“Oh yeah, at first I heard that all the time, in the dressing room as much as anywhere,” Appleton says. “All I got was ‘you can’t play that way in this division.’ I’d hear a moan in the crowd at a sideways pass. But however much I’d disagree with that, last year I was trying to change the ethos and the players we had weren’t good enough to do it. I was putting a noose to my neck, saying this is how we should play and then not being able to deliver.”