Those were Hayne, Horo, Inu, Grothe, Moimoi and Mannah. The only 2 GENUINE sparks of brilliance I saw were Hayne's forward pass to Grothe and Inu managing to kick and regather for himself, which brought back memories from 2007.
Our team does not execute game plans. It's as simple as that. Daniel Anderson is a very professional and clever strategist and developed a clear game plan and we simply didn't execute. This can be attributed to several factors:
1. Our halves combination. Robson starting with Mortimer is doing nothing for us at all. It worked last year but it looks as if it won't work this year. Mortimer seems to be suffering 2nd year syndrome because Robson isn't providing any direction and just piles more pressure on Mortimer. We need someone to take pressure off Mortimer's kicking game and we need someone creative. Robson can tackle but he can't kick. We need to start working on the KK and Morts combination now!
2. Kicking game. We seemed to have forgotten how to kick bombs. There was 1 in the whole game targeted at Albert Kelly around 20 minutes into the 1st half. Guess what happened? We pressured him and he knocked on. Executing DA's strategy = success. At the end of half time DA's last 3 words were BOMB, BOMB, BOMB!!! Albert Kelly has yet to catch a high bomb at NRL level. If you watched Monday night's game when the Sharks played the Bunnies, the hopeless Bunnies halves and Isaac Luke were able to kick really high bombs at Kelly and he just failed to catch them. Kelly is terrible under the high ball. Why couldn't we do that? You can't blame Hayne when he didn't kick any bombs. It's not meant to be solely his role to act as a 5th tackle option. In fact, it's meant to be the role of the 6 and 7 usually.
3. Initiative. We're all waiting for the magic to happen. This is not 2009. We need to make it like 2009. Hayne has initiative and Mateo has initiative. The difference between the two is that Hayne keeps trying and succeeds a lot the time because people are there to back him up. We also seem to expect him to come up with everything. He can't do that. Mateo is always ready to flick an offload but sometimes there isn't support and that leads to errors. A LOT of errors. We need to work on our 2nd phase play, which was what got us into the finals last year. We need more people to step up. I think Inu is ready to step up and can seriously play a role with our 5th tackle options like I brought up earlier in the week. He can probably kick bombs better than Mortimer and Robson.
4. Fitness. It was a serious issue. Look at our speed. We played the game at half speed compared to last year. What happened to the quick ball in the ruck. Running out of dummy half really quickly? MK why are so slow after 20 minutes? He seriously needs to do more out of dummy half and I think he's just crap because he's too tired to do anything. 24 tackles and 17m in the whole game is terrible compared to last year. Even I can make 20m. The majority of our players are no where near as fit as last year. That's a fact. The only player who has sped up is Inu, who was quite slow last year. People are saying Hindy is crap at running? Why is that? He has no speed this year and seems to tire a lot faster. Look at his stats. 53m with 6 hit ups. That's 8.83m per hit up which isn't too bad. But what the stats don't tell you is that with his last 3 runs, he made less than 17m combined. That shows poor fitness. Hindy made 39 tackles. Last year he managed around 43 on average and around 9-10 hit ups averaging around 80m even when we had similar possession. That shows a massive drop in fitness levels.
We need INTENSE FITNESS TRAINING FAST!!! If we don't get our fitness levels up, we won't be ready even if we make the 8.
5. Defence. Our marking is terrible and we concede too many metres. This can be attributed to bad fitness and panicking. What happened to our perfect 2nd half defence that we had last year?
6. Attitude. We're not enjoying our footy and not playing to the right intensity. When you're having fun, you play well. When you play well, you have fun. It's that simple. The boys need to have some team rebuilding sessions. I know this sounds ridiculous, but they need to go play laser tag or something and work on team work and having fun. When you have fun, you start to put in more effort to have more fun and then you win. We need to step up our intensity and work as a unit. We're not a 1 man team.
7. Penalties. Stop conceding penalties. We know the refs are bound to give penalties for the slightest errors but we need to remind ourselves to ve 100% disciplined. Don't give the ref a reason to penalise and there's nothing they can do. No penalties = Advantage. It's as simple as that.
Once we work on these 7 things, we'll be a better team.
For those calling for Anthony Mitchell, Tom Humble and any other guy from Wenty, I hate to say this but we seriously lack depth. Those guys are not ready. Anthony Mitchell is certainly not ready yet, lacking size and he still needs some work on his skills. The other forwards are not ready yet, lacking either strength, speed or fitness. Tom Humble may be almost ready but he is the only trick up our sleeve. If we use him at the wrong time, we don't have a secret weapon when it gets to the end of the season. Remember our goal is the premiership. But if it means getting into the 8 first, we have to use him. However, it hasn't got to that stage yet.
We've got time to improve and we need to improve fast. We face the Raiders, Rabbitohs, Cowboys and Bulldogs. It's a tough road ahead and we need to put in the hard work NOW!
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Replies
I have faith in humanity once again! :-)
To be honest, the fitness thing grinds my gears. That is fundamental. The boys are professional sportsmen and there is no excuse for lack of fitness. It baffles me though because pre-season seemed to be going well.
Really great blog!
The team can look like this when Burt and Smith are back.
1. Hayne
2. Burt
3. Inu
4. Tahu/ Reddy
5. Grothe
6. Mateo
7. Mortimer
8. Cayless (We have no choice. He is captain and will stay captain until he retires)
9. Kris Keating
10. Moimoi
11. Hindmarsh
12. Poore
13. Smith
14. Matthew Keating (I want someone else but we have no other options. Trust me, Anthony Mitchell does not cut it, especially on defence)
15. Mannah
16. Horo
17. Tahu/ Reddy
Tahu is actually big and strong enough to play in the 2nd row and Reddy can do that too while also offering utility abilities. Most importantly, fitness will be a major issue for this side but if they train hard, it will work.
Otherwise Mateo at lock will have to do. We just need to pray for KK and Morts to work out ASAP and create some synergy, take initiative and learn to kick bombs, good grubbers and learn to have good bounce.
DA listen to me. Train Inu to kick. He is a brilliant 5th tackle kciking option, who will take pressure off Hayne and Mortimer, allowing Hayne, Mortimer, KK and Mateo to focus more on their running game and making those linebreaks. This isn't 2009. We know Robson can't kick, only tackle.
parra only lifted last year when fresh faces were introduced, namely mortimer. Maybe its time to intoduce Humble off the bench. Luke Burt coming back onto a wing will add a little more composure.he could be used at 1/2 or 5/8 for 20 minutes but not for a full game.
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