jirskyr
Well-known member
I was really hopeful that Doueihi could make a go of fullback, and he had a really good run there with Souths the year before he joined us, but it is proven that he's way off the pace and the Broncos match was a disaster.
Not that he cannot improve his fitness, but Broncos were having a field day dragging us side-to-side then grubbering in-behind where the fullback was 1 km off the pace. This is precisely where a King Gutho proves his dogged worth.
AD's carries are good but he was clearly so tired on Saturday, it dented his attack.
We obviously have an issue fort he position because Laurie has also shown the past 1+ seasons to not have a good feel for fullback positioning, and his attack is pretty mediocre. His debut season he got by with a real tenacious approach to playing, but since he broke his leg, I think that's gone. Some people say it's fear, I don't think that's true, I just think he's lost his edge and that is a key component of being a fullback.
E.g. Latrell 2023 has lost some of his edge and Rabbits are struggling because of it - 2 wins 3 losses, and 1 of those wins was golden point FG. Coach is publicly calling for Latrell to be more involved, but teams are finding a lot of success kicking away from him and making him get tired.
As others have said, that killer edge and knack of always turning up where the ball is - those are the key components of the modern fullback. If your fullback is always out of position, the current level of tactical kicking is far too good for teams to absorb all that defensive pressure but not have a fullback covering the short kicks on the line.
What was also a [This word has been automatically removed] last Saturday is Broncos were also putting in shitty short kicks but still getting a result - we just couldn't take a trick. They were scoring off good kicks and getting flukey 6-agains from rubbish kicks. Very tough night for any fullback, let alone one who really hasn't found his form or his fitness this year.
It does seem like AD is really only going to be a centre or perhaps a lock if he trained for the role, but his shoulder contact isn't great for those positions either. He's sort of at a crossroads of being a potentially very effective attacker, with some very significant deficits that get exposed over 80 mins.
Not that he cannot improve his fitness, but Broncos were having a field day dragging us side-to-side then grubbering in-behind where the fullback was 1 km off the pace. This is precisely where a King Gutho proves his dogged worth.
AD's carries are good but he was clearly so tired on Saturday, it dented his attack.
We obviously have an issue fort he position because Laurie has also shown the past 1+ seasons to not have a good feel for fullback positioning, and his attack is pretty mediocre. His debut season he got by with a real tenacious approach to playing, but since he broke his leg, I think that's gone. Some people say it's fear, I don't think that's true, I just think he's lost his edge and that is a key component of being a fullback.
E.g. Latrell 2023 has lost some of his edge and Rabbits are struggling because of it - 2 wins 3 losses, and 1 of those wins was golden point FG. Coach is publicly calling for Latrell to be more involved, but teams are finding a lot of success kicking away from him and making him get tired.
As others have said, that killer edge and knack of always turning up where the ball is - those are the key components of the modern fullback. If your fullback is always out of position, the current level of tactical kicking is far too good for teams to absorb all that defensive pressure but not have a fullback covering the short kicks on the line.
What was also a [This word has been automatically removed] last Saturday is Broncos were also putting in shitty short kicks but still getting a result - we just couldn't take a trick. They were scoring off good kicks and getting flukey 6-agains from rubbish kicks. Very tough night for any fullback, let alone one who really hasn't found his form or his fitness this year.
It does seem like AD is really only going to be a centre or perhaps a lock if he trained for the role, but his shoulder contact isn't great for those positions either. He's sort of at a crossroads of being a potentially very effective attacker, with some very significant deficits that get exposed over 80 mins.
