Did anyone else notice in the post-game press conference that whenever the journos brought up Pezet, both Ryles and Moses seemed pretty reluctant to lean into the praise?
Their body language was interesting. The vibe was basically, “he’s still a work in progress.” Almost like they weren’t totally thrilled with a few things he did.
Either that, or they were deliberately downplaying it so his head doesn’t get too big and to keep him grounded. Which, to be fair, I don’t mind.
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Not wanting to sound negative about Pezet. He got a couple of lucky bounces off his kicks and took on a hopeless Mam with some good results; but his defense is woeful and needs a lot of work. At this stage, he's more of a liability in defense then what he's contributing in attack. It would't surprise me if Ryles plays him in reserve grade for a few weeks so he can work on that aspect of his game.
He reminds me of Moses when he came from the tigers - he couldn't tackle to save himself.
Ryles didn't realise how many try assists Jonah had. I found that interesting and my take was that Ryles isn't overly concerned about his attack. Ryles went on and said something like, He's a work in progress, had to ask Mitch if it was 4 try assists, says But yeah there are some other parts of his game we have to work on. His also got parts of his game we really want to work hard on .
I did see that Ryles smiled when he learnt Pezet had so many try assists and said that's good for him. When asked about Jonah's defence and off the ball participation, Ryles shut it down, didn't want to praise Pezet, and said "we'll keep working on it". I took it that they are not happy with his off the ball work rate and his defensive decisions.
I like that, that they are not blowing smoke up his $%6, but telling him the bar height he needs to meet in all aspects of his game.
He scored a good try and set one up but he was also terrible in defence and dropped one or two cold. The other try assist were really just a bit of luck. Not sold on him just yet and the fact we only have him for 12 months means we don't have the luxury of time for him to warm into the role. If he doesn't improve they should be looking at bringing in whoever they plan to play in the halves next year.
Sounded ok to me. Just basically saying what we already know that he's a work in progress. Only 20 NRL games. Still not sure why they didn't stick with Papali seeing he's here more permanently than Pezet..
The journos line of questioning was designed to get Ryles to gush about a future Bronco. Ryles saw it coming and diverted to "work in progress".
Pezet is miles away. His defense is very suspect. His 'try assists' were clumsy efforts from the Broncos or paper thin defense. I'm not writing the kid off. He's one of us but he most definitely is a work in progress.