Geez, I could read that article 100x over. Wonderful analysis. Really exhibits that our 'processes' are good, but the goal of rugby league which is to win games by scoring points, and denying the other team of the same, is not.
Unfortunately, I can't see how that gets remedied. Our left-side attack is up to nothing. TMM is as vanilla as it comes in setting up his outsides, Roger is starved of decent ball and doesn't have much if any experience in running a line as a centre, and Montoya is a plodder. Metcalf has clearly been a much, much bigger loss than certainly I appreciated, or anyone else may have.
So teams can smother that right side attack. Smother SJ and give him limited time, put pressure on Berry, deny DWZ that corner, and really we're not up to much. We do score the odd try though the middle when AFB, Tohu etc punch through, but the stats show the good teams are scoring wider..and we're not.
The writer says we might not be far away, but I took it differently from those stats. We're dominating field position, but really it's hard to see where our points will come from. I can really see some fatigue setting in to our big guys - AFB is playing big minutes and is off to Cronulla next year, if we're starting to be on the brink of missing finals, is he going to keep fronting up each week? Barnett has taken on a huge load, and doesn't have that experience of doing that as a prop. The young guys aren't playing big minutes. Gee, I dunno...either we get our injured guys back and Webster gets it right as a coach, or I can see a world where the air really goes out of the tyres as we go on.