@balmain-boy said in [Matterson unhappy at Tigers?](/post/1064508) said:
>All run metres can be put down to the fact we played a very simple style of footy. Few errors. Just hitting the ball up and doing a weak bomb. A lot of boring sets focusing on trying to get out of our own half and a high completion rate.
It’s no coincidence that every team in the comp has the same basic strategy against us. And have had so for a few years now. Make metres, kick the ball to the corners and make us work it off our line. Knowing that they will win the territory battle and consistently be in a better position to score.
Until we can make meaningful metres and finish our sets with effective kicks we’re going to lose more games than we win. Our backs are very poor at making metres coming off our line. Even Nof was way down this year, and that’s his strongest attribute.
That's every teams strategy against every side.
You've been banging on about the lack of metres, you literally said "metres are our biggest struggle" and now you are saying well what about "meaningful metres". What the hell are meaningful metres?
I don't get your argument. Of course we want to finish sets effectively - that really was my point. The fundamentals are there. Gaining metres in 2019 was not one of our pressing issues, nor was the forward pack lacking to makeoverall metres.
You say that the backs struggled making metres off our line - again, all teams struggle there, but also nobody keeps public stats on "metres gained off your own line", so that's just an opinion without data. You can't quantify or compare with other teams. Certainly, we should be in the market for large wingers that can dominate kick returns, because that is a proven successful formula. Certainly, Nofo, Corey and Jennings are not an ideal team.
I am not against a simple style of footy - that's Madge's decision, so be it. We probably can't be trusted at the moment to play excessively expansive footy. We lack the experience to do this across a whole season.
But Madge did get the team doing the basics right - good completion rates, good running metres overall, good post-contact metres, reduced penalties. Once the team does this on a consistent basis, then you can start adding the other stuff. Yes we were sometimes predictable but we need to sign / unearth better footballers if we want to layer brilliant football onto a dependable baseline. That's the Melbourne Storm blueprint.
