to want to play together – in fact, I imagine you’d think very very seriously about putting another couple in your guild in seperate raid groups. You’d probably, at the very least, discuss it with them first – you probably wouldn’t take it as read that was a sacrifice they owed the guild in order to raid. Like I say, I know leadership involves compromise but you are treating your own comfort as being worth *less* than the comfort of anybody else in the guild.
Sorry this is a wall of text.
Oh man! How unfair is this! You get to wall of text me, but I write 4 sentances and am made to post in two seperate posts! Shennanigans I say! 😉
You do have a few good points, as always.
I have recognized that at times I put other people’s happiness in front of mine, and I have been working on trying to be better about recognizing when I’m truly unhappy with something and fixing it. This revelation actually came about one night when I started a 10 man alt run…only to end up on the bench of my own run in order to keep everyone else happy.
It was at that point that I decided that I’m going to do some things for myself. And if that meant telling people “sorry this run is full” or even “sorry, my sanity can’t take you tonight” so be it!
And believe it or not, I am about 100 times better about taking some things for myself than I was a year ago.
So I am getting there, honest! 🙂
Speaking of peachbellinis, perhaps I will have Brade take me out for some tomorrow night. Mmmmmm….the bubbly goodness!
I strongly concur with Jeff, Beru, seems to me the only viable choice in a situation like this is either do go raid but together, or don’t go at all. I believe you could’ve enjoyed a quiet evening *together* doing anything else and have not had a worry in the world. Like Tamarind says, perhaps it’d be nice to treat your own comfort as being worth, well.. *a damn heck of a lot more* than the comfort of anybody else in the guild 😉
I don’t have to raid with Brade *all* of the time, but I will admit that it would be nice to be able to do a few of the 10 man learning nights with him. So maybe some weeks I will just offer up the one group with both of us in it 🙂
Ah yes guild leadership. My husband and I left it 🙂
I love what Jeff said. Did I say that loudly enough?
Change is very hard, see what you can do to fix the problem. I can tell you that it will be worth it in the end. Maybe I should say, “We can tell you that it will be worth it in the end.”
Raid with Brade
Help someone else realize their potential as a leader
In an effort not to sound like a broken record, I’ll refer you to some of the above responses I left regarding raiding with him 🙂
Although, I am sure that he and I will make a change somewhere to help with the issues!
even tho u say ur teams r pretty equal i would suggest a shuffle up the teams anyways… sometimes a lil change can be refreshing… and if it doesnt work its only one week
We do move people around here and there each week as needed to even them out some, and they are never static teams each week. We look at who expressed interest in going and then split those members up into two groups that we think are fairly equal 🙂
Man, sorry I missed this yesterday.
I’ve mentioned to you before several times my feelings on issues like this.
I really do feel you have to be more firm. I know this isn’t your nature, but sometimes you have to put your own sanity first. You going out of your way to make everyone happy isn’t beneficial to your own happiness.
Anyone complaining about which group they land in needs a big ol’ cup of stfu. It is not a competition between guild members. Hell, WoW itself is not a fucking competition.
Being part of your group myself that night I also take a little offense to whoever was saying we “suck”. I don’t know exactly who it is, but I think I can guess. And if it is this person who is so damn fond of his “pro pants”, then you may have to get in line to tell him to STFU. I’m damn close myself and if I hear about fucking “pro pants” one more time, I just might do it.
Being a part of Monolith is a privilege in my opinion and some people like Mr. Pro Pants are abusing the outstanding atmosphere that you and Brade have created by taking advantage of you. Not to mention getting on my damn nerves. 😮
Lastly, I think next week you should only run one WITH Brade. No signups or anything. When Brade gets home that day, you can ask if there’s interest. I suggest taking only people that don’t try your patience and still comprise a successful group.
Take heart what your readership is telling you Beru. There’s good advice here. Do some things for yourself for a change and stop catering to the rest of us “fuck-ups” so much.
Also, ball jokes are awesome.
Actually it’s not Mr. Pro Pants. He is genuinely very supportive, even when we don’t succeed. He and I often talk after encounters and 99% of the time he is very optimistic about both our successes and our failures. I know, you are probably shocked as that doesn’t seem to be your take on him. But even though he likes his Pro Pants, he does mean well, and has never been disparaging after a night of wiping.
As for who it is, think a little more…Arthas, with a touch of “Man’s Game” 🙂 I am sure you can work that out. To be fair it was done in a chat channel and not in guild chat, but it is a channel that probably 1/3 of the guild is in and the effects were still the same. As I said, I’m sure it’s just his way of blowing off steam and disapointment, but what I don’t think he realizes is the effect it has on everyone else.
And dear god…the ball jokes. I think Dendrite said it best: “There is no way we are mature enough for this encounter”!
Wow. I am shocked. Not at being wrong about who it was but about who it actually is.
That would have never occurred to me. Sigh, I guess I am more ignorant of how people truly are than I thought.
Regardless, don’t let this get to you so much. Most of my comments still stand.
And for what it’s worth, I appreciate everything you and Brade do for ALL of us. Start doing some things for yourselves every once in a while!
haha, well please don’t read too much into it! I’m 100% certain it was just his way of dealing with his disapointment! Your perception of him is probably fairly close to accurate, but nobody can be perfect 🙂
I know you appreciate us! But thank you for reminding me 🙂
I definitely feel your pain.
I had a former guild leader who had a great solution for having to split from her husband so that they could lead separate 10mans. She ran a wee-hours, strictly-fun Kara on the weekends, with her and her beau on their baby alts. Whichever of us were up at 2am could come along on whatever toons we pleased and bumble through content in a carefree state of mind. Sometimes people fell asleep, sometimes easy kills were incredibly epic, sometimes we would have to pug 5 of the 10 spots, but we never failed to have a laugh. And even when we were finishing up Hyjal, she still ran those late night Karas (and ZAs) just so she and her husband could be silly together, along with a group of their friends.
This is actually a really good idea. Since we live several time zones away from server time, maybe this is something he and I can do on the weekends together. Even if it just starts off with the two of us and 8 pugs thrown together two have some wipetastic fun 🙂
And for those curious, yes we did go back in and kill the twilight princes of doom last night 🙂
Of course after the shaman that was in our 10 man group killed me in the 25 man version by running DIRECTLY INTO the giant glowing orange ball coming at his face, every few minutes in our 10 I’d ask him “and what do we do when the big glowing ball is coming at you?” to which he would reply “flee!”.
I am also feeling much better than I did yesterday! Of course…one of the reasons that I even started a blog was so that I’d have somewhere to release my frustrations in the hopes that it would make me feel better. It is definately working! 🙂
I will admit I haven’t read the comments, as they would probably state what I want to say and then I would have to just say I agree with them all 🙂
Now, first thing – you should stop seeing the two teams as “my” and “his”. It’s devastating, both for guild and your relationship too (fighting over a pc game? Although if that is the only thing you would have fight over, then go you 🙂 ). But this as well harms the guild, as the “naggy guys” attitude will start spreading in the guild and will depress you as leader even more. If I were at your place, I would either shuffle people around every week and even played with my husband (wife) quite often – because if you are 25M raiding guild, 10M raiding is not your main focus and “I want to have fun in game too, because I am human too”; or stopped doing the 10M runs altogether. Let people fry and pug it for week or two, that will teach them to appreaciate ANY guild runs organised for them.
Good luck!
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Ugh. I HATED splitting our 25 man team into two 10 mans… and it was my idea.
It sounded so great in theory, and everyone was all for it… but when all was said and done, we had two groups of 10 people who ended feeling slightly hostile and competitive toward one another, instead of feeling like one solid team – and they never recovered from that.