Alex Seyfarth #232

[Canadian Club]

The current interpretation is a complete over reaction to what is a very real issue thats creating an over reaction
You cant just duck down into a tackle in the last second and automatically receive a penalty,and thats exactly what happened.Twice
Theres zero intent...no negligence...and absolutely no way of any tackler escaping this
A passing fad that teams like Warriors are exploiting ,and VLandys needs to address
Its total BS

Agree with you on this, but unfortunately that is the rule and the coaches and players are aware of it. You can argue there are just as many concussions from tackling low and catching a stray hip.

Its a shit rule but players need to be mindful and do their best to make sure they're not put in a compromising position. If you stand completely upright going into a tackle or even bracing for impact in a completely upright position you know as a player you're likely to make some sort of contact with the head in some capacity, particularly on a shorter/smaller player who is looking for it.

 

[tig_prmz]

I said at the start of the season that if Seyfarth didn't fix his discipline issues he was going to cost us games. It's been 4 games and he's already cost us one...

Sure, CNK milked it but at the end of the day Seyfarth made contact with his head and it was a penalty. He needs to aim lower, he was standing up right and needed to get down. Lazy and ill disciplined with the game on the line. You can cop that early in the game but not at 24-24, in our own half with less than 10 to go. He's not a rookie, he should know better. We need to stop making excuses for him.

Sione Fainu was also in the tackle and he got down low enough to ensure he wasn't anywhere near CNK head. I just hope de doesn't cost us more games. Unfortunately we're at the point where he doesn't seem to be learning from his mistakes.

We certainly have quite a "tall" forward pack in Fainu, Seyfarth, May and Twal.

 

[Bellend]

It is a Tackling technique should have been worked on players in the off season. No real big issue it was milked and we suffered for it.

 

[Canadian Club]

It is a Tackling technique should have been worked on players in the off season. No real big issue it was milked and we suffered for it.

I would usually agree if it wasn't a repeat offender. From what i've seen so far this season our players are generally better at not being pinned for high tackles so it seems that they have worked on their technique in the offseason.

The issue is probably more to do with fatigue and some players reverting back to bad habits (not bending their back and lowering target area) when under fatigue. Similar with ruck infringements and not getting off the players quick enough.

 

[Telltails]

You can't take one thing from Seyfarth's game and ignore all that he contributed, while also discounting the costly errors made from other players that allowed the Warriors to get back into the game. Should never have been 24 all when it happened.

 

[Bellend]

CC it is a technique lazy players use. Look at Ray Stone at the Dolphins always hits in the chest/Tigh areas, Lok at the nutter from the Roosters Radley same area. Jake t from Manly same area.

 

[Canadian Club]

CC it is a technique lazy players use. Look at Ray Stone at the Dolphins always hits in the chest/Tigh areas, Lok at the nutter from the Roosters Radley same area. Jake t from Manly same area.

Agreed, which is why I was critical of Seyfarth in this instance. Again, it generally happens under fatigue but he needs to get that out of his game and lower his target area. Can't afford to be making those efforts with the game on line as the consequences are much greater.

 

[Canadian Club]

You can't take one thing from Seyfarth's game and ignore all that he contributed, while also discounting the costly errors made from other players that allowed the Warriors to get back into the game. Should never have been 24 all when it happened.

That's fair, but as someone who is an experienced player who has had issues with discipline his whole career he should know better, particularly at that point in the game. If our team is to improve, we need our players to improve too.

 

[Charred]

This talk on Seyfarth costing us the game is stupid. We lost because the Warriors were better than us for most of the game and we panicked in those last 5 minutes. It is not the sole responsibility of one specific player.

But anyway since we are going down this route. Seyfarth's tackle, despite what most people are saying, is most definitely a penalty if the refs are being consistent with previous calls (link). Personally, I don't think penalties where a player falls into a high tackle should be given unless excessive force is displayed (Sua'ali'i on Walsh), as it's entirely accidental and unintentional, but that's my opinion and not the direction been given to the officials. However, I don't understand how Turuva did not get a penalty given he definitely got hit high and had to get HIA'd.


Anyway, I digress. Leading up to Seyfarth's penalty. He makes the 1st and 4th tackle in similar fashion and is involved in the 2nd. On the 5th tackle he's tracking back from marker, Egan gets close he pushes him away lightly then moves in to make the tackle. CNK is only 9cm shorter than Seyfarth but CNK is looking for a way through the line so running a bit lower because turning and whatever. Seyfarth obviously doesn't correct enough (he does a little and torso is bent 35 degrees from vertical (measured)) and hits him high. This is a penalty and sure Seyfarth should have aimed lower, but if he aims too low he is below the ball carrying arm and at risk of an ineffective tackle (where an offload is made) unless Latu gets there. I know it's easy to say "go low" but he's also got to wrap the ball up as well so it's a fine balance he has to achieve and this time he misses too high and it's a penalty.
P.S Just to make it clear, I'm not trying to justify the penalty, it's a penalty and he needed to correct a bit more. I'm just trying to provide context to the situation like I would do for Faataape (as an example, 15 game player under pressure to come up with game-winning play does something stupid).

Also Canadian Club mentioned Sione getting low. Sione was nowhere near even making the tackle, if no one was there CNK would have just waltzed through and it would have gone down as a miss for Sione so it's hardly a fair comparison. In that set, May and Twal tackle in almost the exact same fashion as Seyfarth had done (Twal even standing directly upright), it's just the players tackled were doing hit-ups while CNK was trying to evade. The only players that went low in that set were Api and Fainu and both times they failed to wrap up the ball, relying on another player to wrap it up or putting them in a position where they just don't.

For those arguing ill-discipline, personally I don't think so. He's just missed by like 10cm and the manner in which this miss happens it turns into a penalty. For me ill-discipline is throwing out a lazy arm (seyfarth 3 or 4 times last year) or just putting a late hit on someone for no reason (Tupouniua, Mahoney).

Furthermore, if we want to single out Seyfarth for his discipline/penalties then it would be completely unfair not to do so with others. Seyfarth is currently our 4th worst for min/penalty at 76, behind Latu (33), TDS (54.5), SamFainu (66.5) and 4th again for min/penalty or ruck infringement at 60.8 behind TDS (27.25), Latu (33) and May (45.67).

What Seyfarth conceded was only 2 points for what is an unfortunate penalty. However, without him we don't score that try before half time, so he's actually up 2 points. Additionally, TDS and Luai gave away a set restart each immediately after Sam Fainu became injured and while I think we were able to sub him off when SEYFARTH held up Egan over the line (well I guess he's up 6 points and I'm not even including conversions), but still we were unstructured and the Niokore try happened like 5 tackles after the set would have finished with some defensive line discipline initially.

Let's face it. This is a team sport and as a TEAM WE were not good enough. It is not one single players fault, nobody had a flawless game, but I feel everyone contributed something positive to the team and Seyfarth definitely contributed a lot.

 

[Needaname]

Lazy - it was his 3rd tackle in that set alone. He was the best player on the field for our team - if some of the others showed that much effort we would win every week by plenty

Sounds like it was a tactic then if that was his third tackle that set.
CNK mentioned, tigers had been warned anymore high hits won’t be tolerated and will be penalised, he also mentioned Seyfarth is a tall figure.
I reckon CNK would run into Seyfarths shoulder if neither were crouching so obviously they were sending traffic his way trying to get him to mess up.

 

[tiger_one]

An email has gone around to all clubs indicating that high tackles will now be an automatic sin bin.
NRL head of football Graham Annesley emailed all 17 clubs on Monday afternoon about the issue, informing them that if there is direct and forceful contact and no mitigating factors, players will likely be binned for contact with the head.
They identified 4 incidents over the weekend that they deemed sin bin worthy.

Revealed: NRL’s email to 17 clubs as league boss makes shock admission over Bunker blunders

Revealed: NRL’s email to 17 clubs as league boss makes shock admission over Bunker blunders

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[Buttface]

An email has gone around to all clubs indicating that high tackles will now be an automatic sin bin. They identified 4 incidents over the weekend that they deemed sin bin worthy.
View attachment 21491

Nice try.
1 minute in, did you stay up for that?

 

[Canadian Club]

Something to think about with the crackdown coming!

 

[lathami]

CC it is a technique lazy players use. Look at Ray Stone at the Dolphins always hits in the chest/Tigh areas, Lok at the nutter from the Roosters Radley same area. Jake t from Manly same area.

Yes but stone is a short ass and Jake isn’t much taller, much easier to not give away high tackles then the taller type!

 

[Charred]

Something to think about with the crackdown coming!

Yeah the crackdown on the “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”, where they specifically cited the “increased incidence of shoulder to head contact by defenders”.

So what are Seyfarth’s stats on “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”? I can tell you. It’s 0.
- His first penalty. Wrapping arm to tackle Knights player, ends up slightly high around the neck. Not direct, not forceful, but high and a penalty.
- His second penalty. Lazy arm around neck of Eels player. Again not direct and not forceful.
- His 3rd dangerous tackle penalty. Definitely direct contact onto the head of the player, but forceful? No. The crackdown specifically says “direct forceful contact”, so it wouldn’t have been a bin. You could try argue otherwise, but the NRL specifically mentioned 4 instances which were quite obviously done by Luai, Riki, Gilbert and Mahoney. Dangerous Tackle does not equal Sin Bin.

I will say his minutes per penalty (76) is still quite poor and needs improving ASAP but the same applies to multiple players in our team (TDS, May, Doueihi, Samuela, Luai, Turuva all under 106 mins).

Anyway, hopefully our Sri-Lankan-Slovenian-English-Spanish-Australian player, Alex Seyfarth has a great game for Multicultural Round!

 

[Canadian Club]

Yeah the crackdown on the “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”, where they specifically cited the “increased incidence of shoulder to head contact by defenders”.

So what are Seyfarth’s stats on “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”? I can tell you. It’s 0.
- His first penalty. Wrapping arm to tackle Knights player, ends up slightly high around the neck. Not direct, not forceful, but high and a penalty.
- His second penalty. Lazy arm around neck of Eels player. Again not direct and not forceful.
- His 3rd dangerous tackle penalty. Definitely direct contact onto the head of the player, but forceful? No. The crackdown specifically says “direct forceful contact”, so it wouldn’t have been a bin. You could try argue otherwise, but the NRL specifically mentioned 4 instances which were quite obviously done by Luai, Riki, Gilbert and Mahoney. Dangerous Tackle does not equal Sin Bin.

I will say his minutes per penalty (76) is still quite poor and needs improving ASAP but the same applies to multiple players in our team (TDS, May, Doueihi, Samuela, Luai, Turuva all under 106 mins).

Anyway, hopefully our Sri-Lankan-Slovenian-English-Spanish-Australian player, Alex Seyfarth has a great game for Multicultural Round!

Are we still making excuses for him? He’s a senior player, he needs to be better end of story.

 

[Aceshigh]

Yeah the crackdown on the “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”, where they specifically cited the “increased incidence of shoulder to head contact by defenders”.

So what are Seyfarth’s stats on “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”? I can tell you. It’s 0.
- His first penalty. Wrapping arm to tackle Knights player, ends up slightly high around the neck. Not direct, not forceful, but high and a penalty.
- His second penalty. Lazy arm around neck of Eels player. Again not direct and not forceful.
- His 3rd dangerous tackle penalty. Definitely direct contact onto the head of the player, but forceful? No. The crackdown specifically says “direct forceful contact”, so it wouldn’t have been a bin. You could try argue otherwise, but the NRL specifically mentioned 4 instances which were quite obviously done by Luai, Riki, Gilbert and Mahoney. Dangerous Tackle does not equal Sin Bin.

I will say his minutes per penalty (76) is still quite poor and needs improving ASAP but the same applies to multiple players in our team (TDS, May, Doueihi, Samuela, Luai, Turuva all under 106 mins).

Anyway, hopefully our Sri-Lankan-Slovenian-English-Spanish-Australian player, Alex Seyfarth has a great game for Multicultural Round!

I thought that was a bs penalty , CNK played for that penalty running straight at Seyfarths shoulder , he had nowhere to go

 

[Charred]

Are we still making excuses for him? He’s a senior player, he needs to be better end of story.

Nice rebuttal!
I don't know exactly what excuses I made so please enlighten me.

Your original post was a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent".
Premise 1: The NRL are cracking down on direct forceful contact to the head/neck, which are recorded in the database as dangerous tackles.
Premise 2: Alex Seyfarth has the most dangerous tackles.
Implied Conclusion: Therefore Alex Seyfarth will be sin-binned a lot.

This is just as valid as saying.
If I steal some of your money you won't be able to buy a Ferrari.
You do not have the money to buy a Ferrari.
Therefore, I stole some of your money.

I provided objective statistics and examples in my post. There are no excuses. I even said his rate of penalties is still concerning. However, if you are going to single out one player for having poor statistics in one area you may as well be consistent and apply your criticism fairly to all players in the team.

I've even made a google sheet recording the games, minutes, penalties, ruck infringements and errors of every player who has played so far this year (does not include trials), as they are generally the best examples of ill-disciple and also the rate of giving the opposition another set.
-Currently Alex is 4th in minutes per penalty at 76 behind Latu (1 game, 33min/pen), TDS (4 games 54.5min/pen) and Sam Fainu (4 games, 66.5min/pen).
-He is 6th in minutes per ruck infringement (RI) at 304 minutes per RI behind TDS (54.5min/RI), May (4 games, 91.3min/RI), Pole (4 games, 113min/RI), Luai (4 games 160min/RI) and Api (3 games, 177min/RI).
- He is 4th in combined minutes per penalty OR ruck infringement at 60.8 behind TDS (27.25 min/P&RI), Latu (33min/P&RI) and May (45.67min/P&RI)
- He is 16th in minutes per error at 304. The only people below him have not made a single error and these guys have played between 127 and 271 minutes less than Seyfarth.
- He is 9th in minutes per negative play at 50.67 behind TDS (21.8), Latu (33), Bula (3 games, 33.7), May (34.25), Pole (37.67), To'a (3 games, 38.67), Luai (45.7), Doueihi (3 games, 48).

Based on the above it makes absolutely no sense why people are continually criticising Seyfarth for his discipline or whatever, but neglecting to apply the same criticism to other players in the team. This is a team sport and Seyfarth is currently far from being a major issue in this side.

I thought that was a bs penalty , CNK played for that penalty running straight at Seyfarths shoulder , he had nowhere to go

I don't like it either when players slipped into an accidental high tackle or similar, but if the refs are being consistent then it was 100% a penalty. We didn't lose that game because of the penalty though. We lost because we were unable to capitalise on our momentum for the 15 minute period before the Warriors scored their 4th and then could not effectively deal with the pressure of being 2 points down with 6 minutes to go.

 

[Canadian Club]

It doesn't need a deep dive, he isn't a first or second year player its been 6-7 years now in FG. I'm not discrediting anything you wrote or even your point of view. I agree with some points you have made previously and you've done some great analysis. I'm simply raising concerns that a player who has been poorly disciplined in the past is still having the same issue of conceding penalties. And the reason i'm singling him out in this thread is because this is the Alex Seyfarth thread? Im trying to stay on topic, I have issues with other players but this isnt the place for that? The fact is, he does give away a lot of penalties, cut it however you like.

The 'we' i was referring to is a collective 'we', so not sure why you took it that way (unless you are Alex undercover lol). At the end of the day we have a player who is now a senior player and his discipline is still an issue after all these years. I said it's something to think about, because it is exactly that. In terms of the other members of the team, I'm personally not as concerned with guys in their 1st or 2nd season of first grade. They're not senior players, they're still learning the game and as you would very well know, its very different for a undersized hooker in the middle as it is for essentially any other position. Hookers are always higher up the penalty count because of their size and tackle attempts. Also very unfair including Latu, he's only played half a game and isnt even playing in his preferred position, you expect that to happen.

Also, no issues with errors this year, he's been better with his errors and deserves credit there. The main point here is, I don't want to get to the end of the season and Alex has 24 penalties against his name because thats where it is currently trending.

 

[Charred]

It doesn't need a deep dive, he isn't a first or second year player its been 6-7 years now in FG. I'm not discrediting anything you wrote or even your point of view. I agree with some points you have made previously and you've done some great analysis. I'm simply raising concerns that a player who has been poorly disciplined in the past is still having the same issue of conceding penalties. And the reason i'm singling him out in this thread is because this is the Alex Seyfarth thread? Im trying to stay on topic, I have issues with other players but this isnt the place for that? The fact is, he does give away a lot of penalties, cut it however you like.

The 'we' i was referring to is a collective 'we', so not sure why you took it that way (unless you are Alex undercover lol). At the end of the day we have a player who is now a senior player and his discipline is still an issue after all these years. I said it's something to think about, because it is exactly that. In terms of the other members of the team, I'm personally not as concerned with guys in their 1st or 2nd season of first grade. They're not senior players, they're still learning the game and as you would very well know, its very different for a undersized hooker in the middle as it is for essentially any other position. Hookers are always higher up the penalty count because of their size and tackle attempts. Also very unfair including Latu, he's only played half a game and isnt even playing in his preferred position, you expect that to happen.

Also, no issues with errors this year, he's been better with his errors and deserves credit there. The main point here is, I don't want to get to the end of the season and Alex has 24 penalties against his name because thats where it is currently trending.

Good response. 100% get where you are coming from. I think you and I both agree that Seyfarths penalties are his biggest flaw overall and a cause for concern. The main issue I have is that from the posts I have seen, you exclusively call out Seyfarth for his penalties and no one else, even though you claim to have issues with other players but I have not seen a single post of you demonstrating this at any stage during the season.

‘We’ has multiple definitions. From google I assumed you used it by the following definition “used condescendingly to refer to the person being addressed.”, except I don’t think you were condescending. My specific reasoning for thinking this, being you quoted my post. Anyway, not sure why this is being mentioned and no, I am not Alex Seyfarth. Agree with most of the rest of the points in your 2nd paragraph though except I think games is better than seasons as a rank of seniority. Seyfarth still only played 74 games (6th season), but I guess we are a fairly young and inexperienced team overall so he is probably considered a senior player. TDS is in his 3rd season but only played 15 games. I made sure to include games played of each player the first time they were mentioned so any statistics from a small data set would be obvious as demonstrated by the case of Latu.

Neither do I want the 24 penalties and I really hope it improves. It’s just not worth ignoring Sam Fainu is tracking at the same rate.