My apologies up front: this is going to be a long post.
I have been pondering the solution to our poor performace for more than a decade and I am a firm believer that our poor performances have been directly realted to our ability to control a game. This doesn't have anything to do with skill with ball in hand this is related to football IQ. I am a card carrying Brooks basher - not because of his skills - but because he has never had the football IQ required to lead a team. He is great at playing a role. It was not his fault - he was a round peg forced into a square hole at WT.
But he's gone and we aren't performing significanly better. Why?
A good footy team has a balance - different body shapes, different playing styles and different levels of footballing smarts. We have a reasonable mix across the board - sure we could do with some upgrades and we lack discipline at times; but, we have shown plenty of skill and plenty of grit at different times of the season so far and more often than not in different parts of each game we play.
What we don't have is the ability to control the game so that is happens at our pace. How do we develop this and who do we target to be the Wests Tiger's "Cooper Cronk/Matty Johns"?
Our problem is football the smarts of our halves. When we control of the pill we control the game. I think that we have been so fixated in playing the up tempo game the NRL wants that we have forgotten that what really wins football games is control.
Our focus has to be on developing the ability to control the pace of the game; to develop a plan to make what we have work. We aren't Penrith, Melbourne or Brisbane with strike weapons across the park. While Api can do a little bit as Captain and from hooker the pace/momentum can only really be controlled by the halves.
How do address this problem? We need to stop trying to play to the NRL playsheet of fast open football. This will be hard because that is how kids are taught to play through the grades. Benji needs to educate our halves and stop telling them to simply play what they see. This is a great strategy when we need to up the tempo; the problem is there are times where we have really needed to slow the game down to break the opposition's rhythm or simply get some gas back into the tank of our guys.
Our halves need to understand the game and the needs of the team and then apply the play what you see lens over that.
- If we are gassed; kick to the sideline and start from a set play - get some air snd start with a set defensive line.
- If we are stuggling to go forward but aren't gassed a 40/20 is a great tool - Api from dummy half, Sezer at half or find a specialist 40/20 kicker and develop a play (maybe Naden can be useful?). Make it a Tigers trademark.
- If we have energy and a bit of freedom let the ball sing - we only tend to do this chasing points when it is too late. At times we look good doing this - Sullivan and Galvin suit this style of play and FFS Staines could even come in handy instead of using him as a first tackle option 10 out from our own line.
Who is that guy for us? Sezer definitely has the experience to execute that role. Perhaps if Latu can get fit he can do that job - I don't know - but that is the skill set that we are missing. Galvin and Sullivan appear to be more heads up players and need somone else to control the tempo.
What we do doen't have to be pretty - just effective. This is on the coaching staff; they have to develop our halves to understand what the team needs, at what time of the game, and tp provide them with the plays to really control our fortunes on the park.
