The Game Plan...
- Thread starter batboy
- Start date
@Geo. said:
Yes, you could see the 5 hit ups and a bomb we used in that video to great success Geo.
Can't believe people are still going on about 5 hit ups and a bomb.
Was it ever the game plan? :deadhorse:
Does anyone really know officially that was the game plan?
Just a good excuse to pile it on JT.
I see that Ghost and BP are their usual constructive selves.
I think Batboy, Happy and jirskyr are pretty much on the money.
I agree that we could do really well in 2016 - hopefully we will be injury free, each player gives everything he has got in each game, never gives up and puts pride back into the WT jumper. That is all we can ask.
One thing ill give Taylor credit for is that he has at least tried to be creative with recruitment.
With basically a big zero to spend he has bought a heap of guys with something to prove, knowing it might be their last shot. None are 30 + and just going through the motions. Now I don't even know if 1 of them will be a success but at least its something different.
On the game plan. The balance seemed fine enough for the first 2 months of the season. What happened in the middle of the season is anyones guess the coach seemed to lose the plot and the grind kicked in and we had nothing. I don't want to play Sheens Ball where they are going sideways but I also think you got to play to your strengths ans we dont have a monster pack.
With basically a big zero to spend he has bought a heap of guys with something to prove, knowing it might be their last shot. None are 30 + and just going through the motions. Now I don't even know if 1 of them will be a success but at least its something different.
On the game plan. The balance seemed fine enough for the first 2 months of the season. What happened in the middle of the season is anyones guess the coach seemed to lose the plot and the grind kicked in and we had nothing. I don't want to play Sheens Ball where they are going sideways but I also think you got to play to your strengths ans we dont have a monster pack.
I too am no fan of JT but he was right in one aspect - we were (and still are) very, very soft up the middle. Teams with Monster packs and good discipline just rolled down the park.
He needs to stiffen our defence up. But for the life of me, I cannot comprehend why he changed the attack structure. Does having a solid defence automatically mean you kill your attack?
Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't the ideal position to be racking up cricket scores in attack and soccer scores in defence?
Yes we needed to be more judicious in our attack sometimes but why can't we have a lethal attack and a strong defence?
Just seems dumb to build a solid defensive structure at the loss of your attack.
He needs to stiffen our defence up. But for the life of me, I cannot comprehend why he changed the attack structure. Does having a solid defence automatically mean you kill your attack?
Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't the ideal position to be racking up cricket scores in attack and soccer scores in defence?
Yes we needed to be more judicious in our attack sometimes but why can't we have a lethal attack and a strong defence?
Just seems dumb to build a solid defensive structure at the loss of your attack.
gallagher
Well-known member
6th best attack in the comp. But carry on.
stevetiger
New member
@gallagher said:
Its not that. We deliberately played defensive footy at times last year and it costs us games. I think Taylor realized he had stuffed up and then tried to play some footy but the problem is that style of footy lost us games.
Tiger_Watto
New member
Add Matt Ballin to the type of player which fits this mould Batboy… He won't leave anything in the tank.
Personally we have a structure problem. A lot of talk is always about 'the spine', but Melbourne have confused a lot of what wins football games, purely due to exceptional talent in their spine.
RL has always been built through the middle, be patient, and won on the edges. We lack the ability to achieve all 3.
A lot of changes are needed at this club to be a competitive team week in week out!
Personally we have a structure problem. A lot of talk is always about 'the spine', but Melbourne have confused a lot of what wins football games, purely due to exceptional talent in their spine.
RL has always been built through the middle, be patient, and won on the edges. We lack the ability to achieve all 3.
A lot of changes are needed at this club to be a competitive team week in week out!
MightyMaggy
New member
While our defence needs to improve, I think if you look at our games for the last season, you may find we often ran out of steam. When our fitness failed, our defence let us down dramatically.
As some posters have commented, this year the new S&C people are focussing more on running work to build fitness rather than weight work to build strength. In this game, if you cannot raise an effort all the strength and skills in the world are of no use.
The improvement in team fitness will mean the team improves in attack and defence for the whole 80 minutes.
As some posters have commented, this year the new S&C people are focussing more on running work to build fitness rather than weight work to build strength. In this game, if you cannot raise an effort all the strength and skills in the world are of no use.
The improvement in team fitness will mean the team improves in attack and defence for the whole 80 minutes.
jirskyr
Well-known member
@coopy said:
Honestly coopy, I don't really think a soft middle was the main defensive issue for 2015.
Without having specific stats available, my overall feeling was that bad defensive reads were the main culprit, where the defensive structures failed due to poor decision making.
Teams that played us too straight, relied only on size… many of those game plans came unstuck. Examples are the second Rabbits, Dogs and Raiders games. Melbourne also played a very uncomplicated game and we blitzed them.
The teams that really hurt us were able to shift the ball out wide, especially early, and Roosters did this the best. Teams with destructive wide-running second rowers were finding huge holes in that space between our 2nd row - half - centre, especially when our first-choice centres were out, e.g. the Titans and Penrith games at LO. Souths got us this way in Rd 3 with a big game from Inglis, and Dogs did the same a week later once they started shifting the ball out to Morris and Pritchard.
I also feel we have a problem with ruck laziness, i.e. players turning their backs when there is a quick PTB on. We are quite poor at slowing the PTB, always have been, and very quickly penalised when we try stalling tactics - we aren't old pros like Melbourne. Guys like Jesse Sue and Taupau often trudged back to the line once they got tired, and they were not the greatest lateral defenders even when fresh.
If we can sure up that space around Moses and Brooks, a tough ask considering how fragile they can be and how high up in the missed tackles they have appeared for two consecutive years, we will go a long way to improving the defence.
I felt that goal-line defence was actually not so bad for once, bar a few Shannon Boyd bust-over tries.
jirskyr wrote:
I also feel we have a problem with ruck laziness, i.e. players turning their backs when there is a quick PTB on. We are quite poor at slowing the PTB, always have been, and very quickly penalised when we try stalling tactics - we aren't old pros like Melbourne. Guys like Jesse Sue and Taupau often trudged back to the line once they got tired, and they were not the greatest lateral defenders even when fresh.
Agree with just about all you said jirskyr!
Also noticed countless times that we got caught with ONE marker at dummy half, and it cost us dearly with metres lost and in more than a few cases, a try was scored shortly after.
Also noticed a few bad reads from the front row - two I can remember at Leichhardt at the Keith Barnes end. One from Woods in front of the posts and the other was Ava. Both errors the opposition scored from.
As someone said earlier "the little things" - I would suggest, the above fall into this category and need to be addressed. It would not be hard to do, but a half a dozen tries saved…...
I also feel we have a problem with ruck laziness, i.e. players turning their backs when there is a quick PTB on. We are quite poor at slowing the PTB, always have been, and very quickly penalised when we try stalling tactics - we aren't old pros like Melbourne. Guys like Jesse Sue and Taupau often trudged back to the line once they got tired, and they were not the greatest lateral defenders even when fresh.
Agree with just about all you said jirskyr!
Also noticed countless times that we got caught with ONE marker at dummy half, and it cost us dearly with metres lost and in more than a few cases, a try was scored shortly after.
Also noticed a few bad reads from the front row - two I can remember at Leichhardt at the Keith Barnes end. One from Woods in front of the posts and the other was Ava. Both errors the opposition scored from.
As someone said earlier "the little things" - I would suggest, the above fall into this category and need to be addressed. It would not be hard to do, but a half a dozen tries saved…...
I agree with the last few posts in that a 'soft middle' isn't the main issue, but it is an issue nevertheless.
I can't find the stat anywhere*, but numerous articles have mentioned that we gave up the second most metres in the competition (I think Canberra were #1), which indicates that we're losing the battle through the middle more often than not. Will be a bit of a concern this year as well considering we've lost two big bodies in Taupau and Galloway.
* if anyone knows of a site that lists this sort of stat, I'd be most thankful.
I can't find the stat anywhere*, but numerous articles have mentioned that we gave up the second most metres in the competition (I think Canberra were #1), which indicates that we're losing the battle through the middle more often than not. Will be a bit of a concern this year as well considering we've lost two big bodies in Taupau and Galloway.
* if anyone knows of a site that lists this sort of stat, I'd be most thankful.
@jirskyr said:
Yeah - point taken jirskyr.
It was probably the ruck defence that needed work and our right edge defence was pretty poor as well especially in our red zone.
In terms of defence in the middle third, I always thought Keefy did well and I am not sure we have a replacement for him although Ava and Jesse did show signs late last season that they might turn out ok.
