he's the least of our problems...
Luke is a very talented footballer but tends to perform when others around him are doing their job properly.
And our team has performed best when we have played direct and let offloads become a strong facet of our game rather than the crux of it.
Burt is a clever footballer and is a highly talented player outright but his value to the team comes to the forefront when he is getting aggressive ball (be it by kick or pass) from his playmakers (pretty much Hayne). He is nearly always exceptionally positioned for either and has a knack of converting those half opportunites into 4 pointers.
Early in the season Haynes double cut to Burt was our premier scoring tactic, yet with Hayne taking on more and more responsibilties across the park it has being put back on the shelf.
Our pack is doing the hard yards up the middle and more often than not is dominant over the opposition, at least in offence but our halves (bless their souls...) are both too focused on working the short/inside balls and simply too slow in their genuine backline distribution (i.e passing it beyond a playmaking Hayne).
Coming back to my earlier point, our best games (Manly pt 2, Melbourne) involved us playing tougher and straighter, forcing the defence to make tough choices and then utilising select and effective offloading to generate pressure and space for Hayne/Robson/Mortimer to get the ball out wide for Grothe/Inu and Burt.
On a mighty fine tangent Mortimer should not be kicking for touch, taking defensive 5th tackle kicks (unless Hayne, Robson, Keating Bros aren't available) and needs to shelve the wonky bomb and learn the crossfield chip and the grubber. Then maybe Burt will feature more in non-Hayne related attacking raids.
