Benji wasnt good last night, had an indifferent 2012 and has been non existant this year….this is all true. But fair dinkum, do we need 15 threads for people to vent about 1 player? He was part of the problem last night no doubt...but wasnt the only reason we lost.
Try #1 = Koro has a brain snap and throws a retched pass in goal for the easiest of tries for Cronulla.
Try #2 = Cronulla catches the young backs unawares on the last and executes a lovely backline passing movement
Try #3 = Tedesco spills a bomb and again Cronulla swoop on the ball for a very easy try.
Try #4 = Reddy goes up for a bomb, has an air swing and Cronulla score again
Try #5 = Lucky bounce of a grubber sucks in the defence and Lewis regains and throws a cutout to the winger.
Point being, even though it was obvious the backs lost us that game, Benji wasnt the main culprit. Sure he did nothing with the ball but it was our lack of skill with the high ball that allowed Cronulla to flog us. We dropped 3 bombs for tries and another 3 that only good luck saved us from further scoring.
Koro was way worse than Marshal, Teddy played hard but still has a few mistakes in him, Reddy who is usually Mr Reliable under the high ball also stuffed up. Sirro did nothing although defended well, Simona tried but made a few telling errors also.
The fact is that last night Cronulla targetted our young backs - as they should - and it paid dividends. I am not going to hack on them yet as some shouldnt be in the top grade but are due to necessity. They are trying and are still learning. However I think it reasonably unfair that Benji is 100% the scapegoat when he is surrounded by players whose poor plays directly led to 4 of Cronullas 5 tries.
I think people are more talking about the fact in the last two weeks we've only scored twice and that Benji had a hand in neither of them