After last night's game im sure he's happy with what he seen. The attack is fine put 34 on a team that has only conceded 30 points once this year.
Defensively the structures need a lot of work. But with Moses and Lomax alone would we concede even 1 of those tries on the left in the last 10mins.
Probably get called a unicorn but honestly this team could easily bounce straight back into the top 8 next year.
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100% agree Coryn. The the spacing of the inside edge forwards especially on our left side is creating the gap. I noticed that either Dylan or Mitch are trying to be the cover defence once the gap was exploited which most of the t8mes does not work. Was it from previous defence strategy?
Isn't it incredible that it is clear to fans yet ba could never fix it, well not consistently anyway. There has been good signs since Baz has taken over so hopefully ryles can improve it even further. I also think he can work on the trust factor, this has been a major issue with team mates over reading or not trusting their team mate which creates overlaps and holes in our d.
Yeah seem to tight around the middle causing a delay when there is shift from opposition. Ryles and Moa hopefully fix that, that is their main job.
100% Coryn. There has been a definate improvement in the line speed and we are putting more pressure on teams even the better ones. Decision making is still an issue but we are very vulnerable when GUTHO is defnding in teh line or is trapped at Marker. He is the barometre for the defence and communication falls apart. Any decent spine player identifies the weakness when your fullback is caught at marker or in the defensive line for more than a few tackles.
Overall I think we are improvng and 100% should have won last night. If I was Cleary I would be concerned how disconnected TAGO and CLEARY became at times and losing Fisher Harris is a huge blow becuase HEO becomes the workhorse. I still think they win the comp again.
There's a side here still. Despite the doom and gloom.
As Coryn said it has to start with defence. Ciraldo did that at the Bulldogs and it's paid dividends. The bulldogs still suck in attack but their defence keeps them in games and they can build from that. I'm hoping Ryles is all about effort and defence in the off season.
As boring as it sounds to most, defence is and always will be the catalyst to success. In all aspects of sport, majority of the time the better defensive team is the team that succeeds. It is no coincidence that history says to win the comp you need to be top 2 in defence. Of course, there are outliers but outliers are rare meaning we need to be norm as oppose to the exception for a change. We were the exception in 2022 GF with one of the worst defences from a GF team in years and it showed with how dominated we were.
You ask fans today they all say they want to see entertaining footy and points. If Parra win 8-6 every game i could not care less, defence is where our rebuild, culture and character starts. We lack identity, that is where we gain it. Moa and Ryles have a job for the defence but let's see if they can do it.
Our wingers jam up every play that goes wide. They never slide which means attacking teams will always have space if they stand deeper and get the pass away to a quick winger.
Other sides rush up like us but not every play so they have element of surprise when they rush up and stop the play. They slide when they need to pushing the attack to the sideline and they run out of room.
It is an easy fix and just needs a little practice. It also starts in the middle and edges with players pushing out so the winger doesn't look up see a huge overlap making him panic.
Agree. Fix our defence to just improve it by 30% so instead of leaking 30 points per game we average 20 and that would have seen at least another 5 wins this season. Add Moses and Lomax back into the side and we have plenty of points in us. It's not all doom and gloom for the Eels
The Eels were robbed of that game last night which is clearly evident. Yes, they slackened off in the end but the Panthers were clearly given extra assistance with some blatant erroneous refereeing decisions
The thing is this is parra through and through every year. They decide to play when the pressure is off and they know they could be out the door. The culture needs to change. Gutho decided to start playing a bit of footy now but it's to late, also can't handle the pressure. Hopefully next year is a better year but to blow that lead last night shows panthers weren't even playing the whole game
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