On-field positions

[John Miller]

Two points I want to make:

1. These past few weeks have proved once again that you can't win a game when your defensive positions aren't guarded. For us bunnies, it's the wings. We're fortunate to have a bunch of talented wingers in our ranks, but since Merritt moved on and Johnston moved to fullback, the current wingers spend their 80-minute game-time in the centres, causing overlaps on the outside in every game.
2. Robbie Farah, to me, is proving to be a failed buy. For a senior player like he is, he makes a lot of fundamental mistakes and shys away from the occasional tackle. Furthermore, he has a problem with his ball-handling, especially when comes to long passes and on-side passing ... week after week after week. Tom and George on the other hand are excellent runners-of-the-ball and tacklers, but their problem is that they occasionally fail to hold onto the ball when tackled, frequently losing it to the opposition.

Footnote:
Good teams usually step up to the mark and cover the absence of their superstars, but sadly Souths seem to be short of depth in some areas and continue to use the excuse of absenteeism as a reason for their poor performances. Despite a gluttony of wingers, we don't have a temporary stand-in fullback for Greg Inglis. Sure enough Johnston likes playing fullback, but he too fails to stay in position ... he's always playing up in the centres, even in defence. He's a champion winger though, so that's where I'd keep him.
If it were me calling the shots, I'd use the remainder of this season to drop some of the higher-profile poor-performers until they can prove their worth, and in their place I'd blood a bunch of young guns.
That's my 2c.

 

[Souths Till I Die]

Two points I want to make:

1. These past few weeks have proved once again that you can't win a game when your defensive positions aren't guarded. For us bunnies, it's the wings. We're fortunate to have a bunch of talented wingers in our ranks, but since Merritt moved on and Johnston moved to fullback, the current wingers spend their 80-minute game-time in the centres, causing overlaps on the outside in every game.
2. Robbie Farah, to me, is proving to be a failed buy. For a senior player like he is, he makes a lot of fundamental mistakes and shys away from the occasional tackle. Furthermore, he has a problem with his ball-handling, especially when comes to long passes and on-side passing ... week after week after week. Tom and George on the other hand are excellent runners-of-the-ball and tacklers, but their problem is that they occasionally fail to hold onto the ball when tackled, frequently losing it to the opposition.

Footnote:
Good teams usually step up to the mark and cover the absence of their superstars, but sadly Souths seem to be short of depth in some areas and continue to use the excuse of absenteeism as a reason for their poor performances. Despite a gluttony of wingers, we don't have a temporary stand-in fullback for Greg Inglis. Sure enough Johnston likes playing fullback, but he too fails to stay in position ... he's always playing up in the centres, even in defence. He's a champion winger though, so that's where I'd keep him.
If it were me calling the shots, I'd use the remainder of this season to drop some of the higher-profile poor-performers until they can prove their worth, and in their place I'd blood a bunch of young guns.
That's my 2c.

Mr John Miller I like your thinking. But it looks like our attacking structure is one dimensional how is dropping our stars gonna fix that? We all know reserve grade players have terrible defence especially in the backline.

 

[souths_reborn]

Two points I want to make:

1. These past few weeks have proved once again that you can't win a game when your defensive positions aren't guarded. For us bunnies, it's the wings. We're fortunate to have a bunch of talented wingers in our ranks, but since Merritt moved on and Johnston moved to fullback, the current wingers spend their 80-minute game-time in the centres, causing overlaps on the outside in every game.
2. Robbie Farah, to me, is proving to be a failed buy. For a senior player like he is, he makes a lot of fundamental mistakes and shys away from the occasional tackle. Furthermore, he has a problem with his ball-handling, especially when comes to long passes and on-side passing ... week after week after week. Tom and George on the other hand are excellent runners-of-the-ball and tacklers, but their problem is that they occasionally fail to hold onto the ball when tackled, frequently losing it to the opposition.

Footnote:
Good teams usually step up to the mark and cover the absence of their superstars, but sadly Souths seem to be short of depth in some areas and continue to use the excuse of absenteeism as a reason for their poor performances. Despite a gluttony of wingers, we don't have a temporary stand-in fullback for Greg Inglis. Sure enough Johnston likes playing fullback, but he too fails to stay in position ... he's always playing up in the centres, even in defence. He's a champion winger though, so that's where I'd keep him.
If it were me calling the shots, I'd use the remainder of this season to drop some of the higher-profile poor-performers until they can prove their worth, and in their place I'd blood a bunch of young guns.
That's my 2c.

1. I agree with you about our three quarters being weak defensively; its been that way for some time now. Even when we won the competition our three quarters were solid but weren't spectacular. I get the feeling that Madge adheres to the view that wingers and centres don't win you games of footy. I agree with him but we still need to be solid there defensively. This season our right hand side has been a problem. In particular, I think Talakai seems to be a bit lost out there and doesn't really know whether to come in or slide. We also play an up and in style of defence meaning that communication is vital. Basically, we are getting caught in situations where the wingers and centres are flying in and not making tackles. As soon as that happens you are in trouble; if you are going to rush in you need to make a tackle to prevent the overlap.
2. Alex Johnston positional play for the most part has been quite good. In general, we haven't missed Greg Inglis too much because Johnston has been good for the most part. The reason why defends up in the centres is because coaches want their fullbacks to defend their in the modern game to combat fullbacks who play as a five-eight. Because many fullbacks play up in the line a lot more, defensively lines can potentially be left short of numbers. Therefore what coaches do is to have their fullbacks play up in the line to ensure that goal line defences are stronger.
3. I completely disagree that Farah has been a failed buy. Did you not see him last week against the Broncos? He completely changed the game and brought us back into it! He has had only 1-2 ordinary games and has been good for the rest. I think he is in an unfortunate situation where he has Damian Cook who is younger and more energetic than he is. That is not Robbie's fault; age is something that no one can prevent. Nevertheless Robbie is still masterful at controlling the game, adding direction and ultimately building pressure. The problem that you are alluding to lies with Adam Reynolds. The hookers are doing their job but its Adam Reynolds who needs to add the polish with his last tackle plays and/or by asking questions of the defence. At the moment he isn't really taking the ball to the line nor are his last tackle options offering us anything whatsoever. Have a look at what happened last night? He gave away 2-3 7 tackle sets and his midfield bombs were poorly executed and gave our chasers very little chance of putting pressure on the opposition fullback. I actually think he needs to be dropped; we played better with Cody Walker and Sutton in the halves.

 

[Rabbits20]

Souths Reborn you're full of it.

AJ hasn't been good, nearly everyone can see he's been shit.

I won't elaborate though as it's wasting my breath.

Fair dinkum.

 

[John Miller]

1. I agree with you about our three quarters being weak defensively; its been that way for some time now. Even when we won the competition our three quarters were solid but weren't spectacular. I get the feeling that Madge adheres to the view that wingers and centres don't win you games of footy. I agree with him but we still need to be solid there defensively. This season our right hand side has been a problem. In particular, I think Talakai seems to be a bit lost out there and doesn't really know whether to come in or slide. We also play an up and in style of defence meaning that communication is vital. Basically, we are getting caught in situations where the wingers and centres are flying in and not making tackles. As soon as that happens you are in trouble; if you are going to rush in you need to make a tackle to prevent the overlap.
2. Alex Johnston positional play for the most part has been quite good. In general, we haven't missed Greg Inglis too much because Johnston has been good for the most part. The reason why defends up in the centres is because coaches want their fullbacks to defend their in the modern game to combat fullbacks who play as a five-eight. Because many fullbacks play up in the line a lot more, defensively lines can potentially be left short of numbers. Therefore what coaches do is to have their fullbacks play up in the line to ensure that goal line defences are stronger.
3. I completely disagree that Farah has been a failed buy. Did you not see him last week against the Broncos? He completely changed the game and brought us back into it! He has had only 1-2 ordinary games and has been good for the rest. I think he is in an unfortunate situation where he has Damian Cook who is younger and more energetic than he is. That is not Robbie's fault; age is something that no one can prevent. Nevertheless Robbie is still masterful at controlling the game, adding direction and ultimately building pressure. The problem that you are alluding to lies with Adam Reynolds. The hookers are doing their job but its Adam Reynolds who needs to add the polish with his last tackle plays and/or by asking questions of the defence. At the moment he isn't really taking the ball to the line nor are his last tackle options offering us anything whatsoever. Have a look at what happened last night? He gave away 2-3 7 tackle sets and his midfield bombs were poorly executed and gave our chasers very little chance of putting pressure on the opposition fullback. I actually think he needs to be dropped; we played better with Cody Walker and Sutton in the halves.

Souths Reborn ... I agree with some of your points, especially Reynolds needing to lift his game and I also believe he needs to become a lot more consistent. However we'll have to agree to disagree about Farah. I do agree that the team lifted a little when he came on in the second half, but I don't believe it was due to him. He fired three obvious forward passes (two were picked up by the ref) and tried to send a long pass out to the left without much power behind it and it's damn lucky the bounce was in our favour. He also steered clear of a number of tackles that, in his younger days, wouldn't be in his character. So ... I'll leave it there, 'cause I can't see us coming to an agreement over Robbie. Thanks for your comments anyway.

 

[John Miller]

Mr John Miller I like your thinking. But it looks like our attacking structure is one dimensional how is dropping our stars gonna fix that? We all know reserve grade players have terrible defence especially in the backline.

I agree 100% about the need to address our attack play as well. However, first things first (in my mind anyway), and that's to fix the gaps and get our positional play in order to lock down our defence. Once we (re)learn how to tackle and defend the line without being pushed backwards, we can then start to concentrate on attack.
You know, if there's one player in the past 10 years I wish we had held onto, it's Isaac Luke. Yes, we won the comp in 2014 without him, but he certainly helped us get there. I'm not saying he didn't have his faults, because consistency wasn't his best characteristic because at times he could get a little hot-headed and lose the plot. But nevertheless he'd play his heart out every weekend and was a game-changer. I for one mourned his loss to the Warriors.
To me Cody Walker, Damien Cook and Angus Crichton are superstars in the making, so I certainly hope we can hang onto these young fellas for the long term and allow them to develop to their full potential.

 

[alien]

Talakai, Jennings, and Turner can not defend in the centres. This has been obvious to me for a while now. Please open your eyes, Madge!

 

[callmack1]

I agree 100% about the need to address our attack play as well. However, first things first (in my mind anyway), and that's to fix the gaps and get our positional play in order to lock down our defence. Once we (re)learn how to tackle and defend the line without being pushed backwards, we can then start to concentrate on attack.
You know, if there's one player in the past 10 years I wish we had held onto, it's Isaac Luke. Yes, we won the comp in 2014 without him, but he certainly helped us get there. I'm not saying he didn't have his faults, because consistency wasn't his best characteristic because at times he could get a little hot-headed and lose the plot. But nevertheless he'd play his heart out every weekend and was a game-changer. I for one mourned his loss to the Warriors.
To me Cody Walker, Damien Cook and Angus Crichton are superstars in the making, so I certainly hope we can hang onto these young fellas for the long term and allow them to develop to their full potential.

Couldn't agree more mate.

I was gutted when Isaac left. He was a legend. From the same place as me so I loved him. He was one of the best hookers in the comp when he was with us.

 

[Rabbits20]

I agree 100% about the need to address our attack play as well. However, first things first (in my mind anyway), and that's to fix the gaps and get our positional play in order to lock down our defence. Once we (re)learn how to tackle and defend the line without being pushed backwards, we can then start to concentrate on attack.
You know, if there's one player in the past 10 years I wish we had held onto, it's Isaac Luke. Yes, we won the comp in 2014 without him, but he certainly helped us get there. I'm not saying he didn't have his faults, because consistency wasn't his best characteristic because at times he could get a little hot-headed and lose the plot. But nevertheless he'd play his heart out every weekend and was a game-changer. I for one mourned his loss to the Warriors.
To me Cody Walker, Damien Cook and Angus Crichton are superstars in the making, so I certainly hope we can hang onto these young fellas for the long term and allow them to develop to their full potential.

But but but..... it's Cook's fault say a lot of the don't knowers on here.

 

[Rabbits20]

Talakai, Jennings, and Turner can not defend in the centres. This has been obvious to me for a while now. Please open your eyes, Madge!

Turner is even struggling to defend in the middle. He's not bulked up enough.

His defence which is meant to be his strong point hasn't been good the last 2 seasons and then we re-sign him. Fug me!!!!!!!!!!

We should never have let McQueen go. That was a big mistake. At least McQueen can break the line.

We should have tossed out Turner and Clark instead.

Also letting Brown go and Peats go were massive mistakes.

In Shadows true words it is one giant fug up at Souths and it's getting worse!!!!!!!

Look at Morgan Boyle, Leihavi Pulu, Paterika Vaivai. They are no names and are much better than Clark and Turner.

We are very similar to the Knights at the moment.

 

[foreverinourshadow]

Turner is even struggling to defend in the middle. He's not bulked up enough.

His defence which is meant to be his strong point hasn't been good the last 2 seasons and then we re-sign him. Fug me!!!!!!!!!!

We should never have let McQueen go. That was a big mistake. At least McQueen can break the line.

We should have tossed out Turner and Clark instead.

Also letting Brown go and Peats go were massive mistakes.

In Shadows true words it is one giant fug up at Souths and it's getting worse!!!!!!!

Look at Morgan Boyle, Leihavi Pulu, Paterika Vaivai. They are no names and are much better than Clark and Turner.

We are very similar to the Knights at the moment.

SENSETALKING AT ITS FINEST!!!!!.....We need to sack all from my past dud list or keep failing .!!....Take the blinkers off dont knowers if you can becoz our team is SHIIIITAMUNDO.....Shadow...

 

[foreverinourshadow]

Maybe when we fall to 14th or 15th will the dont knowers wake up to sack all the duds from shadows dud list???...Shadow...p.s. oi r20 but i know the dont knowers cant grasp the reality of our team failures they want to reinstate cameron mcinnes and then persevere with jennings talakai burns hunt and gray and keep the dud forwards bar crichton and musgrove to back the 3burgi up.....i know they cant see true footy logic r20 .!!...Shadow...

 

[John Miller]

Our typical game plan for a long time now has been "catch-up football" ... most often in the second half after we get a caning from Madge in the break. While that can work in your favour, our problem is that we let the opposition get that little bit too far ahead (depending on the conditions of the day) week after week, and the gap is simply too big to cut back. And, the reason why we allow them to get so far ahead is ... as I keep saying ... is our crap defence, coupled with our crap completion rate.
Sadly, today we're not even a shadow of what we were in the winter and spring of 2014. Certainly we've got personnel problems, whether it's players in the wrong positions, or players that shouldn't even be in the first grade side. But even the passion has deteriorated over the past season or two. Back in 2014, every single positive piece of play, whether it was a point-score or even a significant tackle, every player on the field ran in to congratulate the successor. Today, we're lucky if we get to see a "high-five" from two or three nearby teammates. Without that passion, all you can ever expect is a bunch of high-profile players who know their salaries are still waiting for them irrespective of how little they contribute to the game.
For sure, that's a generalisation, but you don't get glory without guts.
My 2c.

 

[foreverinourshadow]

Two points I want to make:

1. These past few weeks have proved once again that you can't win a game when your defensive positions aren't guarded. For us bunnies, it's the wings. We're fortunate to have a bunch of talented wingers in our ranks, but since Merritt moved on and Johnston moved to fullback, the current wingers spend their 80-minute game-time in the centres, causing overlaps on the outside in every game.
2. Robbie Farah, to me, is proving to be a failed buy. For a senior player like he is, he makes a lot of fundamental mistakes and shys away from the occasional tackle. Furthermore, he has a problem with his ball-handling, especially when comes to long passes and on-side passing ... week after week after week. Tom and George on the other hand are excellent runners-of-the-ball and tacklers, but their problem is that they occasionally fail to hold onto the ball when tackled, frequently losing it to the opposition.

Footnote:
Good teams usually step up to the mark and cover the absence of their superstars, but sadly Souths seem to be short of depth in some areas and continue to use the excuse of absenteeism as a reason for their poor performances. Despite a gluttony of wingers, we don't have a temporary stand-in fullback for Greg Inglis. Sure enough Johnston likes playing fullback, but he too fails to stay in position ... he's always playing up in the centres, even in defence. He's a champion winger though, so that's where I'd keep him.
If it were me calling the shots, I'd use the remainder of this season to drop some of the higher-profile poor-performers until they can prove their worth, and in their place I'd blood a bunch of young guns.
That's my 2c.

FOOTNOTE: Question what young guns?? our latest young guns are no where near ready for 1st grade as in::jennings,talakai,and burns these 3 were a failure so my Question again who are these young guns whom your talking about??i am all RABBIT EARS ....Shadow....P.S i can tell you now we dont have any .

 

[foreverinourshadow]

We are already using fuimaono whom has played well so far in 1st grade and seems to be the real mc""coy so far...greinke and gosiewski wont be cutting the mustard in 2018 either will these 2 old hacks in rochow and cherro....murray is too light weight but is a fair player its a shame he has not got crichtons physique....we definitly dont have another crichton type standard player coming thru our junior or current u20""s squad and lastly id move farah on and put cook at no9 cook is the future robbie aint ......Shadow...

 

[Rsag85]

I said from the start of the pre season that we didn't need Farah.

We made a massive mistake letting McInnes go. For this washed up has been.

Reynolds looks like he is playing injured imo

 

[Rabbits20]

FOOTNOTE: Question what young guns?? our latest young guns are no where near ready for 1st grade as in::jennings,talakai,and burns these 3 were a failure so my Question again who are these young guns whom your talking about??i am all RABBIT EARS ....Shadow....P.S i can tell you now we dont have any .

He probably means young guns like Musgrove, Fuimaono and Murray.

Don't get me started on the 3 you mention Shadow!!!!!

 

[Rabbits20]

We are already using fuimaono whom has played well so far in 1st grade and seems to be the real mc""coy so far...greinke and gosiewski wont be cutting the mustard in 2018 either will these 2 old hacks in rochow and cherro....murray is too light weight but is a fair player its a shame he has not got crichtons physique....we definitly dont have another crichton type standard player coming thru our junior or current u20""s squad and lastly id move farah on and put cook at no9 cook is the future robbie aint ......Shadow...

Yep I'd move Farah on.

Cook is our future hooker. If we don't give him more game time he will leave. Cook can get us on the front foot more than Farah. We look better with Cook on field rather than Farah.


Also Rsag we don't need to keep Cam. He is not quick enough out of dummy half.


Mcturtle is being made to look better than he is at the Dragons. It's smart coaching from McGregor. They have better forwards than us though. We need that running style of hooker with spark and that's what Cook is.

 

[BeddyUK]

Couldn't agree more mate.

I was gutted when Isaac left. He was a legend. From the same place as me so I loved him. He was one of the best hookers in the comp when he was with us.

He WAS one of t he best but as this season shows he's now passed his prime, so had he still bee in his prime then yes he would have been missed but time has caught up with him and therefore it's a relief that he's no longer taking a large chunk of the Bunnies salary cap.

 

[Rabbits20]

He WAS one of t he best but as this season shows he's now passed his prime, so had he still bee in his prime then yes he would have been missed but time has caught up with him and therefore it's a relief that he's no longer taking a large chunk of the Bunnies salary cap.

Cook needs more game time than he's getting.