Play-The-Balls

[barra]

After most games I am left feeling we could be a lot quicker in this area. The teams that have easy metres in them always do their best to fight their way to their feet. They are not so much playing for penalties they genuinely want to play the ball quickly as possible.

Apart from a bit of flailing around on the ground and stuffing around then appealing to the ref we mostly seem to submit and lose a valuable second or two in the play the ball! And we rarely get penalties for being held down.

Imagine Farah behind quick play the balls again! Our slow service to dummy half is what he has battled to get used to and has drastically reduced his dummy half runs.

We must train to do this better. The second or even half second gained would help us tremendously in our go forward, creativity and completions. It's one of the little things that makes a big difference.

Thoughts?

 

[RatedRKO]

I agree, we are a much better side when we work off fast play-the-balls.

However I think that the refs these days are more lenient in allowing defending players to slow it down. Look at last nights game, the Dragons were slowing it down all game (A good example is when I think it was Mckinnon that made that break and was held down for about 5s allowing the Dragons defence to get back).

 

[crouching_tiger]

I'm taking it you didn't see what happened to Ellis last night when they got a quick play the ball away?
The reason the play the balls in general are so slow is because the backrowers are getting slammed onto their backs and being forced to work that extra bit harder to get to their feet. They need to work harder to run THROUGH the line and end up on their stomachs to keep the continuity flowing. This can be acheived by dropping their heads down slightly and lowering their centre of gravity, but they continually opt to stay upright and persevere with leaving themselves an option to get an offload away.

 

[izotope]

thats true c_t i still find this year most referee's will allow players to hold them down way more then last year.. some ref's even give like 2 or 3 verbal warnings before giving a penalty… thtas ur set basically done there.

 

[system]

I'm taking it you didn't see what happened to Ellis last night when they got a quick play the ball away?
The reason the play the balls in general are so slow is because the backrowers are getting slammed onto their backs and being forced to work that extra bit harder to get to their feet. They need to work harder to run THROUGH the line and end up on their stomachs to keep the continuity flowing. This can be acheived by dropping their heads down slightly and lowering their centre of gravity, but they continually opt to stay upright and persevere with leaving themselves an option to get an offload away.

It is actually an odd one this year CT. The interpretation has changed mid year in regard to the length of time before held is called and we have not adapted.

That said the minute any Wests Tiger does drop the head we 90% of the time get called for a surrender or have dominant called on us.