We were not out enthused - we have a problem

Dragons found a way to counter our strategy and other teams will use it. I hope we have a counter plan.

We were not out enthused. Our main strength has been our forwards making lots of metres and lots of quality offloads. 

Dragons shut that down with gang tackles and lying on our players stopping play the ball until they had reset their defensive line. They continued to do this despite warnings from the ref and despite a sin bin.

The main problem with the refereeing was not all the 50:50s that went against us (despite it being our home match) but that the ref did nothing to stop the Dragons blatant and excessive slowing of the ruck until well into the second half and then gave up after a sin bin. Commentators noted that the Dragons kept slowing the ruck after the sin bin and expected there to be another but there wasn't and was no more 6 agains or penalties.

Expect other teams to try the same tactics and see if they get away with it from the refs. 

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  • Yep Saints laid the blueprint on how to shut down our forwards, and hence our attack. No doubt other clubs will try this. I saw similar comments from Canberra, who will do the same this weekend. We better be ready to counter this or it will be a very long season.

  • The Raiders did the same to Cronulla a few weeks back. 

  • Good blog. I hope the refs now look out for this whenever the saints play any of the big 6 teams. It's clear what Hook Griffins game plan will be against the better sides and it's up to the refs to adjudicate appropriately 

  • I think the Dragons have done really well in recruiting Matt Elliott, he is such a good tactician. I would imagine he is a big part of why the dragons were able to shut us down so well. 

    • Yep. He was employed by the NRL for a while, to create videos on the attacking prowess of teams. 

    • Yes MB, the quality of him as a tactician was all there to see..... It pains me to think that Griffin, out of the game coachwise for 3 years, a studious man..... picked him up so easily.

      Unfortunately this lack of vision is really letting BA down as a coach to become something special. 

      One thing in management, any good management is to surround your self with people that compliment your weaknesses. There is no shame in this, just good management. Someone with in the eels heirachy should be aware of this and acting on it proactively with BA. 

      A smart man will be going to Elliott privately and say, I don't know what your getting but come over and we will double it! Obviously such an exercise could only be done with BA understanding/agreeing, if he doesn't its another nail in the coffin.

      If BA could get this right, I don't think he would get anywhere near the criticism he cops.

      • You're right about Elliott pops. I always admired his tactical nouse and communication skills. He may not have the mental strength to be a head coach but I think he makes a perfect assistant. BA should have snapped him up a long time ago. 

        I fear this will prove to be BA's downfall - his inability to surround himself with people smarter than him, who can make his job a lot easier. 

    • 100%
      Why didn't BA approach Elliot last year and the year before when it was painfully obvious to anyone without painted on eyeballs, that BA needed a refresh of his assistants and new fresh set of eyes.

      For all the, why change a coach blah blah blah, the dragons are showing that sometimes all that is needed is a new set of eyes and and new voice to shake the playing squad up. 8 years of that same mundane voice can turn off a playing group. I think we need some kind of new voice. Whether that's a new head coach or an assistant like Elliott, it needs to happen.

      • When fong first mentioned that ba didn't want assistants that may threaten his position I thought it was a foolish thought, now I'm beginning to agree with him as new ideas would only benefit the club, and there has been ample time to recruit a couple of highly regarded assistants 

  • It was an obvious tactic, but it's also a tactic the new rules are specifically aimed at shutting down. The fact that it was allowed to run for an entire game was down to poor officiating. We can combat this in two ways:

    1) Have some nimble guys take the 3rd, 4th and 5th hitup and make a BIG song and dance about not being able to get up to play the ball. Get up and fall over, that's the easiest way. Force the refs to 6 Again. Too many times our players gave up and showed a lack of urgency in getting to their feet so we missed getting several other players binned.

    2) BA needs to sacrifice $10k and blow up at half time and press conference on the illegal tactic and how it's not being officiated.

    Our team only works with offloads to create broken play. We need to do whatever it takes to make sure that tactic keeps working.

    Having said that, if we had capitalised on the 10 mins that Sims was in the bin by playing calm football we probably would have won. The tactic didn't beat us, it certainly helped, but we beat ourselves with our frantic play.

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