Just a few Questions

[Holla if ya hear me]

Just a few questions about the season
A few other supporters of teams have said "score 30 against the Knights and you win"-Ive got the opinion that they need more "Mongral" in the defence and the bench boys dont seem to provide that-do we need to buy a defensive coach to assist Hagan?
Secondly, the roosters have been the benchmark for defence all year long and whether it be fitness ,conditioning or injuries we havent been close[except maybe dogs game 12-6].Are we now 12 months behind them as they have defended like that all year for the full 80 minutes
The reserves although injuries played a part faired much worse
Again- do we need to employ a Mongrel defensive coach because whoever it is now hasnt worked and we are way behind other teams defensive capabilities .BILLY PEDEN SURELY COULDNT PLUG EVERY HOLE BUT HE MUST HAVE HAD A HUGE IMPACT :evil:

 

[Anonymous]

A defensive coach might work. I am not sure, I would be happy for them to do that, just as long as we get our tactics correct.

The issue is our overall game plan for mine. Too much relying on scoring points rather than denying our opposition time with the ball in good field position.

How many times have we seen Matt Gidley bat a ball on into the crowd this year? How many times have we used a torpedo bomb instead of an in-goal kick and chase? We don’t respect the football when we have it. We are playing a mid 90's style when the game has changed to be a much more field position and defensive oriented game. I may not love that style but you need to counter it with your own fire.

When you play football in your opponents half the number of trys scored against you is cut by two thirds as far as I can tell from metrerage stats on try runs. If we cut our 'against' record by two thirds then we are minor premieres, it as simple as that.

We seem to be lagging behind on thought as to how to go about doing these things. For instance, the best defensive sides use the kick-off to setup their camp down in the oppositions 20. They start there and stay there. What do we do? We use a kick-off designed to cause an error and give us possession, it has worked twice this year ( please correct me if I am wrong ), this tactic generally results in the opposition working the ball out from their 30 metre line, which has the effect of forcing us to play a spread defensive line and thus stops us from being able to hit the opposition hard. It also assists their kicking game. That kind of example is reflective of our overall decline in the tactical kicking game.

I know these kind of issues sound pedantic, but take a look at the Roosters, they won that game last night with the 1st set of six. I was horrified when I saw they had the kick-off, because I knew how well they would use it and set themselves up for the rest of the game.

When they had the ball on their own 30-metre line and they had nothing going on, they used an early tackle kick taking advantage of the fact that our wingers were up and Robbie was playing short. The net effects of those tactics are massive. It means that we have to work twice as hard as our opposition, in an area that is not conducive to us scoring points, but is conducive to our opposition scoring in the event of a turn over of possession.

THIS is why don’t defend well. Because we don’t setup our game well enough when we have the ball.

I am positive that our issue isn’t one of strength, nor is it a fitness issue or lack of effort. I believe that Andrew and Michael got it wrong this year with the kicking game. Our line is not that bad either, although it needs some attention. Our setup and our mind set while we have the ball is totally wrong, and unless we fix it we will not finish any higher next season no matter how many less injuries we sustain.

Kicking games have changed, they are now used to defend not attack, we would do well to look at who wins this year and why. We didn’t bother last year and look where it got us, same result.


:roll:

 

[Holla if ya hear me]

Great post and ideas Pando
You and i should coach them next year
or at least pass the tips on to Michael Hagan 8)

 

[Alex28]

The problem with the Knights is in regards to coaching Michael Hagan is a little too 'matey' with the boys. The club needs to get a bit of "mongrel" into the players - toughen them up - this is what we have lacked this year and truth be known for a while before that.

better defensive coaching is a must - start of the year the boys had proven they could play for 80 minutes...by the end of the year that was all gone.

last night their defence was awful in the first half. they were clearly overwhelmed by the situation but another year's experience will help the team shake that "one man team" tag once and for all...

 

[Anonymous]

I dont think we can change. The style of play we play is now referred to as a 'Knights Style' we play a very unique style. I dont see why we have to follow suit, i like the fact that we go out there with the attitude, whatever you score we will score more. The panthers are also playing a Knights style football, they rely on attack rather than defence. Who the hell makes up silly ideas that defence is the key and is the only way to win games? Who's to say that attack isnt the key to winning games? Who were the minor premiers? Panthers, and they had the 2nd worst defence in the top 8 with us being the worst. Who cares if phil gould says defence is they key, he only says it because thats how the roosters play, hes been saying for the last few weeks that the panthers wont win the title because they have defence lapses, well who really cares about that if they can score at will? Thats why they are the minor premiers and the roosters arent.

 

[Holla if ya hear me]

Again a fair point but id like to see them play more aggressive and with our attack we can win more than you lose.BUT you cant give away 30 points in nearly every game
If you had a dollar for every time the team let in a try in the final 5 minutes of the first half you have at least 20 dollars by the end of the season.Sorry- thats not good enough anymore

 

[Knight76]

Score more than 30 points againsr any team and you win %90 of the time

 

[snapper]

Spot on Pando.
The Panthers may have been minor premiers, but the Roosters had injuries to key players plus 7 players in the Origin squads and still managed to run 2nd. We were making excuses every week for missing blokes while they were sticking to an extremely structured and aggressive game plan.

When the Knights first came into the competition, it was often said that the side the Knights played one week, would get beat the next week due to how physical we were in defence. Sure we didn't win a hell of a lot of games in those days, but we didn't have the quality backline that we now have. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that our worst couple of defeats we have had have been in the last couple of seasons.

Get the defence right, and we are :twisted: a feared side again.