With temperatures significantly down, Hayne to fullback, Jennings to right centre, French to the wing it all looked like a good recipe for a highly competitive game.
1st Half:
Like the previous two games our possession was poor in the first half with Parra only having 38% of the ball with 8 from 11 sets, where as the Sharks had nearly double the ball with 15 sets from 18. The Sharks had 82 runs vs Parra's 55 and 673 metres to our 428 metres in attack. At the 30 minute mark we were down to 15 men with injuries to Evans and Hayne. At half time it was one try a piece and the score was 4 to 12 Sharks way, due to the penalties we gave away. The penalty count was 5 to 0 at half time in favour of he Sharks.
Ground hog day - Possession is King!
2nd Half:
The second half saw us get 9 penalties and significantly more ball, in fact double the ball from the first half with us completing 15 sets from 20, with the game total being 23 from 31 sets. Where as the sharks completed 14 sets from 20, with a game total of 29 from 38. The Sharks ended up having 89 more runs then us for the game.
Positives:
- The Sharks only scored 1 try.
- A massive change in attitude for us and for the most part our line speed in defence was very good.
- Brown had a far better impact then previous games running 187 metres.
- Jennings defence on the right was a massive difference and Moses would have enjoyed playing inside Jennings as opposed to Hayne.
- Ma'u had his best game in attack for some time running 115 metres.
- Moeroa, Mannah, Brown and Edwards all aimed up in defence.
- Edwards brought some energy and enthusiasm off the bench.
- Some very good repeat sets with short/long kicking by Norman.
- We had pretty good scrambling defence.
Negatives:
- We have only scored 2 tries across 3 games!
- Life without Semi looks very, very bleak as we have no points in us.
- Evans and Hayne added to the injured list.
- Our 'post contact metres' is very, very, very poor. We urgently need size and punch in the middle. With the exception of Brown our forwards don't bend the line and regularly are dominated at the collision.
- Our lack of possession, giving away penalties and poor ball handling is cruelling us.
- Moses attack is non-existent. Moses will not run to the line, will not play square and constantly runs sideways cutting off his centres and wingers. I can only assume Moses is carrying an injury and he does no want to get tackled with the ball. Moses reminds me of Benji Marshall of old running sideways destroying any chance of a backline movement and tonight he prevented any hope of Jennings and French doing anything in attack. Moses has gone from a fringe State of Origin player to fringe NRL player in 3 games. Very disappointing. This can be fixed very quickly.
- Brown has some poor drop ball and gave away some dumb penalties.
- Norman constantly kicking on the 5th tackle from the short side reducing his angle and ability to get long metres.
Changes Needed:
- Terepo to replace Scott. This will give us more punch/metres in the middle which is vitally needed. We needed Terepo tonight to help out Brown.
- Vave to replace the injured Evans. I would start Vave due to his extra size and different body shape.
- T-Rex onto the bench. Even if he is underdone we need power on the bench and different body shapes.
- Smith to remain at fullback, unless Gutherson is a starter.
- Pritchard to replace King. King needs to be rested due to getting another head knock and Pritchard's line speed in defence may lift the forwards.
My Round 4 team is:
1. Smith
2. Hoffman
3. Auva'a
4. Jennings
5. French
6. Norman
7. Moses
8. Mannah
9. Pritchard
10. Vave
11. Ma'u
12. Moeroa
13. Brown
14. Edwards
15. Williams
16. Terepo
17. Alvaro
Replies
Like that team
not sure if Williams is ready yet?
Would consider Nuikore instead for now
Hopefully Williams plays for Wenty tomorrow and gets 50 plus minutes and has some good runs. Matagi would probably come back into the team in front of Nuikore.
Surely its now time for Nuikore ????
while we lost i thought a few good things came out of that game as you said. jennings move to right centre was successful, i actually thought Auva did a good job at centre. Brown definitely improve and gave it his all tonight. the problem is our forwards as many have stated. i just believe we need two good front rowers. we can afford to keep alvaro if there are other forwards pushing forward around him but at the moment that is non existent.
Also i would like to comment on the claims of something being wrong internally. Please tell me if im being stupid but perhaps are players like norman and moses frustrated at BAs "defence is everything" coaching style. We have a lot of talent in the outside backs yet i am starting to think BA has given moses and norman a stale gameplan and they are not responding cause they just do not agree with it. Look at last year, moses was at his best when he could just play what was in front of him. BAs shit house out the back plays are so predictable and give the halves no opportunity to weave their magic. this as well as no go froward is really hurting our attack.
There is no internal issues. The reason for our decline is lack of ball. Possession wins games, its simply but true. If you have minimal ball it drains the tank very quickly and when you do have the ball you have no energy to drive through the defender.
Against Penrith in the first half we had over 80% ball, hence the reason why we were up on the score board. Since that first half of our first game our possession has been poor.
Possession of ball = win
Lack of possession of ball = loss
Its a simple game, not complicated.
I wouldn't be giving the defence too much of a wrap. The Sharks had Moylan out and their attack has been awful in all 3 games, they've scored 5 tries for the season to our 3. A better team would have had 20-30 points on us tonight like Manly & Penrith did in the first 2 games.
Maybe, what was noticeable for us was Jennings switching sides and guys like Mannah, Brown and Moeroa racing out of the line to put a big hit on (that energy was not there last week).
Paulo not firing at Raiders, rumoured wants out.
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