And while I am in a criticising mood, Dillon Brown had better stop being a so 21st century casual f**ker real fast and start to pay attention to the finer points in the game.
For far to many games he has stuffed up great or scoring opportunities. I as most people love a running half and unless a half has that in his game he will never truly be a great 6 or 7, but really?
His ability to ignore his support players especially on the outside and run instead only to get caught or pass to late is ridiculous. His defense is obviously a standout, but his lack of awareness in his passing is painful on so many levels. As a glaring example of his immaturity at this point in time as a player when he made that massive break against the Knights, he looked to his left which had two unmarked players in support and then went to his right instead because he left it to late to pass to them and went straight into traffic which blew the try completely.
That type of thing is bread and butter stuff for a very good play maker like him. So it is either he can't pass well right to left, therefore panicked, but it is obviously not the case. Or he just is a ball hog who thought he could over play his hand again and do the impossible all on his own. At this stage of his development I choose the later.
Just a little thing again, but when he put up that bomb to Ponga and then ran through and tackled him in the air and conceded a penalty, the manner in which he attacked Ponga was indicative of a player not thinking deeply of his game and just reacting for a big play. There are so many times he has stuffed up with the ball in hand or foot.
What saves him is his defense and the occasional great play, which of course are great signs and he is young and will build on them hopefully. My fear though is his attitude and blasé approach to everything can end up being life long if he doesn't sort it out fast. I know it is good to be relaxed before games, that is not what I am referring to here. He is too chilled and needs to be working on the little things with ball in hand better.
Against Manly he should of stepped up. Yes I know he is very young still, but Manly weren't an intimidating team on the weekend, at times they were so busted and out on their feet and the opportunities were screaming at him to isolate and work certain players over. But he failed terribly. Those are the types of games he should be salivating to take control of, instead he couldn't shovel the ball away quick enough without purpose or just took the line on without affect. It didn't look like a player wanting to own the result and failing, but a guy that was looking around and not sure of what to do.
Why am I on his case since he is basically still only a junior rookie? Because of his immense talent and bad habits are hard to break, especially without a great mentor and your own desire to learn, learn, learn.
He doesn't strike me as a player that lacks any confidence and things have come fairly easily and naturally for him, so add his I'm so cool approach to life, and I don't think he will really knuckle down to develop his game further for at least another 2-3 years. I just don't want to see him go by the way of Shaun Johnson. Bad habits are hard to break. Look how long it has taken Moses and he still isn't out of the woods totally yet.
Oh as for his and Lane's defense being ordinary on the weekend, yes and no. Really mostly the whole team were ordinary against Manly and the damage was done further on the inside and by the time Manly ran at them two, we were already shot to pieces. The majority of the team were woeful on the weekend and wherever Manly scored they made those players directly involved look crappy, but the real damage was done with all the woeful defense and lack of intensity in the lead up work.
