Just having a think about our problems I'd suggest the following issues:
1. Liddle and Brooks stifle attack. As our main organisers they often look a little lost. You see them change direction, stop halfway and cause errors in other players with high risk thoughtless options. They should be building our sets, but there doesn't seem to be a sense of where they want to go. It is noticeable the different in class between Farah, Grant and Marshall to these two now that they are gone. In contrast, you watch Doueihi and even though he sometimes gets stuck with the ball he's pretty smooth and simple in his play and players around him play off him well.
2. Edge defenders aren't good. Joe O, in his first game out there looked a little lost, Garner before him hasn't been good and on the other side Luciano and Joey got themselves confused. This is magnified by issue three.
3. Just tackling. We suck at it. You see the way Penrith hold a man up and get three or four in the tackle which allows for good line speed and pressure, it's just really hard to match. We get dominated in the tackle with our markers struggling to get square and this leads to quick play the balls and lots of one on one tackles, which compounds our problems. Because we can't stop momentum there's very little pressure on the opposition and a lot of strain on us. You see this particularly on our own line, where simple passes after quick play the balls lead to easy tries and players are able to offload because we're on the backfoot. This all leads to lacklustre effort in attack as well.
Above everything else we need to tackle better. We have never been good at this as a club. 20 years and we've never been a strong tackling team.
I don't think the issue is the coach, I'm just trying to identify what the issues actually are.
I think you are on the money.
For me I'd start with dropping Liddle. All attack stems from DH and he has been abysmal. See what comes from that.
Who's responsibility is it to make sure forwards aren't one out? This is a serious question. To me it's patterns at training. They shouldn't be winging it on the field, surely?
A big part of the forwards play is confidence. They have to know where they are running and that they are going to get good ball.
There was one time in the second half, Liddle picks up from DH on the left, just inside our half and from memory it was Joffa running hard onto it. Liddle picked the ball up, took a few slow steps, waited and gave it to Joffa about a 1m before he got to the defence and he was BELTED. Did well to hang onto the ball. Couldnt have planned it bettter to get one of your forwards smashed. It was staggering.
I think you’re talking about Twal, unless there was one with Joffa that I missed
Twal was steaming onto the ball, liddle takes two steps and a shimmy, which causes twal to stutter & second guess his run. Liddle follows through and throws a low percentage forward pass
No it wasnt that one. It wasnt a forward pass, it was a hospital pass. Liddle passing left to right, stood up, a few slow steps for no purpose, waited, waited, gave it to (I think) Joffa immediately before he got belted.
I was thinking about this today..You know what we also miss a 9 that has some semblance of a long kicking game out of dummy half..Jacob never has not sure on Simpkin but haven't seen it in reggies yet..doesn't have to be dominate because as it is now you know a kick is only comming from the halves..
