Tiger_Torch
New member
Easter greetings to all. Here's the latest facts - far too much fiction of late.
The club has deliberately not published its top 25 players (under 1st tier salary cap) as chosen by Head Coach Jason Taylor - the website lists 36 players in the so called NRL squad. Well here's the 'secret top 25 list' which doesn't make for pretty reading, but may help explain some of the bizarre team selections:
Teddy
Noffa
Kev
Simona
Rankin
Moses
Brooks
Sue
Sirro
Lawrence
Woods
Farah
Grant
Ava
Aloiai
Cherrington
Chee Kam
Buchanan
Halatau
Lovett
Ballin
Hunt
Edwards
Littlejohn
Drinkwater
the next cab off the rank is Milone!
The club is hell bent on fielding a minimum 50% local juniors every week in first grade, thus the continued selection of Lovett ( Five Dock junior) who has become a close personal friend of Taylor and other influential members of the club. He is also very popular among his team mates particularly with Woods and Sirro. To his credit he continues to train extremely well and does everything asked of him - the reality however is there for all to see, he's not up to first grade standard - my personal opinion but also backed by some members of support staff.
Going back to my previous posts of Christmas / New Year you will recall I detailed training performances etc. Well apart from Sue; Tyler Cassell; Moses & a few others Chee Kam was right up there with the best performers across all indicators - he certainly matched Lovett and left him for dead in sprints and one on one defence.
The Tigers have developed some new defence terminology which basically critiques an individuals one on one defence ability. The highest grade is aggressive 'primary defender' which refers to a player who consistently looks to make initial contact in a 'hit and stick' effort. Now you can still be a 'primary defender' but not always effective a classic example is Mitch Moses who is always looking to make that initial contact but doesn't always stick. In fact we have very few effective 'primary defenders' in our team apart from Lawrence; Sue & Grant in the forwards Moses (ineffective); Simona & Kevvy in the backs. Anyway after 'primary' there is 'secondary' and finally 'third or support'. Alarmingly we have many in this 'third or support' class most notably Buchanan & Lovett. Chee Kam has been classed as a 'primary' but not always effective. I won't bore you with a player by player classification but suffice to say the majority of the forwards should be 'primary', but that is certainly not the case with us.
Now as to the coaching of the side-: the pivotal change this year has been the appointment of Craig Sandercock as assistant coach. Now many players are actively seeking him out for one on one tips most notably our entire spine. If you listen closely to these 4 /5 (inc Farah & Cherrington) you will hear them mention his name from time to time. Our 1st grade spine has been playing a style in stark contrast to the Taylor preferred style of Littlejohn and Drinkwater in the NSW CUP.
Craig Sandercock has a teaching background in addition to extensive coaching both here and in the U.K. and communicates well with the players. He has a mantra "Eyes Up" which the players repeat on the field to focus their attack and play the 'numbers game'. If you get close enough to the sideline you can actually hear it - put simply it means to have a look at the possible options / obviously the opposite of "eyes down bum up" - smarter not harder philosophy.
IT IS A CREDIT TO TAYLOR THAT HE ISN'T SO INSECURE THAT HE IS ALLOWING SANDERCOCK TO HAVE SUCH A PROMINENT ROLE!
That said while he continues to have the support of the team and administration not all the support staff are on board. My personal view which means very little remains unchanged in that I don't think he is the right man for the job.
Contrary to what may appear in the media the club remains a cohesive tight knit unit. As a so called insider I hear many stories about other clubs that never seem to make the media. As I'm hearing these second hand I generally dismiss them, but I can tell you that there are serious issues both at Parramatta and the Roosters, which make our own petty little personal conflict tensions just that petty.
So to finish off with some bullet point summaries:
Brooks and Moses are 90% certain to stay as I indicated in previous posts Harry has been active with TPAs for some time. Moses has been earmarked as the priority and would play 7 with Rankin assuming his preferred 6 position. The '4 good players' are Woods; Teddy; Moses & Brooks!
Rankin remains in the side on the wing so he gets familiar with team structures so he can take over from Teddy at fullback during origin. I don't agree at all with this strategy and I am not alone!
Josh Addo- Carr is proving to be every bit as good as I observed during pre-season training. He should be in the team now but as he's not in the top 25 he may have to wait his time. But he won't wait beyond this year because as I indicated in New Year's report when I said Seve would leave for Gold Coast or Brisbane, Addo- Carr has now received offers from Gold Coast and Melbourne! Bellamy dragged Koro out of NSW Cup and would love top do the same for a cheap $120k!
Team selections will continue to be hamstrung by our nonsensical top 25 squad and we may lose genuine talent such as Dallas Graham; Jordan Grant etc. My view shared by others in the club is that Jack Buchanan much like Lovett an extremely popular guy is not in our top 6 props by any objective analysis. Woods; Grant; Sue; Graham; Grant Griffin; are all far superior under the criteria conducted during pre-season.
So all in all I share the frustration of many on the forum and hope that this information in some way explains the reasons behind some of the decisions being made. If we were to consistently filed our strongest available team I now have little doubt we would make to top 8\. Willow tends to be a good judge when it comes to team selections but sitting down today with 2 of the support staff we came up with this:
Teddy
Noffa
Kevvy
Simona
Addo-Carr
Moses
Brooks
Woods
Farah
Grant
Sirro
Lawrence
Sue
Ava
Halatau / Cherrington
Aloiai
Chee Kam
Next in line in 2 weeks when fit: Edwards.
Hot off the press: Don't count Chee Kam out for Monday against Parra. He may still play NSW Cup on Saturday ( I'll be there working) at Leichhardt for match fitness, but may get a bench spot for 20 minutes play on Monday ahead of Buchanan.
The club has deliberately not published its top 25 players (under 1st tier salary cap) as chosen by Head Coach Jason Taylor - the website lists 36 players in the so called NRL squad. Well here's the 'secret top 25 list' which doesn't make for pretty reading, but may help explain some of the bizarre team selections:
Teddy
Noffa
Kev
Simona
Rankin
Moses
Brooks
Sue
Sirro
Lawrence
Woods
Farah
Grant
Ava
Aloiai
Cherrington
Chee Kam
Buchanan
Halatau
Lovett
Ballin
Hunt
Edwards
Littlejohn
Drinkwater
the next cab off the rank is Milone!
The club is hell bent on fielding a minimum 50% local juniors every week in first grade, thus the continued selection of Lovett ( Five Dock junior) who has become a close personal friend of Taylor and other influential members of the club. He is also very popular among his team mates particularly with Woods and Sirro. To his credit he continues to train extremely well and does everything asked of him - the reality however is there for all to see, he's not up to first grade standard - my personal opinion but also backed by some members of support staff.
Going back to my previous posts of Christmas / New Year you will recall I detailed training performances etc. Well apart from Sue; Tyler Cassell; Moses & a few others Chee Kam was right up there with the best performers across all indicators - he certainly matched Lovett and left him for dead in sprints and one on one defence.
The Tigers have developed some new defence terminology which basically critiques an individuals one on one defence ability. The highest grade is aggressive 'primary defender' which refers to a player who consistently looks to make initial contact in a 'hit and stick' effort. Now you can still be a 'primary defender' but not always effective a classic example is Mitch Moses who is always looking to make that initial contact but doesn't always stick. In fact we have very few effective 'primary defenders' in our team apart from Lawrence; Sue & Grant in the forwards Moses (ineffective); Simona & Kevvy in the backs. Anyway after 'primary' there is 'secondary' and finally 'third or support'. Alarmingly we have many in this 'third or support' class most notably Buchanan & Lovett. Chee Kam has been classed as a 'primary' but not always effective. I won't bore you with a player by player classification but suffice to say the majority of the forwards should be 'primary', but that is certainly not the case with us.
Now as to the coaching of the side-: the pivotal change this year has been the appointment of Craig Sandercock as assistant coach. Now many players are actively seeking him out for one on one tips most notably our entire spine. If you listen closely to these 4 /5 (inc Farah & Cherrington) you will hear them mention his name from time to time. Our 1st grade spine has been playing a style in stark contrast to the Taylor preferred style of Littlejohn and Drinkwater in the NSW CUP.
Craig Sandercock has a teaching background in addition to extensive coaching both here and in the U.K. and communicates well with the players. He has a mantra "Eyes Up" which the players repeat on the field to focus their attack and play the 'numbers game'. If you get close enough to the sideline you can actually hear it - put simply it means to have a look at the possible options / obviously the opposite of "eyes down bum up" - smarter not harder philosophy.
IT IS A CREDIT TO TAYLOR THAT HE ISN'T SO INSECURE THAT HE IS ALLOWING SANDERCOCK TO HAVE SUCH A PROMINENT ROLE!
That said while he continues to have the support of the team and administration not all the support staff are on board. My personal view which means very little remains unchanged in that I don't think he is the right man for the job.
Contrary to what may appear in the media the club remains a cohesive tight knit unit. As a so called insider I hear many stories about other clubs that never seem to make the media. As I'm hearing these second hand I generally dismiss them, but I can tell you that there are serious issues both at Parramatta and the Roosters, which make our own petty little personal conflict tensions just that petty.
So to finish off with some bullet point summaries:
Brooks and Moses are 90% certain to stay as I indicated in previous posts Harry has been active with TPAs for some time. Moses has been earmarked as the priority and would play 7 with Rankin assuming his preferred 6 position. The '4 good players' are Woods; Teddy; Moses & Brooks!
Rankin remains in the side on the wing so he gets familiar with team structures so he can take over from Teddy at fullback during origin. I don't agree at all with this strategy and I am not alone!
Josh Addo- Carr is proving to be every bit as good as I observed during pre-season training. He should be in the team now but as he's not in the top 25 he may have to wait his time. But he won't wait beyond this year because as I indicated in New Year's report when I said Seve would leave for Gold Coast or Brisbane, Addo- Carr has now received offers from Gold Coast and Melbourne! Bellamy dragged Koro out of NSW Cup and would love top do the same for a cheap $120k!
Team selections will continue to be hamstrung by our nonsensical top 25 squad and we may lose genuine talent such as Dallas Graham; Jordan Grant etc. My view shared by others in the club is that Jack Buchanan much like Lovett an extremely popular guy is not in our top 6 props by any objective analysis. Woods; Grant; Sue; Graham; Grant Griffin; are all far superior under the criteria conducted during pre-season.
So all in all I share the frustration of many on the forum and hope that this information in some way explains the reasons behind some of the decisions being made. If we were to consistently filed our strongest available team I now have little doubt we would make to top 8\. Willow tends to be a good judge when it comes to team selections but sitting down today with 2 of the support staff we came up with this:
Teddy
Noffa
Kevvy
Simona
Addo-Carr
Moses
Brooks
Woods
Farah
Grant
Sirro
Lawrence
Sue
Ava
Halatau / Cherrington
Aloiai
Chee Kam
Next in line in 2 weeks when fit: Edwards.
Hot off the press: Don't count Chee Kam out for Monday against Parra. He may still play NSW Cup on Saturday ( I'll be there working) at Leichhardt for match fitness, but may get a bench spot for 20 minutes play on Monday ahead of Buchanan.
