From a well known Griffin and Gus hater I'd like to ask a honest question to the supporters of the staff.
Can you now see our starts are an issue and if its not the coaches fault who's is it?
Your words 'hater' give away your mindset and if I'm honest, that of a few others on here. Life is too short, I don't hate anyone.
Once you start hating somebody you become irrational. You find ways to ignore 2 for 2. You find ways to blame Hook when our halfback can't convert opportunities in the red zone. People become irrational and say "red zone conversion is solely the coaches fault". Is it? Because if that was so we wouldn't pay halves the most in the team. Instead clubs would be going all out to find the attacking coaching geniuses that will come up with the next red zone masterpiece. For some reason, in spite of this evident truth, it's all the coaches fault (in our case it means Hook), clubs decide that they'll spend a fortune on a half instead. Worse still, the media ignore this too and laud players like JT and Cronk. Crazy eh?
You find ways to ignore us having a halves pairing barely old enough to drink in Hawaii (May and Cleary 2017). Somehow, when we have young, inexperienced halves we are going to buck the trend of every grand final winning team ever and all the teams that made up the top four and make the four and win a grand final. We didn't do that so Hook must be to blame.
Hate doesn't work for me, it removes the ability to critically think and make unbiased judgements.
To answer your question, our starts are a problem and is it Hook's fault. You have to ask why are our starts bad? Well we do have a very young and inexperienced roster, so we can be a bit error prone until we settle into a game. Over enthusiasm leading to snatching at balls and knocking on (Edwards), giving away penalties (Leota, JFH) and making mistakes. In short, we are too enthusiastic, which when you think about it, makes sense given the age of some of our players. Once we are behind, the enthusiasm becomes reined in and the players become more focused on getting the simple things right. A nil-nil scoreboard seems to turn our players into a bunch of 4 year olds running about like skittish puppies. It also then rubs off on the senior players (Maloney made a few clangers in round 1 trying to create something early on) who try and make big plays to offset a mistake, leading to, you guessed it, a mistake.
This is also compounded by our biggest issue and that is red zone conversion (worse than our starts because we can't score against good defences). We often get to the red zone early on, get frustrated and throw terrible passes that can lead to turnovers and the defending team making a break away. This allows the opposition an easy ride into our half and the good teams build pressure and turn it into points.
Are poor starts Hook's fault? Well yes and no, partly. Firstly, since it is a known issue he should be trying to come up with a strategy to combat it and so far he has manifestly failed. Secondly, the starts are also to do with the age of the roster we have. They are young and inexperienced. That isn't Hook's fault but he should be coming up with a plan to help the young players settle down. Conversely, I think the inexperience of the team means they also play fearlessly when we get behind and that helps us get back into the game. They have made mistakes to get us to, ahem, 14 nil down, but they don't let that effect their confidence. Hook has to get credit for creating an environment where that they don't feel diminished by mistake, but he must work out how to settle them down early on.
Perhaps we need to start games cautiously like two heavyweight boxers circling each other in round 1, throwing the odd jab, but not trying to knock each other out yet. Not start at a million miles an hour and giving our young players a sugar rush that makes them think they can dash from dummy half and score a try in the first 5 minutes (Edwards round 1). Hit ups, kick, tackle. That's it. Keep it simple for the first ten. NSW did it brilliantly, albeit for 80 minutes instead of 10 (Gallen hit up, Bird hit, rinse, repeat, kick). A steady start will help settle the nerves and take the edge off the adrenaline so more composed play is possible. Threaten players who give away penalties in the first ten with a spell in reggies or a 100 laps of the oval carrying Steve "Blocker" Roach on their back (obviously, we need Blocker's consent for this).
