LIVE GAME Round 17 vs. Roosters

[Vicious]

Benji stated the metres made per set was double for the Roosters in the first half and that was the catalyst for the result.
All I know is I’ve now watched the game twice and our middle forwards including Sam Fainu who played on an edge as well as Aidan Sezar and at times Lachie Galvin all hit hard defensively and did not take a backward step.
The majority of the defensive issues except when we had one or two players in the sin bin were all out wide where the Roosters exploited us regularly .
Naden justifiably got hooked for poor arm grabbing defence, our wingers tried to tackle with force but come up with too many poor defensive reads and Doueihi also had plenty of bad defensive reads that he needs to fix and fix fast.
There was no defensive cohesion whatsoever between our centres and wingers.

 

[weststigerman]

Completely outclassed in this game. I can't really be mad at the players because it was kids/fringe first graders against a team full of rep stars.

The salary cap is not keeping a level playing field, this has been evident for the last 5-6 years but the NRL don't care and just blame the clubs.

 

[Betterdays22]

Benji stated the metres made per set was double for the Roosters in the first half and that was the catalyst for the result.
All I know is I’ve now watched the game twice and our middle forwards including Sam Fainu who played on an edge as well as Aidan Sezar and at times Lachie Galvin all hit hard defensively and did not take a backward step.
The majority of the defensive issues except when we had one or two players in the sin bin were all out wide where the Roosters exploited us regularly .
Naden justifiably got hooked for poor arm grabbing defence, our wingers tried to tackle with force but come up with too many poor defensive reads and Doueihi also had plenty of bad defensive reads that he needs to fix and fix fast.
There was no defensive cohesion whatsoever between our centres and wingers.

If the middles are getting rolled backwards it makes it a lot harder for the centres and wingers to do their job defensively. Agree though there is seemingly no cohesion in the backs (attack too), probably due to a lack of combinations and panicky decision making. Has been an issue on our edges for years.

 

[Vicious]

If the middles are getting rolled backwards it makes it a lot harder for the centres and wingers to do their job defensively. Agree though there is seemingly no cohesion in the backs (attack too), probably due to a lack of combinations and panicky decision making. Has been an issue on our edges for years.

It was very rare and mainly only when we had players sin binned that the Roosters middle forwards were scattering our defenders.
I know plenty of our fans like to look at the stats of metres made, that is misleading as the Roosters had more possession, factor in the possession when two players were sin binned and factor in the assistance the Roosters got from their back 3 making inroads and getting them on the front foot conpared with ours.
Not saying our back 3 didn’t try, but that’s where there was a massive gap in class between the 2 teams.

 

[innsaneink]

I have to say, despite all that was against them, I thought our young wingers weren’t too bad. They ran hard and straight and would have learnt plenty tonight.

Yep...they both had a crack and can hold their heads high

Quite a lesson for some of our kids

 

[Tim Sheens]

Stefano is a work in progress Imo Tom.
He may turn into a bloody good player eventually, but he is not worth the $$$ we are paying him currently.

He is probably worth what WT are currently paying for mine, with the question mark being if he is going to be worth the cost of the next contract?

 

[Vicious]

Yep...they both had a crack and can hold their heads high

Quite a lesson for some of our kids

It is never ever going to end well when you select wingers who are well under 6 foot tall and not overly fast up against 2 wingers who are 6 foot 5 and extremely fast.
I know some keep saying the Panthers seem to manage. They manage as their back 5 always rip in with plenty of strong carries that go a long way towards helping their forwards get on the front foot and their back 5 make very minimal poor defensive reads.
Whatever way we look at it our back 5 is our major issue and our 6 and 7 need to do better when we have good field position also.

 

[Betterdays22]

Benji stated the metres made per set was double for the Roosters in the first half and that was the catalyst for the result.
All I know is I’ve now watched the game twice and our middle forwards including Sam Fainu who played on an edge as well as Aidan Sezar and at times Lachie Galvin all hit hard defensively and did not take a backward step.

I've been really surprised at how solid Sezar is defensively. He would make a really good 14 next year, although his service from dummy half was pretty poor when Api was off the field.

Without having watched the presser Benji was maybe making the point about the yardage game, they are so poor coming out of their own end (which is on the outside backs as much as the forwards). That in turn puts a lot of pressure on the defensive side of things.

 

[rugbygoated]

You didn’t say he played well. You said he was very impressive.
That’s bullshit.

He was. I was watching live. Deathriding players is not my forte

 

[Vicious]

That may be true, but when the Roosters wingers scored we had man on man defensively, yet our centres or wingers made decisions to not trust their inside or outside team mate and this created an unnecessary overlap.
When out numbered it is obviously the fault of the players further in field not doing their job, but these instances last night were our centres and wingers causing problems for no reason other than not trusting their team mate,

 

[Jolls]

It was very rare and mainly only when we had players sin binned that the Roosters middle forwards were scattering our defenders.
I know plenty like today look at the stats of metres made, that is misleading as the Roosters had more possession, factor in the possession when two players were sin binned and factor in the assistance the Roosters got from their back 3 making inroads and getting them on the front foot conpared with ours.
Not saying our back 3 didn’t try, but that’s where there was a massive gap in class between the 2 teams.

Although we were completely outclassed and I was extremely pissed off last night in the light of Monday it isn't as bad as the scoreline suggests. I took the time to do some analysis nd the reading it is not as bad as I expected. Telling was the missed tackles and, what is not shown in any stats but was clear to anyone with half a football brain, the poor defensive reads on our left edge.

The chooks had done their homework and knew exactly where to target - AD's edge. As soon as he was in two minds it threw out the entire defensive structure and the chooks ran riot. This led to long periods without the ball, or with the ball in poor field position and a team fatigued from defence.

AD was OK in the second half - in both attack and defence - but his poor defensive reads in middle of the first half cost us much more than his missed tackles. Naden's tackling was not significantly better, but he held his nerve and that edge performed reasonably. His attack was next to non existent though. If I get the time I will rewatch the game and focus on why that was.

AD is certainly our best attacking option at centre and I expect he and Olam will be our go to next week. AD is just back, and defence on the edge is all about trust and coordination. Potentially it can be fixed; but AD has had that liability his entire career to date so he really needs to work on it.

Surprisingly, for the most part, our forwards had similar stats to the Chooks. The starting packs are a little hard to compare given Watson played three positions - but JWH and Stefano had very similar stats, as did Pole and May, and Crighton and Porter. Fianu and Radley were similar, although Radley had more run meters. The big difference being Matamua and Api who were completley overshadowed by their chooks counterparts. The chooks impact off the bench with Lenui was also much better. While the forward stats aren't impressive they were, for much of the game, impacted by poor field position so comparatively they were OK. Api/Matamua's stats are not unexpected as we were in poor field position for long periods. Api certainly didn't have us on the front foot though - not entirely his fault I know.

The other area we were totally outplayed was in the halves. Neither Sezer or Galvin controlled the game appropriately. I understood what Tucker posted about Galvin playing like and 18 year old. He tried but was ineffective and really didn't know how to get us where we needed to be. But then again, neither did Sezer who should have grabbed the game by the balls and shifted momentum for us.

Why didn't we kick for touch to slow momentum, to limit the effectiveness of their back three against our fatigued defence. Why didn't we kick in behind the Chook's defensive line when their line speed was quick due to not having to defend too much. Why didn't we attempt a few more 40/20s to gain momentum for us?

Our left edge defence was the root cause of our demise, but our inability to control the pace of the game compounded it - that sits on Sezer and Api's shoulders.

The game was lost by the defence of our left edge in the first half - from there it was simply a compounding effect of fatigue and frustration. The sinbins added to the issue - but were a result of our side trying to win back momentum.

While not a great experience - there are some excellent lessons that can be identified. Will we learn the lessons or will we repeat the same mistakes against the Storm. If we are developing and learning - it will have been a painful, but worthwhile, experience. If we make the same mistakes again we need to determine if it is the playing intellect of key individuals or if it is the coaching staff that are the issue? Some hard decisons need to be made.

Substitue Luai for Sezer - does he get us on the front foot?
Substitute a quality centre for AD - does that start to swing the pendulum?

I know here I would be spending our $.

 

[liltiger]

The thing that really grinds my gears though is when we have a player tackled.
Cough Bateman, Klemmer Cough.
And they get up to play the ball but instead of playing the ball they're arguing with the ref slowing everything down.

 

[BAGNF05]

Benji stated the metres made per set was double for the Roosters in the first half and that was the catalyst for the result.
All I know is I’ve now watched the game twice and our middle forwards including Sam Fainu who played on an edge as well as Aidan Sezar and at times Lachie Galvin all hit hard defensively and did not take a backward step.
The majority of the defensive issues except when we had one or two players in the sin bin were all out wide where the Roosters exploited us regularly .
Naden justifiably got hooked for poor arm grabbing defence, our wingers tried to tackle with force but come up with too many poor defensive reads and Doueihi also had plenty of bad defensive reads that he needs to fix and fix fast.
There was no defensive cohesion whatsoever between our centres and wingers.

Been our main deficiency all year mate. Turuva was pretty ordinary yesterday too, looks injured.

 

[Vicious]

Although we were completely outclassed and I was extremely pissed off last night in the light of Monday it isn't as bad as the scoreline suggests. I took the time to do some analysis nd the reading it is not as bad as I expected. Telling was the missed tackles and, what is not shown in any stats but was clear to any with half a football brain, the poor defensive reads on our left edge.

The chooks had done their homework and knew exactly where to target - AD's edge. As soon as he was in two minds it threw out the entire defensive structure and the chooks ran riot. This led to long periods without the ball, or with the ball in poor field position and a team fatigued from defence.

AD was OK in the second half - in both attack and defence - but his poor defensive reads in middle of the first half cost us much more than his missed tackles. Naden's tackling was not significantly better, but he held his nerve and that edge performed reasonable. His attack was next to non existent though. If I get the time I will rewatch the game and focus on why that was.

AD is certainly our best attacking option at centre and I expect he and Olam will be our go to next week. AD is just back, and defence on the edge is all about trust and coordination. Potentially it can be fixed; but AD has had that liability his entire career to date so he really needs to work on it.

Surprisingly, for the most part, our forwards had similar stats to the Chooks. The starting packs are a little hard to compare given Watson played three positions - but JWH and Stefano had very similar stats, as did Pole and May, and Crighton and Porter. Fianu and Radley were similar, although Radley had more run meters. The big difference being Matamua and Api who were completley overshadowed by their chooks counterparts. The chooks impact off the bench with Lenui was also much better. While the forward stats aren't impressive they were, for much of the game, impacted by poor field position so comparatively they were OK. Api/Matamua's stats are not unexpected as we were in poor field position for long periods. Api certainly didn't have us on the front foot though - not entirely his fault I know.

The other area we were totally outplayed was in the halves. Neither Sezer or Galvin controlled the game appropriately. I understood what Tucker posted about Galvin playing like and 18 year old. He tried but was ineffective and really didn't know how to get us where we needed to be. But then again, neither did Sezer who should have grabbed the game by the balls and shifted momentum for us.

Why didn't we kick for touch to slow momentum, to limit the effectiveness of their back three against our fatigued defence. Why didn't we kick in behind the Chook's defensive line when their line speed was quick due to not having to defend too much. Why didn't we attempt a few more 40/20s to gain momentum for us?

Our left edge defence was the root cause of our demise, but our inability to control the pace of the game compounded it - that sits on Sezer and Api's shoulders.

The game was lost by the defence of our left edge in the first half - from there it was simply a compounding effect of fatigue and frustration. The sinbins added to the issue - but were a result of our side trying to win back momentum.

While not a great experience - there are some excellent lessons that can be identified. Will we learn the lessons or will we repeat the same mistakes against the Storm. If we are developing and learning - it will have been a painful, but worthwhile, experience. If we make the same mistakes again we need to determine if it the playing intellect of key individuals or is it the coaching staff that are the issue? Some hard decisons need to be made.

Substitue Luai for Sezer - does he get us on the front foot?
Substitute a quality centre for AD - does that start to swing the pendulum?

I know here I would be spending our $.

Some very good analysis Jolla.
Doueihi is a tricky one as you say, he’s been prone to these bad defensive reads all through his career, can he correct this ? On the upside he’s still a great ball runner who busts tackles with ease, so it’s a bit of a doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t situation with him.

 

[Vicious]

Been our main deficiency all year mate. Turuva was pretty ordinary yesterday too, looks injured.

Even at his best defending is not really Turuva’s strength, so not sure how he will improve our poor defence out wide.
We desperately need 2 big physical and fast players who defend really well to assist us out wide.
The only 2 I can see that are or will potentially be available and fit this description are Reimis Smith and Taylan May.

 

[Flippedy]

A first division team vs a second division team was last night.

 

[Jolls]

Some very good analysis Jolla.
Doueihi is a tricky one as you say, he’s been prone to these bad defensive reads all through his career, can he correct this ? On the upside he’s still a great ball runner who busts tackles with ease, so it’s a bit of a doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t situation with him.

He could play wing - no decisions to make, fast and big enough. Buy a centre!

 

[TigerSJ]

It’s nice to support our players especially the young ones….. but cold harsh reality is- in what world do you expect AD, Naden, Luke L, and Faataape to be able to match it with Manu, Tupainua(?),Young and Tupou???? Furthermore thinking that this blatant dilemma is going to change in the next few years when our lads grow up, is a fantasy.
Our backs are Camrys in a Formula One race and our forwards are Volvo station wagons vs Ram trucks. No amount of age or game time is going to fix this.

 

[upthetigers]

All I know is I’ve now watched the game twice

You really are a sucker for punishment. I turned it off after 20 minutes.

 

[AmericanHistoryX]

Got what we deserved and what I expected. Good game for young players to understand how far away this team is. Roosters are physically on paper the best team in the league. Richo has to keep blooming the kids but giving some breaks to come back against lower competition.

Best team off the paper as well.