3-2-1 v Tigers

[Meth]

Or maybe, others disagree with the two most prominent voices here

Yeah....umm....that's pretty obvious.

 

[Meth]

Honest Question to Meth and Manu. What would he need to do in order for you to award points?

I've given him points before. Like you, if I feel like he deserves points, I'll give them to him.

Again, I guess for me the primary issue is that I feel like he pretty reliably makes errors in the key moments. e.g I don't think he misses any more tackles than any one else, but I think he's a really good chance of missing a tackle on our line. Same is true (or at least, I perceive it to be) for conceding a penalty, a ruck infringement, an error....I know that there is never a great time for any of these, but there's some times that are worse than others and I feel like Ford transgresses particularly in those times.

Plus sometimes I think he just gets in the way.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

Honest Question to Meth and Manu. What would he need to do in order for you to award points?

His work would need to be effective/quality. That's all. For me it's not even really about errors and penalties so much, they're just particularly galling from someone who also loses the contact every time.

It honestly blows my mind others don't see how Ford is always going backwards in contact on either side of the ball. Slow play the balls, can't slow the play the ball. It should be obvious because his physical effectiveness matches pretty much exactly with what you'd expect from his physical appearance.

Oh yeah also, a lack of physical prowess would be more forgivable if he made up for it with skill, but he's simultaneously the most uncoordinated and most unathletic bloke we have. I honestly think he seems to get graded on a curve relative to his talent, rather than graded fairly compared to other NRL players. Yes, a bloke who can play 60+ minutes is key for us, but I'm sure the squad is stacked with blokes who can come on and play badly for 60 minutes.

I will accept he must be very fit and that is good, but maybe we should call up Hayden Wilde if getting smashed very fit-ly makes you an NRL player.

I just think he does a lot of bad work and the more he's involved, the more bad work we get.

tl;dr = be good

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

ok maybe that's a bit mean

I guess I'd reverse the question and say - what does Ford to do outperform the other forwards in the team? To me it's ludicrous that he has more 3-2-1 points than Leka or Demetric. I can't get there unless I just complete ignore the quality of their work. Demetric comes on and threatens, Ford comes on, gets in the way and makes us attack with 12. Absolutely night and day.

 

[Izz]

It honestly blows my mind others don't see how Ford is always going backwards in contact on either side of the ball.

42.4% of Ford's run metres are post-contact. So he can't always be going backwards in contact, right?

As a comparison - 43.6% of AFB's run metres so far this season are post-contact. Just 1.2% difference. And he's kinda considered the post-contact king...

 

[Meth]

ok maybe that's a bit mean

I guess I'd reverse the question and say - what does Ford to do outperform the other forwards in the team? To me it's ludicrous that he has more 3-2-1 points than Leka or Demetric. I can't get there unless I just complete ignore the quality of their work. Demetric comes on and threatens, Ford comes on, gets in the way and makes us attack with 12. Absolutely night and day.

Yeah, I mean, I get the argument that Ford's playing a part and seeing as he plays his part, the others can play theirs. I'm sympathetic to this argument. But the quality of hit up from Vaimauga and Stowers Smith on the weekend (in comparison to, say, Ford) was night and day.

 

[nswarrior]

We struggled without Ford as a prop once Barnett got injured. Yes, he gives away a penalty or 2 too many esp. when he starts. The big issue was the tackle miss leading to Douheis try. That one is on Webster as he subbed a still relatively fresh Vauimaga for JFH when blind Freddy could see Ford was fatigued.

BTW - how good is Vauimaga going! Becoming my favourite Warrior.

 

[JJ]

42.4% of Ford's run metres are post-contact. So he can't always be going backwards in contact, right?

As a comparison - 43.6% of AFB's run metres so far this season are post-contact. Just 1.2% difference. And he's kinda considered the post-contact king...

Yeah seen this too - interesting

As for the squad being stacked with guys that can play 60 min badly... I am not sure there are many forwards that could play 60 mins full stop (or the last 30-40 would be diabolical because they'd be gassed), and kind of feels like objectively he's not that bad, nor is he as good as some stats suggest - but he's important at the moment imo...

I just don't get the hate, tbh he's not worth this much attention...

On another matter, I too feel for Sexton, guys like him, Boyd etc are such good players, but not good enough to be top level halves... bit like Ford I guess, really good to have around, but ideally not who you want in a starting lineup to threaten a premiership

 

[Meth]

BTW - how good is Vauimaga going! Becoming my favourite Warrior.

Yeah, love him

 

[Thatwasnthighref]

We struggled without Ford as a prop once Barnett got injured. Yes, he gives away a penalty or 2 too many esp. when he starts. The big issue was the tackle miss leading to Douheis try. That one is on Webster as he subbed a still relatively fresh Vauimaga for JFH when blind Freddy could see Ford was fatigued.

I dont know what the stats say or imply, but my gut sense is that Ford's best performances in the middle have been off the bench.

Great motor but doesn't have the physicality to win the middle against fresh defences, and as a result loses more collisions than he otherwise does when he comes on later.

But until Webster's comfortable starting a youngster, or brings back Bunty, we're kinda short on bigger bodies to start alongside Fish.

 

[Izz]

BTW - how good is Vauimaga going! Becoming my favourite Warrior.

You'll enjoy this, then

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

42.4% of Ford's run metres are post-contact. So he can't always be going backwards in contact, right?

As a comparison - 43.6% of AFB's run metres so far this season are post-contact. Just 1.2% difference. And he's kinda considered the post-contact king...

I'm not sure rugby league stats are fit for purpose to do a full break down of this stuff yet, but this stat doesn't surprise me because Ford takes a lot of those sorts of hit ups where defenders hold him up, manipulate him and slow the play the ball down to a crawl. Sides are prepared to give up some post-contact metres these days to slow the play the ball.

That's also one of the most reasonable criticisms of AFB, that he often gets a lot of post-contact metres without hitting the line very hard, but while he's inching forward the play the ball is slowed to a crawl. I'd guess AFB is much less likely than Ford to get put on his back in that situation though. This also doesn't measure how many defenders AFB draws in to each hit-up, where the markers end up, etc.

It's all pretty moot tbh as I don't really think there's a great way to measure "hit up effectiveness" with statistics these days, with the way defences are structured and the way deliberate trades off are made e.g. metres vs play the ball speed, smashing a "weak" runner vs committing less defenders to the tackle etc.

I look at Ford and I'm totally confident defences are having no trouble handling him at all, seems like 90% of this forum watch him and think his carries are solid. I don't think you can definitively prove it either way and I'm happy to have the minority opinion.