Ok, so I missed the game. It's the first time in a very long time I've missed a game, but I had family event and no tv. Anyway the point of this is my surprise to read Mahoney started from the bench and my greater surprise that there isn't a million posts about this oddity. I'm trying to work out why? Like, was it just a tactic or something? Seems odd to start with your hooker on the bench. A position that often leads your line speed in defence and literally touches the ball at the start of every attacking play. Wtf!!
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SuperCoach that’s what it was a great tactic by one of the finest coaches, simply a master stroke!
Firstly, lucky you for missing the game. Wish I had.
Yes it was a tactic, BA mentioned it in the presser, it was to try and front load the physicality of our effort to match the Storm forwards in the first 20 mins to stop them getting a roll on. It absolutely didn't work.
The Storm had one simple tactic, they identified that all of our go forward comes from 3 players - Gutho, Sivo and Fergo - nullify them and we're dead in the water. And they were spot on. They kicked deep or kicked dead and had our back 3 starting from our own corners every single set. Combine that with their super fast line speed and we were pinned to our line until frustration and exhaustion took over. And then the sin binning turned it into a massacre.
I wish I could erase that 90 mins from my memory. Every single season we have multiple blowout scores that destroy our for and against and make it so hard for us to keep in touch with the good end of the ladder. It was disgusting to watch. Guthos price definitely just went down, down, down.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Had to laugh when Smith said after game “they came here confident” confident!
Starting with Mahoney on bench didn’t exactly reek of confidence to me think it sent a poor ‘lack of confidence in one of our best’ message to us from the start.
That's such a strange decision. From memory Arthur did something similar a couple years ago, I think he started Kenny Edwards at hooker. It didn't work for Arthur then either. What a very very very strange decision. I'm so weirded out. I'm tempted to put on the first 15 mins or so just to get my head around it. Mind blown.
It was a terrible call, it showed the coach has no faith at all in a fine young player.
lets face it if Kaysa didn’t get injured he would be starting hooker and Mahoney would be barely getting a crack.
Guth’s service was poor which impacted on our go forward as well. Why change something that was t broken?? And against he most ruthless team in the comp???
I just wish I didn't miss this game because it'll never sink in properly. I keep thinking we are playing today at 4, and then I'm like, oh that's right we played last night and got beat by 60 odd and our young gun got benched for no apparent reason.
I didn't see the game so I can't have an opinion on whether it had a positive or negative affect. I just thought it was very strange decision by Arthur and I just can't get my head around it. I dont think I ever will.
I thought this was interesting too but after speaking to some players from the knights I understand. The knights game plan which worked pretty well was to target Mahoney as they watched heap of video of mahoney failing back up effort on effort and was the weak link in our defence. He can aslo have poor initial contact. It isn't something that I have noticed but different players told me the exact same thing.
With Cameron Smith the world best hooker obviously BA was aware of what other sides have seen and kept him off early. By time he came on they had already had lot of success against our edges and out wide so after rewatching the game it didn't appear they targeted him at all. I think this shows why the storm are so successful, no doubt they would have had plan to attack Mahoney but we're able to adjust their game plan on the go to find other weaknesses.
Interesting and if players are openingly discussing it that just about says it all. So whats the solution? Do we try McIllwick? We cant just not have a hooker, right?
Mahoney is young and will be able to work on it. Maybe he puts to much into leading the line speed. Although important it is obviously affecting his ability to make effort on effort. When the team is on the front foot and have momentum deficiencies like that are often missed but with amount of video work teams do now it is obvious it is a problem. Will be interesting see how he goes in next few weeks and if he has worked on it.
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