Interesting day today, went through the game with 2 Junior rep coaches and this is their observations.
Moses had a better than average game, let down only by that kick for goal, redeemed by excellent conversions, decent defence and general kicking
First Souths try was a play where Taka Didn’t appear to tell Gennings to cover his winger, centres role is to let his outside player know he has it covered, no sight of any comm7nicarion from Taka.
Second try, Evans and Stone read the play as going to Souths left and did not come across to cover the gap, very poor defence read.
Third try, one of the big issues is the way we defend, appear to be the only side that is trained to defend side on to prevent quick play the balls, but lack of front on defence just allows their shoulders to be turned and Davey was caught and Lane fell off the tackle as he came across to cover.
The kick was simply a poor adjustment by the team when the ball hit the post, coupled with Taka unfortunately not being a good lateral mover so the bounce of the ball hurt big time. They did make the observation that Jax Paulo moved the ball forward over Takas hand, didn’t see it as an issue.
The intercept was a result of trying too hard and moving away from what we were doing, in saying that Jax Paulo was obscured and it looked as if there was a chance to get a big break and possibly a try.
The final try when Moses chipped through, they were not sure as the referee impeded Moses by tripping him, they said that’s often a scrum to the attacking team , but it was what it was.
their final remarks were Cook should have been in the sin bin for the most professional foul on Junior, when their defence was out of position and we had a 4 on 2 on our right side, weak ref decision.
To wrap up 2 very important and crucial things, they said leaving our 3 middles off at the start of the second half was using replacements by the clock , not by what the game needed. We went back and taking them off 10 minutes before half time and bringing them back 15 minutes after the half was the norm for most of our games . Need to adjust to needs not the clock.
Defence was better, fanned out as play moves into our half, guilty of playing too narrow for the whole field in the past. Tackling style seemed to be side which leaves to offloads, that was a style used more than 5 seasons ago, front on defence is what the top teams use, quick off the line and front on.
Bit long, but it interested me, so thought others might feel the same.
