Round 21 v Raiders - Match Day Thread

[truthslayer]

Great summary spot on, A lot of negativity today, with any team we have high and lows we are certainly in a low, I am not going to bag the great red and green who I support through good times and bad times and boy what bad times we have had! Last night there was a turning point when Reynolds was hit high lost the ball and then disaster with Crichton being sin binned....Now there are some stupid posts about Crichton will leave, those idiots don't know this guy a 100% player and will be a future Souths Captain. We didn't play smart and stupid errors cost us big time, a missed try in the opening minutes another close call down the wing with Goodwin and guess what things could have been different. We have missed Inglis but there is nothing we can do, I believe we have players with more self-belief can become very good first graders, it's not doom and gloom and we have to accept where we sit on the ladder, too many emotional posts of getting rid of this player get rid of the coach etc..Im going to support the Rabbits this year with the remainder of the games and look for greater things in 2018, The twins put in last night and may that last! Crichton is an inspiration and we are looking at a legend in the making. We have problems around the halves and hooking position and in need of another 80-minute tough forward.The team has the challenge to get better from coaching staff to individuals, let's hope they bite the bullet. Go Souths !

 

[truthslayer]

I agree with most of that except Turner...

He let Dave Taylor through with a sloppy attempt at tackle and he didn't make enough metres......

yeh and Crichton missed a tackle, Goodwin dropped the ball your one eyed bias with Turner is what it is

 

[madunit]

Souths have lost any interest in my view

 

[truthslayer]

oi Curns13 just relax mate ....Shadow...Maybe its a new trend mate its just people getting their point across some people just express themselves in different ways for instance i say souths have a shiiit team . Am i right or wrong? i know i am right then i have said sack the players on my dud list FACT AGAIN am i right yes i am right.We areall very passionate southsfans/members and i might express myself differently than others but i tell the FACTS and the facts are the facts am i wrong??we have a shiiit team are we all happy no we are not FACT AGAIN.....CYA MATE ENJOY YOUR SUNDAY LIFE IS GREAT BUT SOUTHS ARE SHIIIT FACT!!...Shadow...

your life is not that great you spend too much time here

 

[Rabbit toes]

Souths have lost any interest in my view

Think it's the coach. Time to leave and start fresh next year, could explain the lack of signings if a new coach is going to be there

 

[truthslayer]

Think it's the coach. Time to leave and start fresh next year, could explain the lack of signings if a new coach is going to be there

I hate bagging coaches, Madge has the passion..and coaches don't last and you may be right , but lets say next year all the players start clicking Madge again could be a great coach, which ever is right i hope for success

 

[Rabbit toes]

I hate bagging coaches, Madge has the passion..and coaches don't last and you may be right , but lets say next year all the players start clicking Madge again could be a great coach, which ever is right i hope for success

If they havent clicked in the last 3 years I doubt they will next year

 

[truthslayer]

If they havent clicked in the last 3 years I doubt they will next year

I take your point, however, I believe we have good potential and a coaching change may help. Time will tell.

 

[Rabbit toes]

I take your point, however, I believe we have good potential and a coaching change may help. Time will tell.

Times all weve got

 

[madunit]

I hate bagging coaches, Madge has the passion..and coaches don't last and you may be right , but lets say next year all the players start clicking Madge again could be a great coach, which ever is right i hope for success

Sometimes it is the coaches fault though.Madge has made next to zero changes to the game plan that won him the Premiership. Every club clues up to the tactics used by the team that won the premiership in past season. Only very talented squads with very good coaching systems in place can combat it in the following season.

Madge has not been able to replace Issac Luke. He has two blokes at the club who are very much capable of doing that, but he's got them eating each other for game time instead of letting them get 80 mins out there to do their job. I'm a big Farah fan, but Souths should never have bought him. You had Cook. Farah, who is still a top quality NRL rake whose form demands he still plays in NRL, has meant that Cook has had to fight for game time that he too was also demanding via his form.

Cook is the clubs future hooker and playing well enough to have the gig permanently.

Farah should have gone to Newcastle.

It's hard to get a good feel in attack when a quarter of your spine changes mid game every week.

 

[Souths Till I Die]

Sometimes it is the coaches fault though.Madge has made next to zero changes to the game plan that won him the Premiership. Every club clues up to the tactics used by the team that won the premiership in past season. Only very talented squads with very good coaching systems in place can combat it in the following season.

Madge has not been able to replace Issac Luke. He has two blokes at the club who are very much capable of doing that, but he's got them eating each other for game time instead of letting them get 80 mins out there to do their job. I'm a big Farah fan, but Souths should never have bought him. You had Cook. Farah, who is still a top quality NRL rake whose form demands he still plays in NRL, has meant that Cook has had to fight for game time that he too was also demanding via his form.

Cook is the clubs future hooker and playing well enough to have the gig permanently.

Farah should have gone to Newcastle.

It's hard to get a good feel in attack when a quarter of your spine changes mid game every week.

Couldn't of put it better myself mate you're spot on. Madge is toying with cook and Farah!

 

[madunit]

Even if he went and played Farah in Firsts for 4 straight games, then Cook for 4 straight etc, that would be far better than the current arrangement, because at least you'd get better cohesion in attack.

And even if you lost the first game of each four game block, that's only 6 losses over the year.

 

[Souths Till I Die]

Great summary spot on, A lot of negativity today, with any team we have high and lows we are certainly in a low, I am not going to bag the great red and green who I support through good times and bad times and boy what bad times we have had! Last night there was a turning point when Reynolds was hit high lost the ball and then disaster with Crichton being sin binned....Now there are some stupid posts about Crichton will leave, those idiots don't know this guy a 100% player and will be a future Souths Captain. We didn't play smart and stupid errors cost us big time, a missed try in the opening minutes another close call down the wing with Goodwin and guess what things could have been different. We have missed Inglis but there is nothing we can do, I believe we have players with more self-belief can become very good first graders, it's not doom and gloom and we have to accept where we sit on the ladder, too many emotional posts of getting rid of this player get rid of the coach etc..Im going to support the Rabbits this year with the remainder of the games and look for greater things in 2018, The twins put in last night and may that last! Crichton is an inspiration and we are looking at a legend in the making. We have problems around the halves and hooking position and in need of another 80-minute tough forward.The team has the challenge to get better from coaching staff to individuals, let's hope they bite the bullet. Go Souths !

Crichton will go if things don't improve. He won't progress as a player playing at a club near the bottom. It's well known to be the best you have to play with the best. Why do you think most players jump at the chance to join the storm? Because they turn normal players into great players.

Maguire has tried to copy the storm system but has failed miserably. Most of the reason why is because their spine is 10x the spine we currently have.

1. Slater> GI (mostly because of injuries though
6. Munster > Walker (this isn't even a comparison)
7. Cronk> Reynolds (lol)
9. Smith>>>>>>>>>Farah & Cook

Storm system revolves around the spine. Our spine is playing like trash and so we get trash results.

 

[madunit]

The Souths spine plays different style to the Storms too. You have to let your spine play to their strengths. As a tigers fan, you lot and I all know how Jason Taylor's system of being forced to play exactly what he wanted was as conusive to good footy as a broken wooden peg.

Smith is an organiser of all of his sides attack. Farah and Cook are ball runners. Farah has one of the best short kicking games in the comp but is rarely allowed to use it. Farah is also very good at getting his forwards running with some momentum. Cook links very well with his middle forwards and is a very good support player. Neither can produce full value on their abilities in 30 to 50 mins each week.

Reynolds has a good kicking game and is a decent enough organiser who can be very good when his forwards are dominating.

Walker is an x factor type player, but not reliable enough week in week out. Thats the problem with x factor guys.

Inglis is a powerful runner and ball returned, he's a Tedesco type of player. Slater is more of a creator himself now. He has evolved which many fullbacks struggle to do.

 

[souths_reborn]

It's not a myth though. We refuse to go anywhere but up the middle. We won't spread the ball, we won't through cut out passes we literally just go through the middle. Defending against Souths is easy because you know their only threat is gonna be a bomb on the 5th tackle. Otherwise defending against our props is like defending against pillows.

Yes walker is our biggest threat and yes he needs to be more involved but so does AJ. We need to find a way to involve all of our fast players. Look at the storm and the way they involve slater through inside passes, offloads, kicks. It's dynamic footy and it works in the modern game. Every other team plays better footy than Souths do probably except for the Bulldogs which is ironic as they are my 2nd team.

We've relied far too much on Inglis in the past too finish our set plays and is probably why we invested in Gagai. But 1 linebreak? That's not good enough. It's as simple as that.

It is a myth. When working the ball out of your own half you need to go forward to make metres. If you spread the ball wide then the defence has more time to move up and close you down before you start going forward. Hence, that is why it appears we are only playing up the middle - because we are spending so much time working the ball out of our own half. Ultimately, what this comes down to is us hanging onto the football, completing our sets and getting good field position. I guarantee you that if we cut out these individual errors then we will start playing more expansively. We have already shown that we are capable of doing this in the game vs Penrith!

The problem with Alex Johnston is that he doesn't play up in the line like a five-eight like Billy Slater does. AJ's biggest attributes are his speed and his evasiveness; he is a conventional fullback who excels at kick returns and getting on the outside of players. I wouldn't say that other teams play a better brand of footy than us simply because all teams these days virtually play a similar style; virtually every team in the competition uses block plays and face balls to target specific defenders in the opposition line. Once again, I think what most people on here crave is for us to be more clinical in our execution rather than entertaining.

 

[souths_reborn]

Sometimes it is the coaches fault though.Madge has made next to zero changes to the game plan that won him the Premiership. Every club clues up to the tactics used by the team that won the premiership in past season. Only very talented squads with very good coaching systems in place can combat it in the following season.

Madge has not been able to replace Issac Luke. He has two blokes at the club who are very much capable of doing that, but he's got them eating each other for game time instead of letting them get 80 mins out there to do their job. I'm a big Farah fan, but Souths should never have bought him. You had Cook. Farah, who is still a top quality NRL rake whose form demands he still plays in NRL, has meant that Cook has had to fight for game time that he too was also demanding via his form.

Cook is the clubs future hooker and playing well enough to have the gig permanently.

Farah should have gone to Newcastle.

It's hard to get a good feel in attack when a quarter of your spine changes mid game every week.

As I have said in a previous post, most game plans revolve around isolating and targeting weak defenders in the line rather utilising a specific weapon or trying to confuse defences as was the case in the 80s and 90s. If anything we have diverted from the tactics that brought up so much success between 2012-2014. For example, in those year we utilised Adam Reynolds kicking game brilliantly where he would chip across the face to goal to runners cutting back across in front of smaller men contesting for the ball. When was the last time we did that? Similarly, we would also use short balls off the ruck close to the opposition goal line where a big man (namely a Burgess) would run and overpower a small defender. When was the last time we did that? If anything, I actually think we need to go back to doing the sorts of things that we did in those years rather than change them.

Isaac Luke has been missed but if I'm being honest he looks a shadow of the player that he was at Souths. The writing was on the wall in his last season in 2015 when his form began to wane and there were questions about his attitude. Then he goes to the Warriors and there are more questions about his attitude, application etc plus he was distracted due to his kid getting sick. Basically, he is not the same player that he was during our successful years. In saying that, the hooking role hasn't been an issue for us this season. People have ranted and raved about it on here but neither Farah nor Cook are responsible for our predicament. The problem has been individual errors and our inability to convert dominance into points. The latter of these has been the product of poor last tackle options.

 

[doyen]

This whole "bash and barge" style that we supposedly play is a myth. The only time we really bash and barge is when we have possession in our own half, which has been quite often due to the amount of ball that we turn over. Basically we are not doing anything different to what any of the other teams are doing when inside their own halves. Once we are in our opponents half then we start playing more expansively albeit not very successfully. I think what you guys are craving is a half who takes the ball to the line and has a bit of footwork. Cody Walker can do that and that is why we look most threatening when he is only the ball. As I've said before he needs to increase his involvement to the same extent that Jarryd Hayne did at Parramatta. Basically, you want him to be a ball hog because he is such a good footballer. .

I'm also sick of hearing that the players aren't putting in effort. That's rubbish! Of course they are putting in effort! If you watch our game it is clear that our errors are coming from a lack of concentration and organisation rather than application. Remember, we are in a competition and someone has to finish at the bottom of the ladder whether they are trying or not. My point is that just because we are 13th doesn't mean that we aren't trying.

All pretty true-----Cody,as you say,needs to use his superior skills & hog that ball more!

He is slippery enough,& good enough to create some scoring chances in a game.
We just need to cash in on those chances.

 

[Rabbits20]

yeh and Crichton missed a tackle, Goodwin dropped the ball your one eyed bias with Turner is what it is

Sorry but Crichton and Goodwin played much better than Turner...

 

[Souths Till I Die]

It is a myth. When working the ball out of your own half you need to go forward to make metres. If you spread the ball wide then the defence has more time to move up and close you down before you start going forward. Hence, that is why it appears we are only playing up the middle - because we are spending so much time working the ball out of our own half. Ultimately, what this comes down to is us hanging onto the football, completing our sets and getting good field position. I guarantee you that if we cut out these individual errors then we will start playing more expansively. We have already shown that we are capable of doing this in the game vs Penrith!

The problem with Alex Johnston is that he doesn't play up in the line like a five-eight like Billy Slater does. AJ's biggest attributes are his speed and his evasiveness; he is a conventional fullback who excels at kick returns and getting on the outside of players. I wouldn't say that other teams play a better brand of footy than us simply because all teams these days virtually play a similar style; virtually every team in the competition uses block plays and face balls to target specific defenders in the opposition line. Once again, I think what most people on here crave is for us to be more clinical in our execution rather than entertaining.

Look I get what you're saying but I also don't agree with it. Yes teams do a lot of one out plays to get out of their own half. But even when we're close to the line we can't put together a set play fast enough without the opposition putting too much pressure on us. Our attacking structure is boring, Our pass are predictable and besides the Burgess boys and Crichton our forwards are getting overpowered. We are practically last in nearly every statistic on the field.

I will agree with you that once we cut out the silly areas our football will look better but I'm still not convinced we're a top 8 team even without the errors. Our defence leaks a ridiculous amount of tries per game and our outside backs lack creativity or speed.

Personally when I watch us play footy and then watch the sharks or the storm play footy you can easily tell the difference between the 2 teams and us. Sharks play a very powerful game through the middle and have forwards who have a great ability of offloading, ball playing etc.. through this offloading and ball playing they will always have their 5/8th and fullback lurking around the ruck ready to pounce if a good offload is thrown. The only forwards who can offload in our side are the Burgess'. For the amount of hate they get they do not have enough support through the middle.

Storm are very similar to the sharks but they play more expansive than the sharks. Once again it's Munster and slater who are creating these threats out wide.

My biggest frustration with watching Souths play is the fact that Walker and AJ aren't getting involved enough. Whenever they carry the ball they look deadly yet for one reason or another they're not getting enough ball. If we can create more opportunities through our 5/8th and fullback then Reynolds will have a lot less pressure on him to produce a miracle every set. What's wrong with running the ball on the 5th tackle? Why do we not abuse overlaps? Souths are stuck in the past and are not going to be a finals side if they constantly stick to these silly set plays. The worst part is that we're not even good at them.. our play the ball is slow, our passing is inaccurate and our outside backs don't have the speed.

 

[macnaz]

your life is not that great you spend too much time here

.