Tristan Hope #293

Vicious said:
No many that will make 50+ tackles when thrown into a game after sitting on the sidelines watching for the past 4-6 weeks
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I don't think it's his tackling that is the problem. In my opinion, in the modern game, it is how effective he is with the ball in his role as a dummy half and whether he offers a threat to the opposition.
 
KevB said:
I don't think it's his tackling that is the problem. In my opinion, in the modern game, it is how effective he is with the ball in his role as a dummy half and whether he offers a threat to the opposition.
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For that reason he should have been interchanged with Latu or someone else who can play 9.
I understand Doueihi getting injured probably interfered with that plan, but it was very hard tj expect sone bench has no match fitness through no fault of his own to be constantly defending, make 50 plus tackles and still have enough energy to do something in attack in the minimal times we had the ball.
Hope’s line speed and defence was very good in the first half, before he simply run out of gas along with the rest of our team after constant errors meant we were constantly defending in the 2nd half.
 
He's a back-up quality hooker and played like one. We can't have first graders as back-ups at every position. Of course the drop-off will appear steep when you're going from one of the best in the league to a reserve grader.
 
Tristan Hope was not the reason we lost.

His effort was considerable. Fifty-eight tackles tells its own story. That is a heavy defensive workload for any hooker. He worked hard, he competed, and he did his job.

If we look at the first half - sure he is not Api - but he his service was good. He was agressive in defence and was leading the line speed at lot of the time. His drop off in performance correleated with the rest of the team; and contributed to the slide into the abyss.

Once he was expending so much effort in defence - ball service goes from dynamic to functional, our shape loses subtlety and we start sets half a step behind and it snow balls.

To'a and Tavana didn't lose the game for us either - although they were much bigger contributors than most. We lost it in a degenerative slide that could not be stopped - we lost it when we started to make errors in the middle with ball in hand - more defence - more fatigue - starting sets deeper in ou own half - more errors and the cycle repeated itself.

We need to simplify the game for the next few weeks andgrind it out!
 
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IronFist! said:
The scoot from dummy half on the last was a bad decision. It wasn't there and it was a cardinal sin to fail on the last tackle when there was shape out the back. And his tackles weren't effective as the match wore on and the fatigue set in.

AD's injury likely changed Benji's plan for injecting Latu into the 9 role at the back end of the first half. Having already used Madden, and needing Fainu and Hunt in the middle rotation, he had to keep the 4th player available for the second half.

He'll get another crack next week, but will have support should injuries not affect the bench rotation.
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Agreed, he made some errors - but he was not responsible for the 50 points against us - although he did have a bad miss under the sticks - but that was a poor defensive set up not just him - he was never going to stop him form there.

Barring injury I expect us to have someone in the hooker rotation so he can develop - Api will work with him during the week - perhaps Charlie Murray onto the pine - or Latu for late in each half.

Hope is workable - he has limitations - we need to keep it simple for him and work with the skills he has.
 
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