If there's been one thing that has distinguished Parramatta's last couple of seasons, it's been plain awful defence out wide.
Once again on the weekend, we saw Brayden Williame brushed off all-too-easily and the same thing has happened to all of our various young wingers and centres. Vai Toutai, Ken Sio and Api Pewhairangi have all gone through exactly the same issues.
Everyone expects young players to have some difficulty adjusting but you don't see it to the same level at other clubs. Brisbane bring in a constant stream of young wingers, Melbourne too. Penrith has this year, and so on. Being able to have younger players on the wing is a really effective way of both managing your salary cap and also blooding talented outside backs so they don't have to come straight into other, arguably more demanding positions like centre and fullback.
So why is this?
Is it the coaching staff? Same issue with two different coaching teams, and we have oodles of coaching experience on staff now.
Certainly, the fact that we've had to bring in some many young guys has been a major part of the problem. Defence is, before anything else, about communication and if you have multiple guys out there, all struggling to know what to do, it amplifies the problem.
However, I'm thinking a bigger part of the problem is that during training, these guys aren't being tested at the same level as they're facing on the weekend. We essentially have all of these juniors being tested against each other, and so when they step up to NRL they're suddenly facing bigger, faster opponents that they struggle to cope with. And it takes them a long time, to come to terms with it, because unlike at daily training they're only copping this level of pressure once a week.
So the effect is a negative multiplier. When the players in your squad are at a lower-level and that's what you test yourself against, is it any wonder that they our young guys are struggling so badly with the step-up.
Hopefully the improvement in our roster next year, will not just result in us putting better players on the paddock, but it will help the younger kids we're coming through get lifted up to a more equitable level before their put to the slaughter in front of 10,000 fans.
Replies
Good Blog, If you havnt got one on one defence in the middle of the park you defianately will not find one on one defence out wide,trusting your inside defender to take thier man is crucial. I still think it does not make sense using the JH as the last line of defence/bean bag.
The winger is a very under valued position in the team, i hope we fix before next year.
IMO the only quick fix is to try & recruit a couple of NRL competent wingers, not necessarily top guns but at least competent otherwise the leaking of points out wide will just continue & we undermine other efforts in the 2014 rebuilding phase.
I'm glad you raised the defence issue. It is so much more than just marking up. and our issue isn't about missed tackles here and there. Every team has their share of these, some with consequence some without. Our real issue is our failure to read the plays. We need to sit our team down and watch what the good sides do, dissect every play and identify the good and bad decisions that have been made.
Take the Manly v Roosters game earlier this year. Manly had home advantage, more possession, better completion rate, more offloads but could only crack the Roosters once. We need to grab these games and make a text book out of them and sit our team in front of them for hours on end with our coaching brains trust and highlight the issues, subtleties and responses required. Then go out onto the training paddock and practice over and over again. Its not just the wingers.
Monday night was like a novice defending in a chess game against a master.
I agree 1eyed, our out wide defence has been pathetic all season & it isn't improving.
The point u make is valid about other clubs fielding young players who seem to be capable of playing at NRL level yet when we put young guns out wide, they regularly appear incapable of defending their position. It really suggests that Parra have problems in their development protocols.
As an outsider one would expect any young player selected to play FG would at least be deemed capable of playing at NRL level before even being seriously considered so as well as having possible flaws in the training & mentoring aspects of the development program for the kids involved, our regular failures would also suggest that we have potential problems in assessing & evaluating the individual developmental status of the players being trained.
It also suggests that our development programs must be amateurish yet from what I have read, the one positive legacy from SK was the Training Academy. It does challenge if the spin is greater than the reality.
The defence of Williame (cant help but think of the black eyed peas when his name gets called out) was in particular disgraceful they were simple 1 on 1 misses where manly hadn't even created extra space for Jorge Taufua or whatever his name is they simply passed him the ball and said run.
Have to say Dean Pay (defensive coach), doing poor job... I seriously cant see any improvement under him.
We leak more points now.
I reckon because we don't have a strong enough forward pack. If Pay had a decent Engine Room to work with, then our defense would be good, not great but good. You have to wait but I think good days are ahead. I see a light at the end of the tunnel...oh It's only a Kenworth
I must congratulate u 1 eyed, at last DEFENCE has been raised as a top issue.
Michael, I think you need to change your spectacles or get some binoculars. You seem to only be able to see into the field 10 metres past the sideline. If you could look at what was happening in the middle of the field you would see our defensive problems occur in most instances, not all, well before the wingers come into play.
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