Poppa's Corner: A Reality Check, But Not Blaming Anyone

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Yesterday's game was unfortunate. Not just for the putrid 32-10 scoreline to honour Junior's 200th after looking up for the game in the first half or the second half implosion. But because it told us that we are not going anywhere, despite our hope for this ongoing improvement and the highlight reels of attractive football.

Entertaining the football world with this fast fizzy game...that is a bit like BAZBALL (Cricket Parlance) brought to the Rugby League world.

The following is a post I made yesterday on the game day blog at half time.

"TDS made a bit of difference when he came on, his service and enthusiasm was encouraging.

Like everyone else I am pissed off with the referee and our unforced errors, what happened in that last 30 seconds, we lost control, got it back and still fcuked it up.

Being pretty is nice, but unless you put it to bed, no point in dressing up."

I probably can't add much to that half time comment, notwithstanding the score change and events of capitulation in the second half.

I think the coaching staff and Ryles have given this style a good go. But, we simply are not good enough to do it — at least, not yet. We found that out a bit yesterday.

13660261287?profile=RESIZE_710xKitione Kautoga keeps improving despite coming off injured in the 39th minute (Getty Images)

Positives — Isaiah longi's game continues on its exponential path. Tallyn Da Silva looks promising, and Bailey Simonsson has gone to a new level as the centre we so sorely need. A stong runner, and strong tackler. His flick pass to set up Lomax's try in the 33' would've made Matt Gidley proud. Sam Tuivaiti was also very good and fit after his injury.  Dylan Walker was Walkerish.

Negatives — Joash Papalii is not going to be our future 5/8, though he is a fine Reserve Grade backup at fullback. Yesterday's experiment with his move to 5/8 and Brown to hooker was a disaster. But it's a move, I can understand was worth trying. It just did not work.

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Promising debutant Taylln Da Silva and new-nine Dylan Brown discussing raking strategies pre-game. Brown got head-taped to look the part, but only Da Silva was prepared to run the ball, yesterday (Getty Images)

Dylan Brown was only passing and tackling from dummy half, which showed he didn't want to or deserve to be there and that rightly pissed Ryles off to explain his benching after 29 minutes and non reappearance till six minutes from the end. Ryles did this to tell everybody he was not injured and just didn't contribute, and probably more to the point — didn't really want to put in enough, despite Ryles' claim of Brown's 'selflessness'. Actions speak louder than words. We only need to use Brown to suit our requirements now, not his. Unfortunately, this may mean him starting as a 5/8 until we can find, locate or select someone that could have a future there. It could be the case that a talent youngster from our NSW Cup team (say a Matthew Hunter or Te Hurinui Twidle) that beat a talented Panthers team yesterday, might get a go while Brown shakes hands with the Reserve Grade Coach.

Finally in summary, let's stop worrying about being pretty and focus on the fundamentals starting with better ball control, reducing errors (20 v 9 yesterday) despite the Panthers having the lion's share of possesion (54%). There is a balance in this process. There's nothing like adding smart to a pretty face.

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        • LB I have told you repeatedly that we want your opinions not relays of what other clubs do or think. Who fcuking knows why Dockar-Clay is preferred, its not that Trent Robinson is a fcuking genious.

          What do you think, we can all read the papers.....that's a compliment by the way!

    • Agree, it's horses for courses, against the top sides we need to complete to have any chance. 

      Da Silva very sharp and slick.

      Need a 5/8 I'd even be happy with Douiehi.

      • Who knows maybe dce could be coming he's yet to sign with the chooks.

        • What do you know Kendoza? Spit it out brother.

          • Not spitting on my blogs ....sit or shit!

          • Not much mate. I just find it funny how he hasn't made a decision as yet. What's the hold up? It wouldn't surprise me one bit if he joined parra. 

      • Yeh! Douliehi is up there, happy to have him and Smith!

  • A few things need to be considered here. Given the personnel we have, I don't think we have any choice but to play this style. We don't have forwards that can bend the line back and make big metres. Secondly it's going to take time and repetition to play this style appropriately. Using your Bazball analogy, even the English team still block the ball and let balls go. At the moment Parra are learning when to play the big shot and when to let the ball go. It's going to take a little bit of time and probably some new recruits to play this style appropriately but we need to build the repetition to get the execution right

    • I actually think we do we can play shorter with Walker Paulo and Hopgood have very good short passing games.What we really need is guys think more vertically than horizontally.At the moment right now we don't have the personnel to play with width as when we are creating the space we aren't consistently finishing wider so we have to shorten up and attack the middle third more imo.

      The widest we want to go is to our edges where you get Kautoga and Williams coming outside in sowing the seed of coming through that corridor.

      We have had all year to get our execution correct and we just aren't doing it.JR has to have a plan B here as his plan A is to hit and miss.

      •  I 100% agree with you on that. We are doing some real damage with a quick 1-2 interchange of passing then bringing it all undone with pass 4-5. We need to be a little more content with the momentum built from pass 1 and 2 and let TDS and the halves get on the back of that. Again coming back to the cricket analogy we are hitting back to back 6s and getting out going for a third even though we have already got 12 runs off the over.

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