Four from Eleven, Griffin is a dead man walking.

[betcats]

it is but the total opposite then what Penrith do. It is a move we need to use more

I agree. We need a lot more straight hard runners. This is what has people worried right now, this is basic stuff that we can't even get right 6 games into the season. Do we have no attacking game plan at all? Its like every one is just told to go out and throw it around. We haven't improved as a team in that regard at all since last season. Even Merrin cant take a hit up without trying to promote the ball. Put the offload away and lets just f**king run through teams, we have a squad that can do that but we aren't for whatever reason.

 

[Copperhead]

Yep, absolutely.

I'm sick of the excuses.

Take the Roosters game where some people blame the forward pass, in that game we took two penalty goals in the second half instead of going for the try. Now we're supposed to be an attacking team & we choose the safe option, only have ourselves to blame.

Nobody's brought this up before, but you're right. Last week we had just got on top. CHN scored in the 28th minute and the momentum had swung in our favour. Instead of pressing home the advantage we took a penalty at the 32 minute mark to make it 14 - 8. We lost that momentum and Souths scored 4 minutes later.

 

[mxlegend99]

Nobody's brought this up before, but you're right. Last week we had just got on top. CHN scored in the 28th minute and the momentum had swung in our favour. Instead of pressing home the advantage we took a penalty at the 32 minute mark to make it 14 - 8. We lost that momentum and Souths scored 4 minutes later.

And if we knock back the 2. Odds are we don't score anything and once Souths score that try we are down by 2 points. We already scored a try off the back of an earlier penalty. The odds at doing it twice in a row are incredibly unlikely. We would just be pissed off that we knocked back the chance to put our lead to a converted try.

Penalty goals that level you up or take you to a converted try lead are not a bad decision. Nor are the ones to increase your lead beyond a converted try. Momentum was never really in our favor that much. The only time we ever had momentum was when Burns dropped one of the Cleary bombs.

Just look at how long we spent in attacking positions against the Storm with nothing to show for it. I think the penalty goal was the correct decision for us. We don't seem to have any attacking structures to score in the opposition 20. It's just dumb luck when we do.

 

[Copperhead]

Penalty goals that level you up or take you to a converted try lead are not a bad decision. Nor are the ones to increase your lead beyond a converted try. Momentum was never really in our favor that much. The only time we ever had momentum was when Burns dropped one of the Cleary bombs.

Just look at how long we spent in attacking positions against the Storm with nothing to show for it. I think the penalty goal was the correct decision for us. We don't seem to have any attacking structures to score in the opposition 20. It's just dumb luck when we do.

Remember we lost. So the 2 points didn't help us at all. Taking the kick to extend our lead to beyond a converted try is one thing, but do you really think Souths cared whether they trailed by 4 or 6. What did matter though, was it got us off their try line. "Momentum was never really in our favour that much", because we chose to give it away. Souths defence is not the same as Melbournes'.

 

[betcats]

Agree with Copperhead here, we take the two too often, it's a let off for teams at times.

 

[mxlegend99]

Remember we lost. So the 2 points didn't help us at all. Taking the kick to extend our lead to beyond a converted try is one thing, but do you really think Souths cared whether they trailed by 4 or 6. What did matter though, was it got us off their try line. "Momentum was never really in our favour that much", because we chose to give it away. Souths defence is not the same as Melbournes'.

2 points are better than zero.

We had no game plan in the opposition 20. We just throw it around and hope for the best. You dont need great defence to stop us. Just need to be committed.

Most teams will make that exact same decision 9 time out of 10.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

Roosters outscored us 3 tries to 1. We weren't unlucky. We were just not good enough.

I would love to see some stats on how often a team that kicks a penalty goal in the first half goes on to win.

 

[panther.mike]

The question is..Do we panic? and the answer is Yes Why? because we are panther fans, thats what we do. All the rest is why we panic.

 

[mxlegend99]

Roosters outscored us 3 tries to 1. We weren't unlucky. We were just not good enough.

I would love to see some stats on how often a team that kicks a penalty goal in the first half goes on to win.

Well quiet often both teams will do it... so its probably very close to 50%.

Teams will take the 2 to level or gain a lead more often then not. The more interesting stat would be how often do teams score when NOT taking the 2?

Every week you see teams knock back the 2. People get excited a team is backing themselves and they make an error on the first or second tackle and walk away with nothing.

2 points are a waste if it doesnt have a huge effect on what the opposition needs to do to beat you. If you lead by 8 and increase to 10. That's stupid as 2 converted tries will beat you regardless.

But if you lead by 10, increasing your lead to 12 insures they need More than 2 converted tries to beat you. And adds the field goal as an option.

I think our use of penalty goals this year has been fine. The problem is how easily our defence opens up and how bad we are at creating try scoring opportunities against a decent defence. We can camp on a teams line for 5 minutes and not score anything. The second they get the ball they go 100 metres and score.

Take out the 2 games against pea hearted defensive sides and what have we scored this year?

2 tries against Dragons with 43% possession
1 try against Roosters with 49% possession
1 try against Storm with 54% possession
3 tries against Souths with 52% possession

7 tries in 4 games against the teams who have a legitimate go in defence. 13 tries in the other 2 games against teams who didn't.

Its easy to look back and say the penalty goals were the issue. But taking 2 instead of zero kept us in 2 of those games. If we don't take the 2 against Roosters. The game is over well before that forward pass try. If we dont take 2 against Souths, we dont have a chance to win at the end or send it to golden point simply by kicking a field goal.

We have had so many tackles in the opposition 20 that lead to nothing. Our conversion rate of opportunities against a committed defence is incredibly low. When we can start to crack them maybe taking the 2 would less appealing.

Although we kicked penalty goals against Knights and Tigers also. They didn't hurt our momentum though. Because we were actually better than them.

 

[betcats]

Mx you're acting like we will always f**k up when going for a try instead of taking the goal, we are going to score off it sometimes if we go for it, we will also f**k up as well but as seen against souths we f**k up after taking the two also and let teams score straight after it. If we were more aggressive against the roosters there is a very good chance we score off one of those penalties and the whole game changes, 2 points barely changes things most of the time we take it. We have taken the two this year and last when we get a penalty after a repeat set already, the other team looks completely gone and we take the two to go 2 - 0 up or just to go up by 10 instead of 8 or something silly.

 

[mxlegend99]

Mx you're acting like we will always f**k up when going for a try instead of taking the goal, we are going to score off it sometimes if we go for it, we will also f**k up as well but as seen against souths we f**k up after taking the two also and let teams score straight after it. If we were more aggressive against the roosters there is a very good chance we score off one of those penalties and the whole game changes, 2 points barely changes things most of the time we take it. We have taken the two this year and last when we get a penalty after a repeat set already, the other team looks completely gone and we take the two to go 2 - 0 up or just to go up by 10 instead of 8 or something silly.

We had an opportunity to take the 2 earlier and knocked it back. Decided to back ourselves and scored... a bit later the same opportunity arose and we took the 2.

What are the chances we score twice in a row? We played the odds. Youre looking back trying to blame that for the loss. Which is f**king ridiculous. We lost because our right edge was ripped apart by Cody Walker everytime they went there. Dean Whare played his worst ever defensive game for us... funnily enough after securing a new 5 year deal with us.

We did exactly what most teams would do. The same people critiscizing that wpuld be calling them stupid if they instead went for a try. Made an error than Souths score and held a 2 point lead over us. Guaranteed.

Theres no way Broncos or Storm would have said no to extending their lead to its. Or Sharks or Cowboys.

 

[betcats]

We had an opportunity to take the 2 earlier and knocked it back. Decided to back ourselves and scored... a bit later the same opportunity arose and we took the 2.

What are the chances we score twice in a row? We played the odds. Youre looking back trying to blame that for the loss. Which is f**king ridiculous. We lost because our right edge was ripped apart by Cody Walker everytime they went there. Dean Whare played his worst ever defensive game for us... funnily enough after securing a new 5 year deal with us.

We did exactly what most teams would do. The same people critiscizing that wpuld be calling them stupid if they instead went for a try. Made an error than Souths score and held a 2 point lead over us. Guaranteed.

Theres no way Broncos or Storm would have said no to extending their lead to its. Or Sharks or Cowboys.

I'm speaking generally here not just about the souths game. We shouldn't just go for it all the time but equally we should not just take the two every time(which we tend to do when Moylan is captain). The broncos took the tap against the roosters last Thursday when already leading by four or six(and scored), and Bennet is the guy who made going for the two so popular. And Cameron Smith will take the tap also when its on regardless of the score line.

 

[mxlegend99]

And yet Smith kicked a penalty goal against us. Our defence was shit and he still took the 2.

 

[betcats]

And yet Smith kicked a penalty goal against us. Our defence was shit and he still took the 2.

So it depends on the situation obviously which is exactly what I am saying, if the defence looks set or your attack is struggling(which Melbourne have been of late) then take it for sure. Before last week we hadn't taken a tap that close to the line for a long time except when we were already up two tries or the occasional quick tap someone took before Moylan got a chance to point to the posts. Its silly just always taking the two. The captain or coach should judge the situation and make a call, not just point to the post automatically. Like we took a penalty goal against the knights right after half time to go from 22 to 24 nil or something ridiculous. That is stupid, why be aggressive and go for the points, practice some set plays or something.

 

[mxlegend99]

Penalty Goals:
Maloney - 6
Cleary - 6
Widdop - 5
Thurston - 5
Smith - 5
Kahu - 4
Walker - 4

3 of our 6 were against Roosters but we still only average 1 per game. Yet you're acting like its some stupid decision that is killing our monentum and losing us games. It's not. Thats the least of our concerns

Our defence is the biggest issue. Peachey was torn a new one on here after Chambers carved him up. The following week Whare is carved up by Walker. Walker was the reason Souths won more than anything.

Our attack has struggled in the opposition 20. Our issue is we can camp on the opposition line with set after set and get nothing. Then they go and score against us the first opportunity. That happens to us against any committed defence. Momentum is an illusion with us... we can have the ball but not be a genuine chance at scoring. We are nowhere near the side we were last year.

Ontop of thar we are butchering opportunities like there's no tomorrow. You could probably find 2 or 3 in each game which we butchered. If we stop doing that we can start punishing teams and not need to question what to do after penalties.

 

[Copperhead]

Its easy to look back and say the penalty goals were the issue.

Nobody ever suggested it was THE issue, only that it was another one to add to a long list.

 

[betcats]

I never said it lost us any games, I just agreed with copperhead that we should be more aggressive and go for it when the circumstances are right. But when we have momentum and then give the other team a 3 minute rest and let them score a few minutes after that then its a f**k up, there is no denying that. Like I said against souths was the first time in a long time we actually went for it with the scores close and it paid off. Its boring, conservative and a lot of the time a let off for the other team. Anyway lets agree to disagree because this is getting ridiculous.

 

[betcats]

Nobody ever suggested it was THE issue, only that it was another one to add to a long list.

Exactly its just one small issue that shits me. Our team doesn't think, they just mindlessly do what this coach tells them. Run the ball on last instead of going for repeat sets no matter how well set the defence is, always take the two. Its like we are trying to play risk free footy and then we go out and make 15 passes a tackle and try and offload every single chance we get and sit in the top 3 for errors. It makes no sense.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

Not kicking on the last in the final 20 because you are scared of a seven tackle set is one of the stupider coaching strategies around, compounded by the fact that the alternative is crabbing across field, dropping the ball out the back, or basically giving the opposition a chance of an intercept, a zero tackle restart from a knock on, or just conceding ground in general. How about teach your halves to kick in the opposition 20 and/or let them actually try it and thus get better at it?

 

[mxlegend99]

Yeah we seem very scared with our kicking game. I don't mind the tactic of bombing a liability under the high ball. But we need a bit more up our sleeve than that. Some options inside the oppisition 20 would be nice. A grubber in goal isn't exactly difficult to get a result from. Angle it so the chasers have more time and the odds at a try or drop out are higher than giving away a 7 tackle set.