I've long gone against the grain on Matt Keating. Mostly because I've felt he had a good skill level, but his game suffered from a lack of confidence and subsequently he wasn't bringing what he was capable of, to the table each week.
But honestly, watch the first 20 minutes of Matt Keating's last few games and then come back here and tell me he's no good. I think his last performance was so compelling I'm even venturing out from the safety of the Extreme group to raise this topic again.
For the first 20 minutes, Keating out-Farah'd Farah. He made a number of dynamic runs out of dummy half and he very effectively engaged the markers and had our forwards steam-rolling ahead. We made massive metres in that first period of the game and Keating's dummy half work was a significant reason for it. Over the past month, he's become much sharper off the ground and he really has gotten down the Cameron Smith move of coming out and across just enough to engage the defence and create space and hesitation in the defence for his runners. I believe in this time, he's moved beyond the solid, defensive hooker he's been in the past.
One of the things I hear coming out of the Eels camp is that this coaching staff does a lot more one-on-one skills work than it has in recent years, and I think that Keating is really showing the fruits of that.
I think Matt has still had a tendency to fall back to his basic game and he needs to keep chipping at the defence the entire time he's on the field. Maybe that's due to fatigue playing the full 80 minutes particularly with the defensive workload he has - he's come up with a few uncharacteristic sloppy defensive plays in the last couple of games which might suggest that. But I think its more to do with him just learning to keep his head fully in the game the entire time. Having an interchange 14 would probably help in both cases.
However, I think MK has shown enough in the past month to suggest that he is capable of now going on with it, and he can be a very effective nine without taking a huge chunk of salary cap like a Smith, Farrah or Ennis. Playing the full 80 minutes might not be best for him, but he's capable of doing so - which is something not all NRL hookers are capable of.
And maybe some people on here, who just routinely take a dig at him, actually start to judge him on his most recent performances and the steady improvement he has made this year, which has culminated in some quite seriously impressive end-of-season efforts.
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It has been by far his best season in first grade, he's been pretty damn sharp especially over the last 10 weeks or so.
Iv'e been a critic of his in the past because of his lack of attacking involvement and his slow rate of development, he is finally showing definate signs of improvement. He has always been a solid worker but his lack of a running game has really killed our go forward in the past.
I would now put him on the same level as a player such as Matt Ballin, who has been a solid first grader for manly for 5 seasons or so without ever taking his game to the elite level. Ballin works beautifully in Manlys attack as he isn't the main point of attack yet still toils stoutly while still giving the opposition defence something to think about.
I agree with you 1Eyed though due to his limitations a good attacking 14 to offset his abilities is a must heading into the future, with McGuire obviously the obvious candidate for next season we will need to acquire/develop one for 2013.
I noticed for the first time on Sunday Matt scooping the ball up with one arm ala Farah and dart out of dummy half. I thought wow that's good, he's not looking around for a runner meanwhile the balls already been played.
He's only going to get better, and he has been one of our most consistent for the last 6-8 weeks.
He is a work in progress, but he is one that is worth investing in, as he has shown.
MK is a real young gun.
He will be the key to a good 2012
Brad Drew on his day gave us more flare!!!
.....well in 20mins anyway
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