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General Discussion Thread

OldPanther

OldPanther

Coach
Messages
13,404
martielang said:
Maybe I’m being over positive but Ive seen more in our attack this year then last year already. Souths were defensively strong on their line yesterday but we kept plugging away & eventually got the points. Granted, the last play bomb every set needs to go.

Same with our defence. Our structures are looking much improved, especially with Whare back. We seem a lot more aggressive off our line too. Their two tries yesterday were good football opportunist tries, nothing to do with a misread or defenders on the outside not trusting their inside men etc. Hook switching Yeo to cover Maloney to start the game has worked a treat.
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We were definitely better defencively.
 
T

tripster

Juniors
Messages
1,957
martielang said:
Maybe I’m being over positive but Ive seen more in our attack this year then last year already. Souths were defensively strong on their line yesterday but we kept plugging away & eventually got the points. Granted, the last play bomb every set needs to go.

Same with our defence. Our structures are looking much improved, especially with Whare back. We seem a lot more aggressive off our line too. Their two tries yesterday were good football opportunist tries, nothing to do with a misread or defenders on the outside not trusting their inside men etc. Hook switching Yeo to cover Maloney to start the game has worked a treat.
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I agree. Cleary is getting well timed ball to players outside of him (particularly Blake). The team has figured out that Blake is much more likely to make a break hitting the line at speed, so he is always standing deeper and is receiving passes when he has already worked up a bit of pace. That happened a few times yesterday.

Maloney and Cleary have both been probing in around the ruck late in sets and have been trying a lot of inside passes to each other or to Edwards and Yeo to try to break through the middle.

When we get close to the line we are getting better timed ball to wide running forwards who have the power to get over the top of smaller outside backs (Kikau is going to presumably keep being used for this, and we also tried it with JFH early in the game yesterday - he got over the line but was stripped before he could get it down). That is a big improvement from the Cleary > pass to CHN to try to hit a hole play that we must have tried 20 times last year (for some success early on until other teams wised up to it).

Mansour, for all the sideways running he has been doing, appears to have been given instructions to try to bring the ball back into the middle when we are flat footed close to the opposition line to see if he can bust through the middle or pick off someone in a 1-1 situation (he scored a few tries from that last season as well, but I think it was ad lib back then).

We are risking offloads close to the line when we were rarely offloading last season.

We are grubbering for the in-goal to try to get repeat sets (Maloney seems to be the one doing this - we would have got a repeat set yesterday early in the game except for the head high call).

Despite it being only 2 games in - so it is difficult to say that any of these things are indicative of a pattern that will continue for the season - it seems to me that a lot of work has been put into our attack during the off season. If the rumours are to be believed that has come from Gould and Brandy.
 
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franklin2323

franklin2323

Immortal
Messages
33,546
OldPanther said:
That's good to hear. I understand it will happen and it's good we can tough it out. Just don't want it becoming a habit.
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JFH and Mansour both were close to scoring before they did. So score wise looks bad but in actual game play not that far from changing
 
T

tripster

Juniors
Messages
1,957
Regarding our team's fitness, the efforts we have put in, in 30+ degree heat, particularly against Parra when we had almost no ball in the first half, are remarkable.

I can't imagine that either of Parra or Souths are slackers in terms of their fitness regimes. Fitness is a fundamentally important part of any team's ability to compete, so the fact we seem to be that much fitter than other teams suggests that our fitness regime is incredibly grueling.

There is basically no shortcut to building extremely high levels of cardiovascular endurance - the only way to do it is to push yourself to the absolute limit and then keep pushing.

It also requires complete and utter dedication and discipline, including to many things off the field. You need to be disciplined about sleeping, you can't be going out drinking, you can't be partying, your diet needs to be perfect, etc. Your life off the field also needs to be in order emotionally.
 
Pomoz

Pomoz

Bench
Messages
2,863
tripster said:
When we get close to the line we are getting better timed ball to wide running forwards who have the power to get over the top of smaller outside backs (Kikau is going to presumably keep being used for this, and we also tried it with JFH early in the game yesterday - he got over the line but was stripped before he could get it down). That is a big improvement from the Cleary > pass to CHN to try to hit a hole play that we must have tried 20 times last year (for some success early on until other teams wised up to it).
Click to expand...
Great post tripster. I do have an issue with the "20 times last season" comment. I think you meant to say "20 times a game".
 
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Pomoz

Pomoz

Bench
Messages
2,863
tripster said:
Regarding our team's fitness, the efforts we have put in, in 30+ degree heat, particularly against Parra when we had almost no ball in the first half, are remarkable.

I can't imagine that either of Parra or Souths are slackers in terms of their fitness regimes. Fitness is a fundamentally important part of any team's ability to compete, so the fact we seem to be that much fitter than other teams suggests that our fitness regime is incredibly grueling.

There is basically no shortcut to building extremely high levels of cardiovascular endurance - the only way to do it is to push yourself to the absolute limit and then keep pushing.

It also requires complete and utter dedication and discipline, including to many things off the field. You need to be disciplined about sleeping, you can't be going out drinking, you can't be partying, your diet needs to be perfect, etc. Your life off the field also needs to be in order emotionally.
Click to expand...
The other aspect of the fitness regime is not overdoing heavy weights and being too bulky. You need explosive power and aerobic capacity like 400m sprinters. Our team all look lean and yet are still strong (they are not getting monstered in tackles).

As for emotional stability, last year the lack of that for Cartwright, Moylan and Merrin ruined the start to our season.
 
T

tripster

Juniors
Messages
1,957
Pomoz said:
As for emotional stability, last year the lack of that for Cartwright, Moylan and Merrin ruined the start to our season.
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Exactly. Also if our fitness regime requires the kind of dedication that appears to be the case, then no surprises that Moylan was dropped when he broke curfew and probably also no surprises that he got off side with Hook when he wasn’t sufficiently dedicated to rehab.
 
umina panther

umina panther

Coach
Messages
17,744
Nathan and Ivan on the Matty Johns Show tonight. That relationship will be in tatters when he signs with Easts/Brisbane.....

The jokes at our club should be a laugh
 
mxlegend99

mxlegend99

Referee
Messages
23,040
umina panther said:
Our win last week isn't looking like much right now. Pawwa are awful
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Nope. The two teams weve struggled to beat were absolutely f**king destroyed by average teams in the other games.

Eels have average wingers and Hayne hasnt been good in 4 years. Their pack last year played tough and punched sbovetheir wwight like Mez with Sally. But like him they have been brough back to reality.

No way are Eels atop 4 side. Fringe top 8 maybe.
 
mxlegend99

mxlegend99

Referee
Messages
23,040
Fun fact. Eels led 14 nil against us after 30 minutes last week.

In the 90 minutes since than they have conceded 54 points to nil. Blake is going to look sexy as f**k in Haynes Origin jersey.

Destroyed Jennings last week. Inglis this week. Morris twins next week.
 
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