Was always going to be a tough start to the season.
5 tough games to begin
disrupted preseason, with a lot of players missing it
first 4 weeks lucky to get back, Mini, Lafranci, Friend, Myers (half our pack)
No set no.6
I mentioned the importance of a good spine in the podcast last week.
1,6,7,9
Ours is horrible at the moment, we will be a lot better once Friend is back, he controls the speed of the ruck, and gives us room inside our 20. At the moment our only play is Prince crabbing across field, which does not work inside the 20 against a sliding defense. and of course a kick.
The problem with us lies in the number 6.
A halfbacks role is to get a team to inside the 20, and give enough room for the 5/8 to create a scoring a play, Prince does this comfortably.
We need to use a creative 5/8 to get that last 20 meters, and our persistence to use a hole runner with an offload like (Bird, Harrison, Rogers, Hilder) very rarely works close to the line. We have a creative 5/8 in Preston, he won a GF there. But wont be used there as he is a liability in defense, and is better suited to errr hooker(cough cough)
With a spine of
1. Zillman
6. Preston/ (Bird first 20 min maybe)
7. Prince
9. Friend
we will look a lot better, and be back winning games again.
Thank f**k the season is not 3 weeks long, the start is horrible, but nothing we can not turn around, and we have a team that can win 5-6 in a row once on a roll.