Rd16: Parra v Penrith GAME DAY THREAD @ Bluebet Stadium 2/7/21

[Poupou Escobar]

Tries off kicks are still worth 4 points right?
And if you have the ability to (1) kick to a precise location (2) have the chasers there to pressure the catcher (3) have the skill to get the ball back and score from it, isn't that a valid form of attack?

Or should we just ignore that aspect of the game? Rep selectors always look for halves with a good attacking kicking game, why is that?

Because against strong defences the kick becomes more important. Half of our tries in the Storm final last year were from kicks.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Adam Reynolds would have nailed that kick easily.

Reynolds has missed plenty of kicks. Likewise, Moses has kicked harder ones than that. Every kick is a chance of missing, even the ones from right in front.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Being able to score tries from kicks is an asset, but why can't we come up with other ways?

Sivo has scored plenty of tries from passes.

 

[Angry_eel]

That’s our point, it works against the shit teams which their are plenty but it doesn’t work against the top ones. We need something more to compete and break the top sides defences down.

We don't have a game breaker like Turbo. We're a different team.

 

[Chipmunk]

OR you play to your strengths?

We are in the top teams in almost all if the stats, but you still seek to bring us down.

You dont offer constructive criticism or offer reserved positivity. You just seek to bring us down, win lose or draw.

Stats

The official NRL stats of the National Rugby League, NRL and NRLW player statistics, as well as NRL and NRLW competition statistics.

www.nrl.com

I read your stats link and one showed everything of what I am trying to say.

I've been banging on about our attack and it's lack of shape/structure. The fact that we're ninth on the list for decoy runs shows how poor our shape/structure is compared to the top 2 sides.

1. Storm - 879
2. Panthers - 826
9. Eels - 578

The Panthers use around 15% more decoy runs than the third best (729), and the Storm 20% more than the third best.

Given we've played the same amount of games as these two sides, the Panthers used decoy runners 43% of the time, and the Storm 52% more than us.

The Storm have 3 players in the top 4, and 4 in the top 20, for individual decoy runs. We have none in the top 20.

We need to get some attacking structure/shapes that use more decoy runners. This is the area of the game I'm talking about why we need improvement with our attack. This comes down to the coaching staff who in charge of the attack, but also is a large part about 1% effort areas of the players executing it on the field, it has very little to do with talent of the players available on the field. Just get your arse into position and do the job.

Is it just a coincidence that Panthers and Storm are well ahead of the field in this competition, and with this one particular stat they are also streets ahead of everyone else? This is not really a causation statistic that occurs because of other factors (e.g. tries are caused by generally other factors than the actual crossing the line and placing the ball down). Get our decoy runners at the levels to that of the Panthers and the Storm and we will beat any team.

 

[The Silverdale Phantom]

Sivo has scored plenty of tries from passes.

‘Spose

This should cheer everyone up a bit;

 

[Poupou Escobar]

How many do we score against the top sides???

In the finals? Four per game last year. Also made a bunch of linebreaks.

 

[Eelementary]

Yep, we're missing him inside those final 10m. Lussick went for a scoot last night and nearly scored but it's the way Reed uses his forwards and he works around them that makes him so good. A crash ball to Paulo is a different play when Reed does it. Those run around plays close to the line as well.

Our attack is much more fluid with Reed, and Reed had a stronger kicking game.

I'd be happy to have Joey on the bench as an impact hooker once Reed is back, though - Joey has played quite well.

 

[Chipmunk]

Sivo has scored plenty of tries from passes.

Only 3 against the Top 6 sides. 9 against the Bottom 6.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Niukore at centre was a nuffie?

Front rowers shouldn't be defending at centre.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

And he moves Marata from centre (where he was doing a great job

Like Dunster, he was never really tested. Olam got outside him a few times but otherwise we were lucky it was wet and Melbourne were cautious about going wide. Do you really think Niukore wouldn't have been exposed if he'd played right centre against Manly or Souths? Opacic is a better defender and Souths still got around him easily.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Supreme attacking machine penrith scored the same amount of tries as us last night. Both teams had key spine players out.

And who's the better replacement? May (40 NRL wins at 25 years of age) or Lussick (2 NRL wins at 25.5)? bear in mind, with one half out the other (current Origin player Luai) can take up much of the slack. But when your dummy half is gone his replacement has to do 100% of the work.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

I am more worried about our defence against the top 2 sides.

Yep. Merkins who think our attack is a problem are off their heads. We are playing to our strengths and scoring plenty. But our need to compress in defence puts a lot of pressure on our edges.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

He's just described two movements within the same dimension.

A bomb and a pass to Sivo are two different things.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

It’s why Lane missed that tackle on their hooker that let in a ‘soft’ try.

Lane didn't miss a tackle, he was stepped and Paulo hadn't moved up to fill the gap. Lane did the right thing; he moved up in line with his outside defender. Paulo was the one who didn't make the effort:

 

[Parra]

The tries off kicks aren’t the actual issue. The tries off kicks to a degree are masking up the the issues. We have no creativity, game plans target the opposition or attacking flare.

Tries are a major contributor to scoring in rugby league. And we score heaps of them. This is a very good thing.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

We can look at doing it earlier to set some doubts

There's no point offloading when the defence is fresh and energetic and crowding the ball with numbers. Offloads in that case just lead to loss of metres, slow play-the-balls and turnovers.

 

[crocodile]

The tries off kicks aren’t the actual issue. The tries off kicks to a degree are masking up the the issues. We have no creativity, game plans target the opposition or attacking flare.

We obviously have creative kickers.

 

[Chipmunk]

Lane didn't miss a tackle, he was stepped and Paulo hadn't moved up to fill the gap. Lane did the right thing; he moved up in line with his outside defender. Paulo was the one who didn't make the effort:

Does anyone actually get recorded for the missed tackle in that instance?

You can't miss a tackle if you don't attempt it.

Highlighting that stats only tell part of a story. Most stats don't show the many 1% effort areas that you need to be successful as a team in the NRL. Particularly those where there is no glory for the player.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

It's a worrying sign that 72% of our tries have been scored against teams outside of the Top 8, and 30% of all our tries have come from kicks.

That would only be worrying if we hadn't scored many tries. But we've scored heaps of them. Why wouldn't most of them be against the bottom sides? That's why they're the bottom sides.

Against the current top eight we are averaging over three tries per game (3.14). Against the top six it's exactly 3 tries per game. Against top two it is 2.5 per game. Pretty well expected relative scoring rate. I don't see what you're worried about. Melbourne and Penrith have only scored 2 tries per game against each other. They obviously do much better against weaker teams than we do, but I understand 'flat track bullies' isn't a point of praise for you.