I understand there have been so many of these posts, i want this one more so to vent for myself. So upon many hours now of pondering last nights disgrace, I wanted to look at it from a neutral point of view. Now is our season over after conceading 50? Statisically yes, but in reality it is more likely. Souths did make a GF conceading 50 twice, meaning stats can be false narratives. But i came out of this came with more concerns than this time last year after 58-16.
Firstly, our middles are the biggest concern. Mainly de Belin, he got through mountains of defence work (45 tackles, 2 missed). But it was the speed of him around the ruck, added with Paulo who was kept out there too long in his first stint, then Hopgood who was behind the 8 ball from when he got sin binned. The collapse of the ruck from our middles allowed Grant to roll right through. If anything his try mid way through the 1st half was the start of the rot. We lacked energy and burst in our middles. We are considering Barnett at 32 and keeping Paulo moving forward, we need to get younger in our middles. With the likes of Teancum Brown and Tuivaiti that should be the direction we are heading as for starting Props as soon as 2027. Your likes of Doorey are fine depth pieces but are not going to change the momentum that we need from impact. Moretti suits that role more. We are desperate for an enforcer and getting nowhere. It is a mixture of timing and attractiveness. Two new clubs coming in back to back, there is more money being thrown around and are we an attractive team for players to want to go to?
Secondly is the Hooker position. We had concerns of depth, but our concern now is what happened to Ryley Smith so far? From the start his timing was off, he was not making his first contact stick in defence like normal, he started to try and scoop and run to pass, that is not him that is Da Silva type of play. Mentioning Da Silva, he was not awful but he was not good either. His first contact is weak, though he only missed 1 tackle he also played limited minutes. The play where he threw it to Williams on last near Melbourne's line was Moses switching to the left late and i give him some grace there but he has shown from his lone pre-season he has not progressed steadily. Even walking into a Storm player with his hip shows the thought process and that was not the time as it fired Melbourne up. I felt a big problem for our forwards and halves was from Smith and Da Silva's performance. Even from the first set Smith had a very odd and wayward pass.
Thirdly, in hindsight was putting Papali'i out there straight away the right call? On the eve of HT, Iongi more likely being Cat 2, can never be 100% sure but more likely, would it of been better to wait and see if the case? I know he would have wasted a sub had he waited and had to put Joash out there but it caused Tuivaiti to sit and do nothing. In hindsight Ryles would have preferred it all to happen prior to bringing Smith off, so Joash can be used and TDS sits out.
Lastly, where was the leadership? Great leadership in that situation slows the game and calms the team. There was frustration and can tell from the attack going side to side, old BA habits coming. Constantly tried to go around them. That is on Moses, Paulo too, but mainly Moses. Frustration led to errors of desperation, frantic play that affected our timing.
What changes for next week? Nothing other than Hopgood. Mainly due to what is available. Now i reckon Ryles could go with Williams at Prop and Tuilagi to 11 as the replacement. Samrani at 19. Or does he start either Tuivaiti or Doorey and bring Tuilagi to the bench or blood Teancum Brown or bring in Moretti? Personally i would bring in Moretti for Doorey but Ryles will stick mostly with same 19. I mean not ideal to bring in Brown against he reining premiers at Suncorp but right now who gives a shit.
I was concerned about Brisbane before last night as i felt we would have put all our effort into Melbourne, causing us to travel to Brisbane flat. Does this lose fire us up? Well that last night reminded me so much of 2018 Round 1 at Penrith. Where we came in with hype, we got an early lead and believed our own hype. Penrith ended the half strong with a try on HT and they went from there to score many unanswered points. The following week were blown out 54-0 to Manly. I fear that could be the same if we are not careful.
Ryles now enters a tough part of his coaching. Honeymoon period is over, expectation has risen, great pre-season with hype and came out in Round 1 and not only disappointed but embarrassed themselves against a very understrengthed Melbourne squad with a nearly full strength Parra. Now if same result happens v Brisbane, how does he react to that? As last year it happened but it was trust the process it will take time. Late last year we saw the rewards of patience, but now the process was disected and failed. If it fails again, the squad could implode.
Would a win v Brisbane heal wounds? It would band aid some but that loss will hover over us all year. Now have teams had 50 put on them made the 8? Of course, have they made the 4? Souths lost 4 games all year, half by 50+ and made the 4. Not saying we do that but simply saying stats can be broken. Will it be us? Very unlikely but if we do well next week and Ryles gets a response then ok we could be ok and that was an odd hiccup and/or NRL conspiracy. If we have the same performance, Ryles will for the first time have questions asked of him.
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