We coud be at least be 2 or 3 wins further up if we had some more astute work from the coach. Although many on here rave about Ryles - and personally I like him and the things he is trying to do - he is making as many rookie errors as any of the players.
What does "astute" mean? It means tactically aware, understanding weaknesses, communicating clearly and applying all the correct resources available.
One of the obvious things last night was that Ryles overplayed Moses role - we became so predictable. We need more tactical adaptibiity and creativity.
Farnsworth sat defensively on Moses when ever he went to the blindside he loves. Just about every set Moses got his hands on the ball (nothing wrong with that) but every time the variation was negligible. There had to be room for shorter kicks as well as the perenial long ones. Not once did Moses really take a run. Were there occasions he could have lifted the pace? Could Moses sometimes be used as a dummy with a point of attack coming from somewhere else?
Are we contestng the ball enough? Having your kicker back is one thing, but at no stage did we get into a position to really challenge the receiver. On the odd occasions we did, we did not contest the kick. It seems the players are under instructions to stand next to the receiver and hope he drops the ball. I do not understand this non contested kicks. The same applies with the drop outs and in some cases defensively where they allowed the attacking side to make the mistake. That's fine when it works, but bloody awful if it doesn't. Perhaps, it is in part the fear of being penalized or sin binned? It's an areas that is undermining us.
Another issue is Ryles' selections.
Matterson should have been playing last night and he would have provided a completely different drive from the "pigs". I thought Junior tried hard but he was a bit out of sorts, almost like him needing to be prodded to get moving (herding cattle). Nothing wrong with Hopgood and Williams games, they are the workers in the pack and the people on here do not understand that or more the point appreciate it.
Russell is honest as the day is long, just a second grader filling in and he stops progress by not creating anything. Does him being solid actually weaken our game?
This game was there for either team to win on the night. Unfortunately, it was a flick of the coin and we lost.
One final thing: people need to get over the constant BA bashing. The guy has gone. But it seems that anything the side does badly is laid on his shoulders. The other things we need to understand are that its fine to have plenty of money to spend, but unless the people we want want to come to Parramatta and play for us, then they won't come! Build it and they will come, selections and poor communication with players is not part of building anything. There are players in Reserve Grade that are going well that are not geting a look in, there are players in first grade that seem to being favoured, I don't no why?
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Cry me a river dopey 🤡
The first paragraph is an interesting one and teams do get paid to play too.They'll have been seeing what Moses is doing and have strategised accordingly.I don't think we are at the point where we can automatically switch to something else in games yet.We are still in the first phase of our rebuild.
IMO and this was brought up we still don't have the cattle to play how JR wants it too look like and there are still the errors there in key moments that us as a team can't afford or recover from.
With regards to Hopgood imo again he's stagnated as a player while he does some things well he's more than that as a player.I don't want workman like qualities from him I need more xfactor out of him as our fowards are missing more of that.He's a skilled player but we just aren't seeing enough of it from him.Me I'm disappointed at the 24-25 version of Hopgood and where's his running game gone.
I think that Hopgood like Brown has been burnt out busting their guts for something they can not now comprehend.
As I mentioned, simplify his game, make him a Prop for a little bit by 20min stints. Tuck the ball and run, nothing complicated. Or bring him on through the bench, let Walker start.
His confidence is down, I think it was since Origin.
We have a lot of errors in our game due to the fatigue of defending 60 metre sets with quick play the balls, it's fatigue that's killing us.
You can however choose your fatigue, Melbourne have been so good for so long , like Penrith they know if you put a lot of effort into linespeed for the first four tackles of a set emphasising the starts of either half you win the yardage battle early and quickly gain momentum over your opposition.
That creates errors and ill discipline , we are not up to it physically to dominate the tackle so linespeed and numbers are required to slow down the play the ball.
Were still reactionary defenders, if I'm an opposing coach I'm directing runners in behind the play the ball all night killing us through the guts as we're not capable of repelling it for long.
We lack that player early on in our attack to make ground , find his belly then follow it up with a player with leg speed to win our attacking sets early.
If you had Moretti following a Fui Fui hit up we'd be 35 metres into an attacking set after two play the balls.
We don't have that apart from Tuivaiti , this kid has been coming on with Moretti and our bench gets on top.
We have the backline to score plenty of points and win games, the forwards aren't doing their job.
Thats why the clubs clearing space, they're aware what needs to be done.
Were going to market, this years going to be painful.
We've got to seize the opportunity in front of us , signing for example a Galvin and a Fifita entices others and we have the money to get it done.
If only we had the negotiators.
It's our roster. End of story. Too many rookies, forward pack is dominated each week.
The club deliberately gutted the roster (which is fair enough) but hasn't replaced with same or better quality and experience. It's men vs boys out there and whilst effort is admirable it doesn't necessarily equal wins. Apparently we need to be patient. Given that many in our 17 are rookies with 10 or less games I guess we have to wait another 40 games (2 years) or so before we have an experienced pack that can compete with most sides. It's been 40 years, what's another 2 or so?
Put it this way Mutts, Ryles has created so much cap space by moving on veterans. If he doesn't do anything with that cash that can get us at least 2 quality forwards then he deserves the sack at the end of 2026 simple as that.
But what good is the cash if the market is bare? How many players are currently available to hold contract talks with for the positions we need?
Even if there are players available, are we as a club able to get them to sign on the dotted line? Don't forget there will be a poaching raid for the Bears by seasons end too, so an already difficult task is made that much harder with that ticking clock
Hold on, it's not he's fault we needed a major clean out. Talking about sacking him i find hilarious and dumbfounded.
So what if we'd kept the veterans, do you really think we'd be in a better position? I highly doubt it. With the Bears coming in we needed to act fast, or be left with a aging roster ready for the retirement village.
Talk about a knee jerk reaction. We've been close to getting the job done against the Dogs, Sharks, Cows and Manly. 4 very good teams. Ryles is doing all he can do with the shit sandwiches that the previous dope left him.
Talking about shit sandwiches you are too defensive "fcuknuckle" Serapy was making a point, he was not sacking anyone. LB was qualifying another point......get over it for christs sake.
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