Hayne being bad at positioning? Are you kidding me?
Straight away you're showing your bias. It is a fact that Hayne is no good with his positioning, which is crucial for fullbacks. Most Eels fans don't notice it though, because he's the Hayne plane.
You sound no better than the anti-Mortimer people who seem to be hell bent on thinking that he destroyed tonights game.
Pretty obvious you have a strong agenda against Hayne as fullback so i'll clarify a few things for you.
Of course, Mortimer is crap.
Despite what it looks like I'm still prepared to have Hayne at fullback, as long as he at least tries to learn where he should be, and show some more urgency. I have said before and will say it again, I like Hayne and think he is bloody great attacking weapon. I just hate how the fanboys all seem to think he can do no wrong and won't hear any criticism, and the positioning criticism is well founded.
How many fullbacks need wingers to do their job for them? Wrong way to phrase the question, it should've been how many fullbacks do better when their wingers also do their job, there's a reason why both wingers generally fall back to retrieve kicks that go outwide, not sure what kind of ancient footy you've been watching.
Burt covering for him and holding his hand?
Well did you miss Fridays game? it was noticed by everyone that Hayne was moved down one side while Burt took the middle. Gus mentioned it and also mentioned Hayne was poor positionally. Did you not see Hayne spill the bomb, Burt was right behind him to get it, that is covering his arse.
Please, I may sound biased but for your sake more so than mine, WATCH the game again if you want to make something resembling criticism, Prince, Campbell and Rogers were given so much time and space, the easiest option was generally to kick to Burt or in-goal.
Here we go, lets look for excuses for Hayne being out of position, this opposition halves having more space is getting a run now. I don't expect miracles from him and he wasn't as bad against the Titans as he was against the Roosters but we shouldn't be reaching for excuses to cover for him.
The opposition halves have the same amount of space as ours but we're not used to seeing halves put in good kicks because ours are hopeless, so we have to look for excuses as to why the other halves' kicks look so good. So granted the other halves are better than ours and do look good, but they don't seem to find as much space or kick so well when Slater or some other good fullback there.
There used to be excuses for Mortimer too, 'the whole team is playing bad' 'the forwards aren't doing their job' 'we weren't in attacking position' etc. etc. Well we've had plenty of games where the forwards made plenty of metres and the whole team played good, but we lost because Morts and Robson couldn't organise a root in a brothel.
Had you said Hayne was poor positionally earlier on in the year, okay, i'd give you your five cents and you could go home all happy knowing that I agreed, unfortunately, you probably don't really pay particular attention to what players actually do save for when you hear Daley or Fatty dribbling their usual garbage.
No I've been saying Hayne has been weak positionally ever since he was moved there and hasn't improved at all. Occasionally he will show more urgency or attack a bomb but he slips back into his laid back style soon enough.
People confuse his attacking play with overall form, he looked worse at the start of the year because he was getting into 1st receiver too much. He didn't start to look good this year until he started to play differently, in attack. He stopped trying to be a 5/8 and returned to what went well for him last year, that is sitting back and picking his moments. Injecting himself into the attack when necessary rather than trying to play like Thurston or Lockyer. His defensive fullback play hasn't changed at all though, so his poor positioning has been bad all year, it didn't pick up when he started to play better in attack.
Don't misunderstand, Hayne's not a perfect 'positional' fullback and i certainly am not saying he is, but such a thing doesn't exist. When your team doesn't pressure the halves, you get punished as the fullback with nicely planned kicks.
Next time try finding some criticism outside of the NRL forum or Daley's ass.
lol, I don't expect him to be perfect and probably would settle for what he offers at the back defensively but I can't sit back while fellow Eels fans try to say that he is great at the back, bringing up try saving stats and such.
I'll give your last line straight back to you, slightly changed..
'Next time try finding some Hayne critiques outside of the Eels forum or channel 9 and Fox Sports commentators' asses.'
I don't blame Hayne at all for the Titans loss, Morts and Robson could've been better though, but I still don't blame them either. We just had some bad luck at the wrong times and didn't get enough ball in the 2nd half.
:thumb
