Our squad is the worst in the league. At 2 wins and 3, 4 or 5 losses you could say we were overachieving. 2-6 is about right for our squad.
Some thoughts:
Bula continues to be up and down this season. Definitely creating more, but also more errors and strangely out of place positionally again. Still feel Bula, Galvin, Latu, Samuela provide hope and excitement and show spark.
Staines looks like a winger!
Simpkin had a good game.
Feel sorry for Olam with his huge celebration for saving a try at the end of the half I thought it would lift the team, but nah. He works really hard, all effort, must be hard to do when most of the team seems to be going half pace.
But the difference between the two teams was a poor 30 minutes from us after Simpkin went off and it was really difficult to pull momentum back. Our feet look stuck in the ground.
For all the criticism of Klemmer and Stefano, they're a lot better than our bench props, and this is the second week where they've come off, the other side has got away, and they come back with the game well in control to the other side. It's a big problem because I don't see anything better elsewhere. One thing they must do is stagger them more. Have Stefano stay on longer in the first half, and have Klemmer come on earlier than Stefano in the second. One of the props needed to be sent on when Simpkin went on 10 minutes into the second half. If he's going to play controlled football, rather than aggressive, I'd like to see Stefano evolve into a 60 minute prop.
People are too harsh on Papalii but his lack of lateral movement gets exposed out wide because he's defending on the back foot. Probably on a better team he gets to just line the opposition up. Agree with others who suggest he should go into the middle, but I'd play him as a bench prop rather than a 13, he'd stifle our attack as a 13. But who could play edge for us??? Hopefully Matamua can do it?
I also think people are harsh on Bateman. He's often making effective runs and tackles. There's no way you could drop him and I don't even mind him at 13, I just wish he'd focus on playing a really simple game. He's too desperate and emotional and it hurts us multiple times every week.
I think people are also harsh on Sezer. Did people expect a superstar? He's high involvement and does the basics well. He had a bad game last week, and he's not young anymore, but I think he plays an important role for the team.
Twal, who has always been one of my favourites, has been very poor this season. We look more vulnerable defensively and in attack when he's on the field. Don't see value in playing him, but don't think there's a better option. And I'm still probably hooking Seyfarth before him, because Seyfarth is too loose for little effect.
Finally, we've matched it for periods with every team we've played. We just get in our own way with terrible errors, relieving penalties and poor last tackle options. We're definitely a bad team, but there's a lot that looks quite promising as well, and that wasn't the case in the past.
I know it's probably against Benjiball, but I'd like to see us look to offload a little more. We don't usually get go forward but often our forwards have their arms free but we tend to play pretty conservatively. I just don't see us outmuscling other teams when we have a massive gaping hole in our forward pack as soon as stefano and Klemmer get tired.
Ref was terrible. Not about costing the game, just was really messy everywhere. I know I'm biased but there was a brief spell halfway through the first half against the Broncos, and when we played the Sharks, where the referees seemed to actually police all the flops and leg pulls and extra efforts after being called held that the other teams do to us. Again, these things I'm sure go both ways, just we've been part of some really slow clunky games where the ref seems to allow a whole lot of leniency in the ruck work. Anyway, if we stop stupidly knocking on at the worst time, and actually organise a decent backline move, I'm sure there will be less of that to focus on.
