Gould's assessment is spot on!

[redback]

Courtesy of today's SMH. Love him or hate him, he's 100% right this time!

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/defense-sharp-but-attack-flat/2009/03/29/1238261444


Coach Ricky Stuart has now had three off-seasons with the Sutherland Shire club. His relentless personality has definitely given this team much-needed steel in the belly. Courtesy of their superb defensive techniques and committed mental toughness, the Sharks manage to keep themselves competitive in most games.

However, Cronulla's attacking deficiencies will continue to plague any premiership aspirations. The start of every new year produces reports the Sharks have worked tirelessly on their attacking game during the summer months.

This year they also recruited four experienced attacking players - all played yesterday - three of them internationals. Despite the hard work and welcome influx of new talent, the first three games of this season have produced only five tries in 240 minutes of football, and three of these came from kicks.

Granted they have some injury problems, but from what I see, the basics in their attacking structures are poor and this team displays little confidence in its ability to produce line breaks and score tries. The "Hail Mary" bomb has become their weapon of choice. Coach Stuart and the Sharks need help.

The inability to score tries will eventually eat away at their resolve. If the batsmen consistently fail to get runs on the board, the bowlers tend to lose heart from always having to defend small totals.

Yesterday they held the Dragons to 10 and still couldn't win.

 

[Gaba]

LOL you beat me to it, overnight i was thinking about Gould and if he will write anything about the sharks, theres the answer

 

[Inferno]

Easy to point out problems, but I don't see any solutions offered there from Gus...

 

[Dragon Slayer]

Bingo!

Ricky has been the common denominator in three seasons (3 games of this one anyway) of poor attack.

We've always heard they're working hard on attack.

Well if it isn't working you have to change the personnel in the team and NOW!

We are promised fireworks in attack and we turn up to see the same sparkler fizzling out on the wing!!

 

[Eion]

f**k off Gould - no credibility. 1 f**king comment 'granted they have some injuries'. And the rest just poison. Try your f**king fullback (acknowledged as our no.1 attacking player). Losing our hard running attacking second rower in fraser (he was scoring some points and laying a few on towards the end of last year). Not having Seymore and losing Barrett during the game. To say nothing of Ross and Misi.

Ricky's a good coach and the club needs him. We are not a powerhouse team and will struggle to attrack big names - but Ricky's our best chance for doing that and finally winning a premiership. Does anyone seriously think there's a coach out there (except maybe Bennett) who's better?

 

[Generalzod]

Gould should be concerned on what's going on at the Roosters

 

[floating pie]

hmm... with a quarter of the salary cap out injured or suspended, of course it would be hard to get the attack running smoothly.

It is only round three with a whole crop of new players too.

But I'm sort of with Guss on this one. If we haven't improved by round 10, then I'll be agreeing completely - something will need to be done.

 

[Eion]

I suppose gus' next article will be lampooning freddy on their poor start without the sharks' excuses. Oh that's right he's chock a block up freddy and hates ricky's guts.

 

[The Dodger]

lol

good old goose.

im not slitting my wrists yet.

 

[Miller was a legend]

I cannot stand the man, but sorry if this annoys anyone. He is right. Take away the emotion of how we feel about the goose and his dislike of sticky, what he wrote is factual. We are all saying it ourselves. We have the forwards, we have the halves, we have injury and suspension woes, but our backs are crap. We just don't have the speed and / or talent to run quality plays in the backs. Look at yesterday, an overlap is created and Cov can make like 5 - 10 meters before being chopped down. Just not good enough at this level.

Stuart can only do so much, but without talent and speed out wide, we will just keep serving up the same old trash and the opposition knows it. They are steeling up on us in the forwards now as that was / is our only strength in attack.

f**k I hate saying that toad is right

 

[Dragon Slayer]

I cannot stand the man, but sorry if this annoys anyone. He is right. Take away the emotion of how we feel about the goose and his dislike of sticky, what he wrote is factual. We are all saying it ourselves. We have the forwards, we have the halves, we have injury and suspension woes, but our backs are crap. We just don't have the speed and / or talent to run quality plays in the backs. Look at yesterday, an overlap is created and Cov can make like 5 - 10 meters before being chopped down. Just not good enough at this level.

Stuart can only do so much, but without talent and speed out wide, we will just keep serving up the same old trash and the opposition knows it. They are steeling up on us in the forwards now as that was / is our only strength in attack.

f**k I hate saying that toad is right

Yep!

And who were our major buys this year?

Barrett- Half Back
Maitua- Lock Forward
Tupou- Second Rower
Hughes- Hooker
Mannah- Prop
Afamasaga- Second Rower
Wright- Centre

We recruited one outside back to the club despite this area being a huge deficiency for the past 4 or 5 years.

Doesn't make sense.

 

[blacktip-reefy]

We recruited one outside back to the club despite this area being a huge deficiency for the past 4 or 5 years.

Doesn't make sense.

How many Did Penrith buy? How many did the Roosters buy? How many did parramatta buy? Broncos? melbourne?

you are an idiot.

You dont build your club by buying wingers. The club is doing its best to follow the Sullivan model which is going to be great for the club.

 

[Miller was a legend]

However the youth recruiting was considerable in backs. This suggests a plan to arrest that problem. Given the circumstances faced by the club and sticky and putting all the known events in some order, we may find that salary cap was always going to be an issue. Yes we got Toupu and a good buy that was, as was Barrett IMO. But beyond that, our slary cap would not have allowed us much room to move. Hughes was no impact on the Cap nor was maitua really, Cheap as chip pick ups. I don't think we would have had the cash available in the Cap to make phone calls to any backs. Thats why they focussed on youth to develop. Lets face it, the Bird incident and decision to part company, then Aderson wanting out has not helped the cause either.

As for blaming Stuart, If the club does not have the Cap he can't buy what he may want. If Ross was gone pre season, we would have money to buy a couple of speedsters when available.

IMO the problems are timing and money, not sticky

 

[Frailty]

How many Did Penrith buy? How many did the Roosters buy? How many did parramatta buy? Broncos? melbourne?

you are an idiot.

You dont build your club by buying wingers. The club is doing its best to follow the Sullivan model which is going to be great for the club.

I remember we bred some good wingers, but then we decide that they aren't worth keeping over Covell or Simmons....

Our team management is absolute tripe reefy.

 

[spider]

by the time we develop backs with speed, we will not have the forwards we currently do

then we are back to square one - we need to align the moons...

 

[Miller was a legend]

So true Spide. I think the end of Ross will be one event to allow that to start. What he has been paid is crazy for what he had to offer. Not saying he has no ticker, far from it, but this team needs fast backs not an overpaid front rower. Timing is everything and we are not getting that right at all.

 

[blacktip-reefy]

I remember we bred some good wingers, but then we decide that they aren't worth keeping over Covell or Simmons....

Our team management is absolute tripe reefy.

I thought they were going to be good too. I was wrong. Where are they now?

 

[spider]

merritt was crap when he played for us

but he has developed and i would take him over both covell and simmons nowdays

 

[blacktip-reefy]

No thanks. I liked what I saw from Simmons yesterday.

 

[spider]

what exactly did you like about his game?

nice leap and catch - ill give that

what else did he do that is up there?