Defence

[pHyR3]

I thought I'd bring up a major point in our game; defence.

So, last year we struggled massively with defensive holes and being 'soft' (not my words :wink: ). Anyway, I figured I should actually take a deeper look at out defence on monday.

So, here are the stats of tackles missed from all teams in round 1

Eagles - Missed 4.1%
Knights - Missed 4.4%
Cowboys - Missed 4.4%
Storm - Missed 4.6%
Sharks - Missed 5.5%
Titans - Missed 5.8%
Eels - Missed 6.2%
Dragons - Missed 6.7%
Panthers - Missed 6.8%
Roosters - Missed 7.9%
Broncos - Missed 7.9%
Souths - Missed 8.6%
Raiders - Missed 8.7%
**Tigers - Missed 9.6%**
Bulldogs - Missed 9.7%
Warriors - Missed 10.4%

Tell me if I made any mistakes there, I did it all on the calculator myself so probably messed something up.

But, as we can see we are the 3rd worst in the league. Not good. BUT not atrocious considering that was a weak point and we were thrashed the worst. Also, we made the most tackles out of any team with 374\. Next was titans with 360 then sharks with 330 then about 3 more teams in the 300+ so clearly, fatigue would have played an enormous part as well as the scoreline mentally. Therefore, I'd put our general tackling as around average in the NRL, probably a bit below.

So. Why did we concede 42 points? The answer is pretty obvious 36% possesion. Which was far closer to 30% at the 75th minute when we finally got some ball and a try. So, the reasons for THAT can be quickly attributed to bad kicking, errors and penalties. Most of which are easily fixed by a quick kick up the arse. Furthermore, the actions of Utai and Moltzen left MUCH to be desired. Which is why I think one of them (probably utai) will get dropped come Sunday. Also, ink. hate to say it but, i told you so :slight_smile:

Another major point, which comes back to utai mostly, but also koro although he can be forgiven to some extent due to inexperience combined with general fatigue and the like, is not our defence as such but our defensive STRUCTURE. Our sliding defence was ATROCIOUS. mostly due to the wingers. I heard an account by someone on the forum about how moltzen was shouting at utai to move the f*ck over. Again, this is easily fixable by putting moltz on the wing instead of utai. Also, greater communication with koroibete will be attained throughout the season as he becomes better at english and footy discipline. Therefore, hopefully moltzen will be able to contest the highball to some extent and will slide well.

As for individual tackling. standouts were farah, fulton, galloway, buchanan, woods, blair and bell for tackles made in that order. So i'd keep most of them in my starting side except bell.

Quick point, Ayshford clocked up 121 metres. the most in the team. he'll be centre in my team for sunday. Also, uate raked in an AMAZING 0 tackles in that game. Thought that was interesting.

All in all, not the worst performance by the tigers. With moltz at wing instead of utai and teddy in that team I think we could have actually contained the knights to 32 as well as scored another try which would bring the PD to 16\. Not bad when you're away and playing a probable top 4 side. Hope potter makes the needed changes, puts the rest on notice and gets our defensive structure into shape. A bit of work with attack may also be needed but this thread is about defense.

 

[system]

I thought I'd bring up a major point in our game; defence.

So, last year we struggled massively with defensive holes and being 'soft' (not my words :wink: ). Anyway, I figured I should actually take a deeper look at out defence on monday.

So, here are the stats of tackles missed from all teams in round 1

Eagles - Missed 4.1%
Knights - Missed 4.4%
Cowboys - Missed 4.4%
Storm - Missed 4.6%
Sharks - Missed 5.5%
Titans - Missed 5.8%
Eels - Missed 6.2%
Dragons - Missed 6.7%
Panthers - Missed 6.8%
Roosters - Missed 7.9%
Broncos - Missed 7.9%
Souths - Missed 8.6%
Raiders - Missed 8.7%
**Tigers - Missed 9.6%**
Bulldogs - Missed 9.7%
Warriors - Missed 10.4%

Tell me if I made any mistakes there, I did it all on the calculator myself so probably messed something up.

But, as we can see we are the 3rd worst in the league. Not good. BUT not atrocious considering that was a weak point and we were thrashed the worst. Also, we made the most tackles out of any team with 374\. Next was titans with 360 then sharks with 330 then about 3 more teams in the 300+ so clearly, fatigue would have played an enormous part as well as the scoreline mentally. Therefore, I'd put our general tackling as around average in the NRL, probably a bit below.

So. Why did we concede 42 points? The answer is pretty obvious 36% possesion. Which was far closer to 30% at the 75th minute when we finally got some ball and a try. So, the reasons for THAT can be quickly attributed to bad kicking, errors and penalties. Most of which are easily fixed by a quick kick up the arse. Furthermore, the actions of Utai and Moltzen left MUCH to be desired. Which is why I think one of them (probably utai) will get dropped come Sunday. Also, ink. hate to say it but, i told you so :slight_smile:

Another major point, which comes back to utai mostly, but also koro although he can be forgiven to some extent due to inexperience combined with general fatigue and the like, is not our defence as such but our defensive STRUCTURE. Our sliding defence was ATROCIOUS. mostly due to the wingers. I heard an account by someone on the forum about how moltzen was shouting at utai to move the f*ck over. Again, this is easily fixable by putting moltz on the wing instead of utai. Also, greater communication with koroibete will be attained throughout the season as he becomes better at english and footy discipline. Therefore, hopefully moltzen will be able to contest the highball to some extent and will slide well.

As for individual tackling. standouts were farah, fulton, galloway, buchanan, woods, blair and bell for tackles made in that order. So i'd keep most of them in my starting side except bell.

Quick point, Ayshford clocked up 121 metres. the most in the team. he'll be centre in my team for sunday. Also, uate raked in an AMAZING 0 tackles in that game. Thought that was interesting.

All in all, not the worst performance by the tigers. With moltz at wing instead of utai and teddy in that team I think we could have actually contained the knights to 32 as well as scored another try which would bring the PD to 16\. Not bad when you're away and playing a probable top 4 side. Hope potter makes the needed changes, puts the rest on notice and gets our defensive structure into shape. A bit of work with attack may also be needed but this thread is about defense.

Respected opinion and good effort in forwarding your results to the forum.

_Posted using RoarFEED 2013_

 

[clokan]

I believe that our issues run a little deeper, but you do make a fair point. Hopefully you're right and we can be competitive from next week. As long as we can stay in touch with the eight we're still a chance of coming good toward the end of the year.

As Potter posted in his preview

‘‘We’re looking to rectify what we did on Monday. The season is not over in round one.’’

I trust that you agree with him pHyR3, I hope you are right.

 

[innsaneink]

I thought I'd bring up a major point in our game; defence.

So, last year we struggled massively with defensive holes and being 'soft' (not my words :wink: ). Anyway, I figured I should actually take a deeper look at out defence on monday.

So, here are the stats of tackles missed from all teams in round 1

Eagles - Missed 4.1%
Knights - Missed 4.4%
Cowboys - Missed 4.4%
Storm - Missed 4.6%
Sharks - Missed 5.5%
Titans - Missed 5.8%
Eels - Missed 6.2%
Dragons - Missed 6.7%
Panthers - Missed 6.8%
Roosters - Missed 7.9%
Broncos - Missed 7.9%
Souths - Missed 8.6%
Raiders - Missed 8.7%
**Tigers - Missed 9.6%**
Bulldogs - Missed 9.7%
Warriors - Missed 10.4%

Tell me if I made any mistakes there, I did it all on the calculator myself so probably messed something up.

But, as we can see we are the 3rd worst in the league. Not good. BUT not atrocious considering that was a weak point and we were thrashed the worst. Also, we made the most tackles out of any team with 374\. Next was titans with 360 then sharks with 330 then about 3 more teams in the 300+ so clearly, fatigue would have played an enormous part as well as the scoreline mentally. Therefore, I'd put our general tackling as around average in the NRL, probably a bit below.

**So. Why did we concede 42 points? The answer is pretty obvious 36% possesion.** Which was far closer to 30% at the 75th minute when we finally got some ball and a try. So, the reasons for THAT can be quickly attributed to bad kicking, errors and penalties. **Most of which are easily fixed by a quick kick up the arse**. Furthermore, the actions of Utai and Moltzen left MUCH to be desired. Which is why I think one of them (probably utai) will get dropped come Sunday. Also, ink. hate to say it but, i told you so :slight_smile:

Another major point, which comes back to utai mostly, but also koro although he can be forgiven to some extent due to inexperience combined with general fatigue and the like, is not our defence as such but our defensive STRUCTURE. Our sliding defence was ATROCIOUS. mostly due to the wingers. I heard an account by someone on the forum about how moltzen was shouting at utai to move the f*ck over. Again, this is easily fixable by putting moltz on the wing instead of utai. Also, greater communication with koroibete will be attained throughout the season as he becomes better at english and footy discipline. Therefore, hopefully moltzen will be able to contest the highball to some extent and will slide well.

As for individual tackling. standouts were farah, fulton, galloway, buchanan, woods, blair and bell for tackles made in that order. So i'd keep most of them in my starting side except bell.

Quick point, Ayshford clocked up 121 metres. the most in the team. he'll be centre in my team for sunday. Also, uate raked in an AMAZING 0 tackles in that game. Thought that was interesting.

**All in all, not the worst performance by the tigers. With moltz at wing instead of utai and teddy in that team I think we could have actually contained the knights to 32 as well as scored another try which would bring the PD to 16\. Not bad when you're away and playing a probable top 4 side.** Hope potter makes the needed changes, puts the rest on notice and gets our defensive structure into shape. A bit of work with attack may also be needed but this thread is about defense.

Yeh, you told me.
Great post, thanks for the laugh

 

[pHyR3]

What's the laugh about?

you've taken what i said a bit out of context, i said we conceded 42 because of possesion. and THAT arose because of things like errors and penalty which can be fixed relatively easily. A lot of those errors were from utai and others like him (anasta e.g.) And you backed up utai pretty hard before the game while i said his height would be exposed, and it was. So, shifting utai out and teddy in could quite easily lead to a 12 point difference between the knights and tigs imo.

 

[Black_n_White]

Kudos for putting that together… thats some crazy number crunching mate, and a fair assesment.

Great job.

 

[innsaneink]

What's the laugh about?

you've taken what i said a bit out of context, i said we conceded 42 because of possesion. and THAT arose because of things like errors and penalty which can be fixed relatively easily. A lot of those errors were from utai and others like him (anasta e.g.) And you backed up utai pretty hard before the game while i said his height would be exposed, and it was. So, shifting utai out and teddy in could quite easily lead to a 12 point difference between the knights and tigs imo.

I know you were banging on about Utais height like its been some great revelation….the deficiencies in his game are well known.
I think it was happy that pointed out his deficiciencies are highlited because he's sometimes the last stop before points are scored.
But he wasnt alone the other night.

If we werent so deficient in other areas right across the park, the opposition wouldnt always be putting in attacking kicks on the last and MU trying to defend them in the in goal area......they'd be kicking for distance on the last and Utai Koro & maybe even Moltzen might be attacking the ball on the front foot in the 20m zone and getting us off to a relatively positive start to our return set of 6.

What you are suggesting about Utai is a band aid solution, I know we are limited in what we can do (cap - depth- exp - etc) and it has some merit.....but imo its fixing the problem at the wrong end, the final stage.

Our main problem cannot be ''fixed relatively easily.''
"A kick in the pants" wont stop us losing the ruck, which is why we are ill disciplined and conceding penaltys, ground and possession.....thats very simplistic.
They have to slow the opposition down somehow and they're unable to do it in a physical fashion within the rules....a kick in the arse will do little

There was one incident in the 2nd half that summed it up for me - 43rd min. Boyd was bringing the ball back and he was stopped by TWO of our players - Marshall and Fulton....our two stopped him but they stopped before the ref called held, yet Boyd was still able to continue to make ground after being totally stopped by two blokes, who should've had him on his back.....instead Boyd was up playing the ball with no markers in front, Fulton behind him and marshall offside....these little incidents all when done properly give our defence an extra seconds breather or even two or three secs.....over 6 tackles that can be quite a fair bit extra breathing space for your forwards compared to when its not done properly

And holding a team to only 5 tries compared to 7 isnt good....its still bad.....you wont win many games doing that

 

[pHyR3]

I never thought that utai's height was a great revelation because plenty of other teams had already begun taking advantage of it last year and scoring points on him that way.

But fair enough about losing the ruck, but that's something that I can't exactly fix. Potter has to do that through countless hours in training. However, I can quickly make 7 tries 5 which and I bet every tiger would love to have had the score like 10 less than it was and all it would really cost is one maybe two players getting dropped. Utai and maybe moltzen.

 

[supercoach]

I thought we defended well in patches, we were forced to compress a lot to contain their forward charges and along with fatigue this gave the Knights plenty of day light out wide. When you look at it their, trys came off drop balls,cross kicks and a mountain of possession. Even though we conceded a truck load of points, I thought we looked stronger around the middle

 

[innsaneink]

Our marker defense was pathetic the other nite, time after time only one marker, sometimes none….Segeyaro will slaughter us if it continues

 

[jerry_maguire]

In my opion the tigers defence through the midle looked slow. Slow off the line slow to return to the mark, slow to turn and slow to push out when the knights spread the ball. You can teach defensive structure but you still need agility.

 

[barra]

True jerry, you need enthusiasm and commitment in the middle and we don't show it! And that leads to most of our problems including poor marker defence.

Supercoach, that compressed defence is needed against the bigger teams, but remember what happened last year whenever WT tried that the other teams would beat them around the edges - they simply came with smart game plan and we were unable to adjust and got flogged. Much like Monday.

I've made the point in another thread but if you compare every facet of our ruck defence to the Storms, our boys are like a reserve grade pack. They really need to improve in every single facet, beginning with technique and smarts, and ending with enthusiasm and commitment!

 

[pHyR3]

Rewatched the entire round 1 game. Oh my god were utai and moltzen atrocious. I counted at least 4 tries they let in SINGLEHANDEDLY. Utai, poor shifting defence lets them score on the wing, utai knocks on a simple hit up 30 out from the tigers line then knights score next set. Utai doesn't even bother contesting a ball. Uate puts in a big run from about 8 out, has woods and one other on him moltzen just needs to slow him down but he tackles uate's shoulders and slides off to allow uate to score. Also, what i felt was a bad call against the tigers with a obstruction call. So, essentially. Drop utai, don't make so many errors and the games ours! I mean, 3-4 tries from just a couple of players is enormous! good 20 points RIGHT there.

However, i CAN see why potter has put moltzen at fullback, he's not as bad as people think. They love to see the worst in him because there's someone better coming up and he didn't have the best season in '12\. But Tedesco > Moltzen, no question. Although, for the team as a whole I think potter made a good choice picking moltzen, i know everyone here will massacre me for saying it but it's what i think. I also rewatched a random game from 2012, good performance from moltzen there too. He's really not the devil as many here portray him as. It's just he can't match up against inglis, slater and tedesco looks like a better prospect but I think a place can be found in the 13 for him in 2013 whether that be HB, FB or wing potter will decide. Beyond that….I hear the dragons need a halfback? :stuck_out_tongue:

 

[LaT]

Chris Anderson (yeah I know) made a good point in an article last night that 10 years of structure can't be forgotten in just a few months. When the pressure is applied you go back to what you know, and for us that isn't a good thing.

I just hope we see more of Potters influence tomorrow.

Here is the Anderson quotes:
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/wise-heads-urge-tigers-fans-to-be-patient-for-potters-sake-20130315-2g61u.html

 

[simonthetiger]

That was a pretty good read…..cheers La T.

 

[Fade_To_Black]

Our marker defense was pathetic the other nite, time after time only one marker, sometimes none….Segeyaro will slaughter us if it continues

Not to mention Mansour, he is one of the best dummy-half runners in the comp IMO. He is going to be a great player in years to come, pity he re-signed with Penrith coz I would of loved to have had him as part of our team. We need to be on guard with him on Sunday, he gets them on the front foot every time with his strong, powerful running.

 

[tig_prmz]

there are some very long posts here, no disrespect if someone has mentioned this but i cbf reading

what you missed is that we made more tackles coz as you said we had less posession.. less posession coz of handling errors/more penalties given. errors coz of the knights pressure and penalties coz of losing the ruck.

it's amazing how easily everything relates back to the ruck.

we werent fast enough, we werent active enough, we werent hungry enough out there. knights wanted it, they got it.

 

[pHyR3]

True, very true. But i was aiming to make my post about defence and analysing it and seeing how we can do better. Sure, we lost the ruck but how did we respond to it defensively?

We can also relate everything back to sheens poor purchasing, or discord on the board but that's not what the post is about :slight_smile:

 

[innsaneink]

True, very true. But i was aiming to make my post about defence and analysing it and seeing how we can do better. Sure, we lost the ruck but how did we respond to it defensively?

We can also relate everything back to sheens poor purchasing, or discord on the board but that's not what the post is about :slight_smile:

You just dont get it :brick:
Its been explained to you ad -nauseam
You can only do better by winning the ruck….otherwise you just lose more than you win
:bash

 

[happy_tiger]

A lot of it is confidence

Half the team turn left or right in the defensive line and think " I don't have much faith in you"

It will only improve when they put themselves on the line and make the defence stronger and put the pressure on every team ,every set of six Our forwards should use the Manly forward pack as a guide v Brisbane

Hunt as a pack boys Multi Bodies in tackles

Will take a while to fix , but if they all show attitude and accountability in their own jobs things WILL improve (Love that word accountability, my staff hate it )