Whats with our inability to kick on after good starts?

[ron_burgandy]

scored first against manly, lotes first try the team should of been pumped to continue on but instead we find ourselves down by 16 point 25 mins later

against the roosters lead 12-0 then concede 36 consecutive points in about as many minutes, and its not just this year weve been doing it for years even the year we won the premiership but even more so the last 2 and a bit years

why cant we put teams away when we bounce out to a good lead? is it a mental thing or a fitness thing?

its very frustrating to see leads evaporate with out much of a fight

 

[innsaneink]

Soft centre bench

 

[stryker]

Soft centre bench

EEEEExaccttllyy

 

[NJLM78]

It is great to get the early lead, any team would want to be up 12 nil early. We just seem to make poor decisions and compound mistakes when we are in front. Instead of spending sets in the opposition half, we fall off tackles give away penalties and struggle to get out of our half. It is strange to say it but we often play our best games when we are behind on the scoreboard early in games.

 

[Balmain_Bug]

Simple.
The Fonz released several players who were first graders last year, and good defensive ones at that (Payne, Galea etc), and signed zero players who played permanant first grade in 2009.

What do you expect?

 

[Peaches]

The bench doesn't seem to carry on the good work of Galloway and his partner. In turn, opposition big man have done well in this time. We seem to click-off and make errors with the ball and than compound them with penalties. It needs to be rectified as you have to play the whole 80 minutes to win games.

 

[MGB]

Yep that and we have no idea how to stomp an opposition into the ground. Farrah kicking out on the full changed the nature of that game. Farrah is a deadset champion player one of the finest to ever play for this club BUT he doesn't always step up and make the right play when it is needed and it will cost him rep jerseys. I dont think the loss was his fault but had he taken the right option there we wouldn't have invited them back into the game at such a pivotal time.

 

[MGB]

Simple.
The Fonz released several players who were first graders last year, and good defensive ones at that (Payne, Galea etc), and signed zero players who played permanant first grade in 2009.

What do you expect?

We got our best defensive player back though, gotta give them that much.

 

[Year_of_the_Tiger]

scored first against manly, lotes first try the team should of been pumped to continue on but instead we find ourselves down by 16 point 25 mins later

against the roosters lead 12-0 then concede 36 consecutive points in about as many minutes, and its not just this year weve been doing it for years even the year we won the premiership but even more so the last 2 and a bit years

why cant we put teams away when we bounce out to a good lead? is it a mental thing or a fitness thing?

its very frustrating to see leads evaporate with out much of a fight

Agree with the soft bench forwards but I have to question the new level of fitness and toughness we supposedly found in the off-season - what a load of croc! The only big moment of the two games was KG's big run over that Roosters forward - was massive - but thats from 160 mins of football.

 

[Guest]

Half the battle is mental, and so far this is where the Tigers are falling down. Mental toughness was spoken about in the press by the players for this season, they recognise it has been a problem, as do the coaching staff, yet so far this season, it's still a problem. Not for all the players, but enough that it makes a difference to the entire team.

The attitude against the Roosters was what had Sheens so disappointed after the game. They've obviously spoken about it and are working on addressing it…As to what mental blocks the team has...I don't know. Some experts reckon the Tigers focus too much on attack and not hard enough on defending and doing the hard yards...Maybe they are right.

The Tigers leaked a lot of points in the first few rounds last season before grinding out an excellent win against the Storm at Leichardt. I think it may have been round 6\. From there the defence improved noticeably. Really though, we shouldn't be waiting 6 rounds for the team to decide they need to play for one another and have a collective go out on the field.

Here's hoping they produce some much needed focus and composure against the Eels on Friday night.

 

[Year_of_the_Tiger]

Good post Willow. I really hope it was not all hype. It is cliche but a team's attack often rides off their defence and maybe this is the experts' point. I can only imagine what our attack would do if it had the added spark of tough defence day in day out.