Was the Penrith loss was down to Scott, Taka and King. Some evidence to help us decide ... So I watched that 2nd half again while on the recombinant bike at home. Notepad in hand. Serious geek stuff but exercise too. Draw your own conclusions from the following:
- Penrith 1st try: Blake's excellent broken field running BUT King and Ma'u fell of the tackle
- Penrith first few sets second half: running straight at Scott/Taka on the right ... (NOT Moses)
- Penrith 2nd try: after Hayne and Moses tackled Cleary on our line, Kikau (sp?) rolls through French's hand-grab and over Hayne coming across from marker. Why was French 4 in from touch, in a second rowers defensive position? Because Scott went to 3 in and Taka was 2 in (at centre). The second rowers (Scott and Taka) were out of position (Taka too far out and Scott failing to adjust inward with the ball runner)
- Penrith penalty goal (to even it up): Kikau went through because King fell of the tackle (Moses had Kikau's legs). Penalized for slowing down
- Penrith penalty goal (to go ahead 2): Kikau slices between ... Scott and Taka (Moses gets binned after he tackles Cleary)
- Penrith 3rd try: With Moses off Cleary breaks Mau's tackle in the set after the kickoff, but Norman collars him. Next play Cleary and Maloney run into each other. But whatever, not long after, with 22 mins left and down to 12 men we finally get the ball into the Riff quarter and Norman puts through a kick aiming for a repeat set. Right idea but bad luck as he hits the ref and Mansour makes a break from the broken play. Cleary breaks down-field right between ... Scott and Auv'a. Right through the spot where Norman would be IF Norman for some reason had not of went down after putting through the kick. Either Norman was fouled (bad luck) or Norman needs to man up and not go down for attention when we already have just 12 on the field. Anyway, it's a runaway and Blake in again.
- Hardly the "Cleary master-class" as said in the papers. Cleary only came into the game twice, backing up Kikau's break and running through a hole left by 11 men on the field. Otherwise he ran into Maloney once and late in the game through a grubber to Maloney for a knock-on. Good for you dude.
- It's now 22-14 and after that it's just a comedy of Eels errors and poor kick options. Notably, on one play Moses creates numbers on the left but Taka had stopped running, and later Edwards made a break after Taka failed to lock up the ball carrier and King missed a tackle.
WHAT CONCLUSION CAN WE ALL DRAW FROM THIS, OTHER THAN WE HAVE AN ISSUE WITH SCOTT, TAKA AND KING AND THEIR RIGHT-SIDE DEFENSIVE WORK TOGETHER???
PS: all good players individually, but collectively they did not work well together.
Replies
Agree Pops the heat would have had a telling factor for both sides. It appeared the Penrith side ( probably from a tactical perspective) intended to come out stronger in the second half due to the heat factor which worked for them. However, having Moses out for 15 minutes in the first half didn’t help ( that’s where Will Smith would have come in handy) instead of Taka. Also the 10 minute sin bin in the second half didn’t help either. Still don’t know what the sin bin was for but the Eels were very disappointing nevertheless regardless of weather conditions. Surely they should pre- train for those types of conditions.
Poppa, did you see the after game interview? Some reporter asked about the heat and Mannah replied that it was hotter in the Knights trial game and they played better, "so it wasn't the heat" (said Mannah).
I agree it was hot and we ran out of steam after playing with 12, but I do find it troubling that our line was troubled in the same spot all second half
Pops, the heat at Maitland on the day of the trial game was around 37 degrees and did not start to drop until after the sun had completely set.
I live around 3 Kilometres as the crow flies from that ground and we still had the air conditioner going at 8.00pm. Yesterday up here was not as hot as what you say was the ground temp at Penrith but I would say that if we use that as a guide, I would like to know what the ground temp was at Maitland during the trial match, and would believe that it was worse.
Scott has played 1 season too many, Taka is not a 2nd rower and if BA wants to play him there he should at least spend some time in reserve grade first. Mau is on the slide and has been since last season. Jennings should be moved back to right centre, he fixed the problems we were having there last season.
Too many changes have been made to keep French happy, put him back on the wing with hayne to fullback.
1. Hayne 2. French 3. Taka 4. Jennings 5. Hoffman 6. Norman 7. Moses 8. Mannah 9. King 10. Evans 11. Mau 12. Moeroa 13. Brown 14. Smith 15. Edwards 16. Alvaro 17. Terepo
This is a far better balanced team than the one that ran out on sunday.
Much better side HKF, but it won't happen sadly.
HKF I wonder if BA is biding his time just waiting for Gutho to return, slot him into fullback, at which point French goes to the wing and Hayne remains centre?
With all the talk amongst commentators about how valuable good wingers are, it is significant that French always kills it on the wing and then is much less prominent from fullback
This line up is exactly what we need
Agree - that looks far better.
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