Parra v Manly LIVE game day thread, March 18, 2018

[Poupou Escobar]

Nope but surely team selections should be on the coach. Also the fitness of the team which is what I believe is the major problem. BA selected the strength and conditioning guy - An AFL bloke with no experience with rugby league

You understand clubs keep records of player fitness metrics across seasons? They know what strength/speed/agility/stamina metrics they need to be hitting.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

So did Penrith. Was over 30 out there yesterday too.

Well they got to play Souths at home. We were stuck playing Manly at Brookvake.

 

[hindy111]

Funmy enough I was talkn to a dogs fan last night. When I mentioned Ken Edwards his response was one of best 2md rowers in comp.....

 

[Chipmunk]

You understand clubs keep records of player fitness metrics across seasons? They know what strength/speed/agility/stamina metrics they need to be hitting.

But that doesn't mean that a bloke from a different sport wont have different ideas about what metrics they should be hitting, irrespective of what they have done in previous sports. Whether this is good or bad. After all, if the players just needed to reach certain fitness score or metric then why wouldnt we just have Forty20 and his mates out there making sure they reach the scores.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

We are unfit. End of story.

Why would we go the entire off season without getting as fit as last year? Do you think the coaching staff are unable to assess their fitness? That they don’t know how to conduct assessments and compare fitness to last year or the year before?

 

[Poupou Escobar]

I noticed this also, we do look very unfit.

Imagine a team looking unfit with less than 40% possession in 38 degree heat. We lost this game before fitness could possibly become a factor. Whatever happened today was mental.

 

[forward pass]

He doesn’t make the tough calls on player selections, his tactics can be questionable at best and he has been out coached so many times.

Really - didn’t he just drop our co-captain? No tougher call than that.

Him admitting that he didn’t see this coming is worrying.

How many coaches see a 50 point loss coming? I would be more worried if he did see it coming!,,

 

[Noise]

Why would we go the entire off season without getting as fit as last year? Do you think the coaching staff are unable to assess their fitness? That they don’t know how to conduct assessments and compare fitness to last year or the year before?

Because an AFL bloke might have very different ideas to a rugby league bloke. TCT commented there was a lot less repetitive ‘up and down’ work this pre season ...probably one of the unique areas in rugby league fitness and there was a huge focus on running mechanics....what sport does a lot more running? AFL. So it is possible that this new bloke has different ideas and his targets are different to the norm in rugby league.

 

[Chipmunk]

Why would we go the entire off season without getting as fit as last year? Do you think the coaching staff are unable to assess their fitness? That they don’t know how to conduct assessments and compare fitness to last year or the year before?

There is an old saying, that there is no substitute for match fitness and we played 50% less matches than the Panthers when we played them and 33% less matches than Manly before today.

Why did we play only 50% of the trials we played in 2017?

 

[Poupou Escobar]

We were down by 42 by the time that happened.

Manly were testing the refs very early on.

 

[emjaycee]

Enthusiasm = 0

Edit: This week, last week and every so often over the last 3-5 years the players seem to be just going through the motions. They seem to lack a hunger/desire to win. I can see it in their warm ups before the game - there is no "steel" in their eyes.

The players that have it and always seem to bring it on game day are Brown, Edwards, Moses, Gower and Kritchard.
I have seen these guys at both pre and post-game functions in Melbourne and Darwin and if it is after a loss, these are the only 5 guys that want to punch a hole in the wall. The rest are MEH.

 

[TheParraboy]

Imagine a team looking unfit with less than 40% possession in 38 degree heat. We lost this game before fitness could possibly become a factor. Whatever happened today was mental.

we had 31% possession

https://www.nrl.com/draw/nrl-premiership/2018/round-2/sea-eagles-vs-eels/

 

[Chipmunk]

Manly were testing the refs very early on.

Why weren't we?

 

[Chipmunk]

Enthusiasm = 0

Is that you now or the team today?

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Because we are extremely ill disciplined. An ill disciplined side combined with an unfit side leads to results like we are currently witnessing

I agree our discipline was non-existent. That alone in 38 degree heat is enough to set up a slippery slope that lasts the rest of the game. And Manly’s discipline was awesome for a round two side. They gave us no way back into the game.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Well if didn't throw forward passes, lose balls and have players run into touch early in a set of six we might have done better.

So fitness might not be an issue, but attitude and discipline instead?

 

[Chipmunk]

So fitness might not be an issue, but attitude and discipline instead?

Causation...

Although I dont neccesarily believe that fitness is a major cause of today. We were out of the contest after 5 mins

 

[Poupou Escobar]

It is true. If you read TCT training reports every session in the off season there was a huge focus on the 'running mechanics' of our players. This new focus came from our new strength and conditioning bloke who has no rugby league experience and comes from an AFL background.

He’s not the skills coach FFS.

 

[emjaycee]

Is that you now or the team today?

See edit.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

It will if we're in the same position.

Zero from 24? Unlikely I reckon. A bigger sample will let our quality show.