With Norman out for the match against Titans, every punter was suggesting that we would struggle without Norman's guidance on the field. My thoughts are that each individual in our team tried to take on the responsibility of Norman not being there. Instead of playing as a team like we had the first two rounds, we played like a team of individuals all trying to individually make up for the loss of Norman.
From that we simply dropped too much ball. 13 errors and a completion rate of 74% and 47% possession. With the up tempo and physical defensive style we play, we simply ran out of puff in the second half and didn't have enough ball to get ourselves back into the grind.
I'm a big fan of BA, but leaving O'Brien on the bench for the full 80 mins was a complete failure and mismanagement of the bench. I understand why he brought The Tank on earlier to lift the tempo, but you could see our forwards were gassed off the back of tackling all game and burning a bench spot is just a rookie error.
Moving forward to the Sharks match we should remember the following:
- Two of the Titans trys came of lucky ricochet kicks.
- We made 100 more run metres against Titans from 10 less runs.
- We get a 7 day turn around this week, and no travel, plus our first home game of the season.
- For all our defending we only missed 12 tackles from 316 attempts 96% tackle efficiency.
If we can tighten up our right edge defence, and minimise errors we are in with a very good chance of beating the Sharks this Saturday.
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With Norman out for the match against Titans, every punter was suggesting that we would struggle without Norman's guidance on the field
Will they were right
We lost because our line speed was poor; we had way too many unforced errors (Semi's drop balls was diabolical); our right side defence didn't work together and we gave away stupid penalties. Scott needs to stop trying to chicken wing every player he tackles and Taka needs to dramatically improve his defence. Norman would not have made much difference with the exception of our kicking game.
Watching the start of game think most of us were thinking at the time, ' well this is easy'
Our team showed the rest how we worked together through the tough times last year and we have to work hard together every single time again. (our right side defence guilty here),
Actually think there are a couple of teams this year that are modelling their game on that of ours '16; no nonsense turning up for each other and hitting as a unit and its what we must get back to after this hiccup. Just a worry that our right is not improving really.
Think this is why we are all so dissappointed. They beat us at our own game turning up for each other, but with some luck and some awful officiating..
Also, looked like that last Titans try should've been ruled offside to me as well. ryan james' blow up at the Mau tackle was timely and a massive overreaction.
I'm just guessing that Rory must've had something happen in the warm up. It doesn't make sense esp hearing that Kaysa was unwell and his lack of energy showed. Brown looked like he needed a breather also.
Not sure about O'Brien doing something in the warm up. He ran out for Wenty yesterday.
I think we might see Vave on the team sheet this week. Seems BA doesn't trust in O'Brien.
I don't agree with Scott chicken winging players. He has been exposing poor carries or loose arms which is a danger of an offload? He exposes it, they drop the ball. The same thing is done to him, no penalty given..
Comment on Thursday night's game.
It was noted that Bennett generally only uses 16 players for the majority of the game.
O'Brien may have been a passenger for a reason - very unlike Brad not to use all his players, and Rory's record is not bad regardless of the guys who use him as a scapegoat.
You don't deliberately name a player to sit on the bench for the entire game - even Billy Rogers got a minute or two on the paddock.
Some great stats there. I think BA hit it on the head when asked the question about them be a one man team with Norman gone. They lacked respect for the ball and ill discipline let them down. Some of those mistakes were not a 1st grade level.
I think you will see a much different side come Saturday night
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