they have a very soft under belly. Definatly not anywhere near contenders until they get big forwards with big motors. atm there is none.
The soft underbelly is a major issue. The defensive commitment was horrendous.
First try - McInnes and Royce both slow, half hearted efforts on Marshall-King who strolls through. Try.
Second Try - Jesse poor arm grab at Aitken who brushes him off. No cover. Try.
Third Try - Ronnie tries to shut down a 2 on 1 with another arm grab. Gets brushed off. Moylan and Teig go low and get brushed off. Not one the three gets any reasonable contact 10 meters out from the line. Try.
Fourth try - simple unders line. Dale too slow to cover, misses the tackle. Hynes and Kennedy can't stop the run in cover. Try.
Fifth try - Their Katoa digs into the line to hold up the slide. Sharks are stretched but sliding and should have it covered. Katoa goes for the intercept but is beaten by the pass. Try. The first try that used any real skill.
Sixth try - line moves up 10 metres from the tryline. Moylan takes a step back as Talakai takes a step forward to go to his man. Moylan with a poor arm grab creates the offload chance for Milford to put the rookie over.
Five out six of tries conceded through poor defensive technique and commitment. Arm grabbing, lack of real intent to stop the player are indicators of the poor attitude. Possession was skewed but that will happen when conceding 5 tries in a half. The first try was after 5 minutes. That wasn't fatigue. Ramien arm grabbing at Aitken wasnt fatigue. Poor individual efforts compounded into into a very poor team effort.
Canberra know to beat Cronulla, you beat them physically. Souths did it in the final. Defensive steel and mental resolve are the missing ingredients.
Time for some home truths from the coach. Pretty attack looks a million bucks against ordinary teams in regular season games. Defensive steel wins big games when the opponent is up for the fight.
