Some in the media were questioning why Hughes wasn’t targeted more in defence last week so I decided to revisit the tape of the game.
This is why Bellamy is an elite coach . Trying to find Hughes in the defensive line was a bit like trying to find Where’s Wally. Normally the right edge is Hughes/Meaney/Warbrick. But for the first 2 tackles in each defensive set Hughes was defending 2 in instead of 3 in, then moving to his normal position.Another defensive set he’d be on the wing for the first 2 tackles before going to his normal position of 3 in. Usually after a kick or a turnover he would defend on the wing for 2 tackles then go back to 3 in.
So in summary he was rotating his position in defence between wing, centre and half. No wonder he only had to make something like 9 tackles for the whole match.
The bad news for Brisbane is that all of Melbourne’s spine had outstanding games against the Sharks. The good news though is that the Sharks still went very close to winning. There are some areas that the Broncos can exploit which I’ll outline here.
First of all Howarth has a tendency to rush out of the defensive line and leave a yawning gap behind him. He did this twice and Katoa cashed in after a great pass from Kennedy. The other time in the 2nd half almost lead to another break. I would definitely target the channels either side of him. Walsh and Staggs are perfect for this. The space to the right of Lisati should be another target zone, maybe running an outside in line to that channel.
The Broncos should spread the ball quickly to their left early in the tackle count to target Hughes who will be stationed on the wing or 1 in . I noticed too that Warbrick drops back about 10 metres on the 2nd last tackle of the setbefore dropping right back on the last. So running it left down his corridor on the 2nd last tackle might reap rewards.
When defending their goalline Paps tends to defend in the line for the first 3 or 4 tackles so there’s a good opportunity for a grubber in goal for Staggs et al early in the set to take advantage of the open space.
From what I saw last week the Broncos have to make more of an attempt to slow the Storm’s ptb down because the Panthers had them under a lot of pressure purely by getting fast ptbs. The Broncos red zone attack was both frantic and disjointed last week. They really need to get on the same page and nail their last tackle options.
I still think the aerial attack from the Storm holds the key. I thought the Storm would go to the little dinky kick to a rampaging Coates or Warbrick time and time again last week . Maybe he’s saving it for the big dance.
Storm by 6
