These guys are not rookies. They have been in the system for a while now.
When the going is good i.e. when their opposition is off and defensive lines are not straight they are great to watch….HOWEVER. When we play good sides who committ to defence for 80 minutes they do not deliver. They play what is in front of them too much and dont plan ahead. They do not play chess out there with the defence. They dont even seem to spot weak opposition and target them. They just run and jink and push passes and kick and hope.
Today was a great example. They had plenty of ball, plenty of field position and just produced nothing. They tried hard but they dont seem to enact plans and chip away until they checkmate the defence and we score. Usually we score when the defence makes a mistake moreso than when we force them to miss by running them ragged (with some obvious exceptions). These guys should be doing better.
If I had to rate them over 4 games thus far Id say Mitch = 5.5/10, Luke 4/10\. As a partnership...not real good. Its not fair to the guys who are desperatly defending their butts off to walk off the field to a duck egg. They were let down last week as well....in fact you could argue that our attack (even though it has been brilliant at times) is our weaklink this year. Our defence was great today forcing a few turnovers. We got quite a few penalties at the right times. To not score was unsatisfactory in the extreme. These guys are not living up to their hype and are not earning their dough.
Taylor has his hands full to turn this around. I was happy to hear the reigns were being loosened so to speak but have been very dissappointed in these guys. At this stage Im afraid, they are simply not as good as we had hoped.
When the going is good i.e. when their opposition is off and defensive lines are not straight they are great to watch….HOWEVER. When we play good sides who committ to defence for 80 minutes they do not deliver. They play what is in front of them too much and dont plan ahead. They do not play chess out there with the defence. They dont even seem to spot weak opposition and target them. They just run and jink and push passes and kick and hope.
Today was a great example. They had plenty of ball, plenty of field position and just produced nothing. They tried hard but they dont seem to enact plans and chip away until they checkmate the defence and we score. Usually we score when the defence makes a mistake moreso than when we force them to miss by running them ragged (with some obvious exceptions). These guys should be doing better.
If I had to rate them over 4 games thus far Id say Mitch = 5.5/10, Luke 4/10\. As a partnership...not real good. Its not fair to the guys who are desperatly defending their butts off to walk off the field to a duck egg. They were let down last week as well....in fact you could argue that our attack (even though it has been brilliant at times) is our weaklink this year. Our defence was great today forcing a few turnovers. We got quite a few penalties at the right times. To not score was unsatisfactory in the extreme. These guys are not living up to their hype and are not earning their dough.
Taylor has his hands full to turn this around. I was happy to hear the reigns were being loosened so to speak but have been very dissappointed in these guys. At this stage Im afraid, they are simply not as good as we had hoped.
