We didn't adapt to Parramatta's linespeed because we lost the forward battle

[southerntiger]

We had more than enough opportunities. The forwards worked extremely hard and got us good field position many times. Our halves aren't good enough to take advantage. They just aren't.

I partly agree with you Stryker. Our halves, particularly Brooks, telegraph their plays too much. Its very easy to tell what pass Brooks is going to throw. When he first game into firsts there was much more nuance to his game. Has Taylor coached that out of him?

Moses didn't get a chance to organise today. He is a better player when he does.

Like others, and without pointing fingers as I have done in other threads, I feel part of the problem is the speed of our service from dummy half. Brooks and Moses were constantly under pressure whenever they go the ball today.

 

[MacDougall]

Getting first receivers deeper is just too simplistic…. I wonder why no other coach has thought of this when losing the ruck is a consistent problem?

I didn't say no coach has thought of it. I frequently see well coached teams like Brisbane and Melbourne do it. It's not something you do if you're trying to get over the advantage line, but if you're trying to run a structured play and you aren't winning the ruck you get your line deeper. We were hitting our halves with about 2 metres of space between them and a rushing defender.

 

[stryker]

The ruck was an arm wrestle but we didn't lose it.

 

[MacDougall]

The ruck was an arm wrestle but we didn't lose it.

Mmm yeah maybe you could say that. We certainly weren't pushed backwards or completely trampled but we didn't make enough impact on their line to build any positive momentum or give our backs any room.

In the first two rounds our pack got over the ad line, found space up the middle and as a result Moses and Tedesco had space and time to get the ball out into the centres quickly enough to create the space needed to for Kevvy or Teddy to find gaps or catch defenders out overchasing with footwork. Today those plays were rushed. It was subtle, but it was there for 80 minutes. First grade halves need to be good enough to account for that though and they weren't so they are not without fault. I'm not 100% sure though but I'd say in most teams adjusting the backline as a result of defensive linespeed is probably something you'd expect a dummy half to call for, or at the very least you'd expect Farah to not feed them the pill when they're gonna get swamped and instead try to get another forward to get them space instead.

There are a dozen things we could have done better in that game to contribute to a win but I think the most contributing reasons we lost that game are because Grant went down early and to a lesser extent because Lawrence was suspended. As I said in an earlier post most of our quick play the ball has been coming off Grant but Lawrence has probably been the second best at it.

 

[foreveratiger]

We had more than enough opportunities. The forwards worked extremely hard and got us good field position many times. Our halves aren't good enough to take advantage. They just aren't.

I partly agree with you Stryker. Our halves, particularly Brooks, telegraph their plays too much. Its very easy to tell what pass Brooks is going to throw. When he first game into firsts there was much more nuance to his game. Has Taylor coached that out of him?

Moses didn't get a chance to organise today. He is a better player when he does.

Like others, and without pointing fingers as I have done in other threads, I feel part of the problem is the speed of our service from dummy half. Brooks and Moses were constantly under pressure whenever they go the ball today.

Have to agree, Farah's service was to slow the defence was already in Brooks and Moses face by the time they got the ball. Farah still feels like he wants to be the hero at times out there.
I would much rather Ballin when his fit he provides quick service and can do the tackles that Farah does.

 

[larrycorowa]

Why does brooks kick it when we have a three man overlap? Panic?

 

[Paris_Cobbs]

We had more than enough opportunities. The forwards worked extremely hard and got us good field position many times. Our halves aren't good enough to take advantage. They just aren't.

This is what I felt after watching today's game - neither Moses nor Brooks looked up to it. My response would be to go back to playing Robbie 80 minutes and make him captain again! Scrap that stupid leadership committee that has half the team in it. At crucial moments when we had chances and were still in the game, there was no leadership, no plan. Robbie has the experience they needed in leadership today.

 

[Gary_Bakerloo]

Why does brooks kick it when we have a three man overlap? Panic?

Further, why do they never pass to Simona? I remember Brooks passing the ball to Simona once….fully telegraphed and Simona had 3 blokes in front of him and was smashed.

Farah played too many minutes. He came on at the right time when the game became an arm wrestle, but with the platform set, we then needed to be more dynamic and quicker around the ruck. Farah just can provide that type of game anymore.

Cherrington should have come on earlier with Farah moving to lock and Sue into the row. Farah can then actually play as a second 5/8 later in the tackle count. Scott Hill did it for years at Melbourne.

 

[Byron_Bay_Fan]

Why does brooks kick it when we have a three man overlap? Panic?

I agree completely, I don't know about the overlap but only a few defenders and a wide field to dart through. I thought they had many chances to score a try but made wrong decisions with poor execution. Nothing to do with Farah I know we are not discussing him anyway.

 

[happy_tiger]

Again listening to Michael Gordon's comment he felt that the 1st half that Parra were losing the ruck which I agree with

2nd half we really started to panic because nothing was sticking or working and we undid the 1st half efforts

I hope the forwards beat the garbage out of the backs after full time

 

[Basil_Tiger]

Why does brooks kick it when we have a three man overlap? Panic?

Further, why do they never pass to Simona? I remember Brooks passing the ball to Simona once….fully telegraphed and Simona had 3 blokes in front of him and was smashed.
.

Brooks had a very average if not poor game IMO,a lot of bad decisions at critical times in attack and just not slick enough,in some instances he was cumbersome but that may relate to set plays falling apart early.

 

[barra]

Whether we lost the forward battle or not, I agree we didn't adjust to the defensive line speed from parra. The same happened against the Titans, they got up quick and nullified our halves almost completely.

Other teams are working out how simple it is, so they better start adapting and giving themselves a half-second more or we'll be anchored on 2 wins for some time.

 

[happy_tiger]

Whether we lost the forward battle or not, I agree we didn't adjust to the defensive line speed from parra. The same happened against the Titans, they got up quick and nullified our halves almost completely.

Other teams are working out how simple it is, so they better start adapting and giving themselves a half-second more or we'll be anchored on 2 wins for some time.

Three simple ways of slowing line speed down is kicking short even once early in a count , switching the point of attack , as in having Moses one side of the ruck Brooks the other and Brooks throws a pass back to Moses

Third is to play the old out in ball when we have Tedesco tearing back through the middle of the ruck off a inside pass from Brooks Moses , much like Marshall and Moltzen did from time to time

When you pull any of these plays the ruck speed must stop as the whole line has to readjust to the different angle

The key is putting that idea in the defences mind , The Broncos with Roberts and Milford do that with there speed , but we don't have that type of speed unfortunately

 

[barra]

Agree with that Happy but our don't seem to be remotely organised enough to be able to do this… age or fatigue?

I just don't see that amount of organising ability once we're under the pump - maybe Moses can?

 

[happy_tiger]

Agree with that Happy but our don't seem to be remotely organised enough to be able to do this… age or fatigue?

I just don't see that amount of organising ability once we're under the pump - maybe Moses can?

Inexperience Barra

They don't know how to deal with and don't have the time or skill to organize it

The little grubber is the easiest one , but it has it's risk as well , but our defence is getting to the stage where you can probably back it to defend a short kick turnover

 

[balmain boy]

One of the main issues with yesterday's game, for both teams, was the ref's complete inability to police the offside rule. While it's a common occurrence these days, it was even worse yesterday. Rather than 10m it was more like 7m at most. Therefore both defences were able to get right up in the other team's faces and disable their attack.

It made for a boring , poor quality match with lots of errors and zero spectacle. I don't think there was a single offside penalty all game. At one point Semi was so far offside he had even gone past the player playing the ball!!!! Ridiculous to be more than 10m offside and still not get penalised! Moses got the ball but as the outside defenders were literally 5-10m offside he had no-one to pass to as they were all manned up already!

It pisses me off so much when we're attacking the opposition try line and outside defenders are all standing 1-2m in front of the try line. In the middle of the field it may not be easy to tell how far they need to be back, but on the goal-line there's a big white stripe which makes it very easy to see who is and isn't offside! Yet there's never any penalties despite these illegal movements limiting the space to work in.

Is it a co-incidence that games which had higher penalty counts (with refs calling the offside rule) subsequently gave us the space we needed to attack and score points?

Yes we should have gone deeper to counter act this, and it would have been nice if we could dominate the ruck. 2nd half they walked all over us. We didn't get any quick play the balls and never had their defence on the backfoot. Our back rowers don't run any angles or decoys so everything becomes super pedestrian.

 

[barra]

Agree with that Happy but our don't seem to be remotely organised enough to be able to do this… age or fatigue?

I just don't see that amount of organising ability once we're under the pump - maybe Moses can?

Inexperience Barra

They don't know how to deal with and don't have the time or skill to organize it

The little grubber is the easiest one , but it has it's risk as well , but our defence is getting to the stage where you can probably back it to defend a short kick turnover

Hmmm we do have a halves coach don't we?

They need some intensive work on this. I reckon the other aspects of their game are okay, just need to work on the finer points and decision making.

 

[Russell]

We had more than enough opportunities. The forwards worked extremely hard and got us good field position many times. Our halves aren't good enough to take advantage. They just aren't.

This is what I felt after watching today's game - neither Moses nor Brooks looked up to it. My response would be to go back to playing Robbie 80 minutes and make him captain again! Scrap that stupid leadership committee that has half the team in it. At crucial moments when we had chances and were still in the game, there was no leadership, no plan. Robbie has the experience they needed in leadership today.

Well he didn't show it - you don't need to be captain to stand up.

It wasn't all commissioned officers that won VC's in the wars.

 

[happy_tiger]

Agree with that Happy but our don't seem to be remotely organised enough to be able to do this… age or fatigue?

I just don't see that amount of organising ability once we're under the pump - maybe Moses can?

Inexperience Barra

They don't know how to deal with and don't have the time or skill to organize it

The little grubber is the easiest one , but it has it's risk as well , but our defence is getting to the stage where you can probably back it to defend a short kick turnover

Hmmm we do have a halves coach don't we?

They need some intensive work on this. I reckon the other aspects of their game are okay, just need to work on the finer points and decision making.

I think the easiest solution is to develop our left side attack and get Tedesco to spend a bit more time on that left side and our play both Brooks and Moses left side

That's where the switch came come in handy

Even if the left side worked some simple roundarounds (even my son has this move , twister its called two roundarounds with a cut out to the outside centre /winger ) and they can execute it as well :laughing: it creates some confusion and stops the defence name calling Tedesco all day

 

[Geo]

Agree with that Happy but our don't seem to be remotely organised enough to be able to do this… age or fatigue?

I just don't see that amount of organising ability once we're under the pump - maybe Moses can?

Inexperience Barra

They don't know how to deal with and don't have the time or skill to organize it

The little grubber is the easiest one , but it has it's risk as well , but our defence is getting to the stage where you can probably back it to defend a short kick turnover

Hmmm we do have a halves coach don't we?

They need some intensive work on this. I reckon the other aspects of their game are okay, just need to work on the finer points and decision making.

I think the easiest solution is to develop our left side attack and get Tedesco to spend a bit more time on that left side and our play both Brooks and Moses left side

That's where the switch came come in handy

Even if the left side worked some simple roundarounds **(even my son has this move , twister its called two roundarounds with a cut out to the outside centre /winger ) and they can execute it as well** :laughing: it creates some confusion and stops the defence name calling Tedesco all day

😱pen_mouth: 😱pen_mouth: 😱pen_mouth: here we go again…