Soft? What does that mean

I

izotope

Well-known member
My view and when I hear it said that we are soft.
Means as a defensive unit were "weak" / "leaking" think water in bread.

I do not believe soft means no balls to stand up too 100kg sprinting at you as you put ur shoulder in.

So players = hard/tough (wouldn't wanna go toe to toe)
As a unit = soft (leaking underperforming)

What do guys think?
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_Posted using RoarFEED 2012_
 
if that is what you mean say that…..I think soft has far more negative implications than leaking points
 
To me when you call a player soft you are saying he is not putting in….he is not hard enough mentally and physically. It has nothing to do with skill but more attitude.

Every player in our squad is physically hard enough.
Every player in our squad should be mentally hard enough.

The problem is attitude. It is that desperate effort to make sure you complete the tackle so that you dont let your mates down. Some games this doesnt happen - that is human nature. Some days you are just a bit off and not putting in 100%.

There are a couple of blokes this year so far who are PLAYING soft...that doesnt mean they are soft, just that their committment does not seem to be at 100%. With the comp as tight as it is, if you have 3 or 4 playing this way at the same time you will not win. That has been evident.

Our players are being called soft from every quarter in the game. This will be a big kick in the arse as it isnt true. Those that may have been playing soft will be particularly stung as you always know within yourself how you are going. No one likes thinking that they are letting their mates down. For this reason I am expecting the boys to be breathing fire when they run on Sunday.

Tigers by 16.
 
Good question. It offends me as a Tigers supporter. I've seen soft Tigers teams in the past. This current squad is far from soft.
Nobody that has labelled us soft has clarified it to any degree. Do they mean soft, physically or soft mentally?

Soft physically, imo, means scared to put the body on the line.
Soft mentally, imo means poor attitude (such as lazy defence or giving up when the games out of reach).

I think these are a fair definition when talking soft on the footy field.
I dont see any of that in this Tigers squad.

Currently we are just mistake ridden and the pressure is mounting on us in games. This combined with a sudden change to the spine (due to Lui leaving and Tedesco's injury), injuries during games and a couple of green props is simply wearing us early.
 
Using any definition you want, the Tigers have been putting in a soft team performance in the last three games.
Only individual players know if they are not putting in the best effort in tackles they can.

But 47 missed tackles is a soft effort in anyone's rugby league dictionary.
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_Posted using RoarFEED 2012_
 
Gallen never called us soft.
He said we were weak up the guts.
I took that to mean there's no real hard nuts in our team (apart from Ellis and maybe Blair)
None of our props ( including Galloway ) would be described as fearsome.
Fulton and Heighington - well … not hard guys.
That's why we should have got Mason- a big guy who can run through you or stop you dead.
 
IMO generally we have been soft in defence. Where are the big hits? Time after time you see us in defence reaching out to grab the player with ball. Time after time you see 2 sometimes 3 Tigers wrestling an opponent and he still makes meters carrying them with him. It needs to improve and after hearing Farrah on Fox saying he "guarantees" things will change I'm confident. The game against Souths will be make or break I reckon. If our defence is like it was against Canberra they put 50 on us.
 
@tw33k said:
IMO generally we have been soft in defence. Where are the big hits? Time after time you see us in defence reaching out to grab the player with ball. Time after time you see 2 sometimes 3 Tigers wrestling an opponent and he still makes meters carrying them with him. It needs to improve and after hearing Farrah on Fox saying he "guarantees" things will change I'm confident. The game against Souths will be make or break I reckon. If our defence is like it was against Canberra they put 50 on us.
Click to expand...

I don't think defence is our problem. With the amount of ball they had up our end, we did well on a number of occasions to keep them out, the possession and penalty count just overwhelmed us and we gave them too much ball. We defended better than Canberra. Every time we had the ball at their end, we scored. Not so for them. We just need to be more disciplined and not give away as many stupid penalties.
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_Posted using RoarFEED 2012_
 
I agree with most of what you are saying. We did scramble well in defence on our own line. I'm concerned with the apparent lack of real effort we make in our tackles and 47 missed tackles kind of speaks for itself. We used what little ball did we get very well and looked dangerous. The team knows there's work to be done and I've got no doubt the problems will get sorted and we'll be contenders in the finals. We are still the best attacking team in the comp when everything gels
 
Keeping it simple: any team that has more than two tries per 20 minute half, scored against it within that zone us FUUKty
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_Posted using RoarFEED 2012_
 
I'm not sure we were soft. I relate to soft as 'not putting in' and I don't think the boys have not tried. I think they tried bloody hard on Monday, but are offering far too many ineffective tackles.

Over the years, I have found an increase in ineffective tackles is mainly with changes to the defencive structure of the team, and at present we a shifting and changing positioning 4-5 times each game. The other reason is the team is not doing much contact work at training due to injuries being carried week to week, and the result is a touch-footy style/arm grab rather than the boys hitting and sticking.

Both are fixable!
 
When it is said that the Tigers are 'soft' it means that we can be intimidated and run over the top of. It means that we do not physically intimate other teams.

It also has to do with being attack oriented rather than defence oriented. To some, it is a weakness to focus on winning by scoring points rather than winning by preventing the opposition from scoring points.

It has the connotation of being unmanly and just 'show-ponies' with no guts or substance.

None of these things is true of the Wests Tigers.
 
I think we were soft however in reality they simply weren't getting back quickly enough around the middle of the park.

Also we were exposed with regards to our lack of speed out wide.

I'd also highlight two players - Blair should do a lot better on the dollars he is on. You can state all the stuff about him playing as he is coached however to me that is simply not true. He should be doing a lot more. Moltzen has been too quite for a player with a lot of ability and who has the skills that we lack at the moment - speed and the ability to threaten the defensive line. As soon as he got involved last week we looked dangerous - he needs to step up.
 
Groat Blair are the only forwards you can say are not where they should be as Blair is world class and needs to be playing that way
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