Match Discussion: Round 13 vs Storm @ AAMI Park

[perverse]

Their size just stood out to me. Our pack looks tiny. Buhrer wouldn't help that, either. Even their giants are bigger than our giants. How big are the Saifitis exactly? They didn't look particularly imposing out there tonight.

 

[slotmachine]

Yates, Sione, Barnett, all undersized. Stone just a kid.

Fitz has got size but isn't any good. See also, starling.

 

[Caped Crusader]

This is getting to be a real issue

In a comp where really shit teams like the Warriors and Tigers are leagues ahead of us still, what hope do we have?

How much longer can the club afford to be this bad?

 

[Glendale]

This is getting to be a real issue

In a comp where really shit teams like the Warriors and Tigers are leagues ahead of us still, what hope do we have?

How much longer can the club afford to be this bad?

We are a few million under the salary cap. Playing against teams that are worth 3 or 4 mill more then us every week. You'd be more worried if we were spending the full salary cap and still getting these sort of results.

 

[Still Nutty]

So frustrating to watch that game...it really shows how far we have to go. You run top against bottom and you expect to be up against it.

They didn't contrive this result and I accept that refereeing bias about the team expected to win means you aren't going to get 50/50 calls, especially at their home ground. What really frustrates though is the different approach and language they use when talking to players in the ruck....but that didn't cost us the game.

My concern from this game is our continuing trend to perform worse in the second half than we do in the first. From a coaching and strategy point of view this is the most important thing I believe Brownie needs to tackle for the rest of the season.

Whether we win or lose the game overall, is not as important for us as it is to come back out after half time and improve on our first half performance, regardless of whether we are in front or behind at half time.

On tonight, I was happy to see Gaigai put in tonight...he is still not a fullback but he was committed and willing to put his body on the line for us.

I also liked the mongrel shown by Barnett tonight, especially in the first half.

Although he scored our second half try, Fitzgibbon disappointed me a fair bit tonight. He has laziness in his game for mine... several times I watched him run along side storm plays where he watched but didnt help to finish the tackle - several times they were getting another 5 plus metres and crossing the advantage line, also saw him run back into the defensive line with back to the play quite a few times (it's a real pet hate of mine for a first grade player)

I know some rate him as decent but I really don't think overall that Sio is as good some on here think. I think I'd prefer to see more development put into bringing Elliott along to first grade standard.

But of all the players off contract though, I really think Pete Matt has to be a value signing we need to lock in. He is the most consistent performing back we have had this year by a country mile for mine.

I hope I'm wrong but I think our capacity to improve is going to be restricted to when we get a decent run of home games in the last 6-7 rounds - I think home ground and home town support in the back end of this season will be important for us to finish up this season with some level of growth towards 2018.

 

[Pedge1971]

To be fair to our blokes Melbourne went to Wollongong to.play away against a strong St George pack leading comp and touched them up almost as badly as they did us.

We are not that far away from teams 8 to 15 on our day but.miles away from top 4. It was.men against boys.

Also our poor secomd halves are directly correlated to the amount of bloody tackling we have to do in the first half. We run ourselves ragged and unless we can address the.posession.stat this will.continue.

Cronk was hurting from.Wednesdays loss and Billy was.played himself into the second game. We got them on a bad night.

I thought both Saifitis had some moments but we were monstered. Lamb had definitely gotten better defensively 1:1 and that is.pleasing.

 

[Glendale]

To be fair to our blokes Melbourne went to Wollongong to.play away against a strong St George pack leading comp and touched them up almost as badly as they did us.

We are not that far away from teams 8 to 15 on our day but.miles away from top 4. It was.men against boys.

Also our poor secomd halves are directly correlated to the amount of bloody tackling we have to do in the first half. We run ourselves ragged and unless we can address the.posession.stat this will.continue.

Cronk was hurting from.Wednesdays loss and Billy was.played himself into the second game. We got them on a bad night.

I thought both Saifitis had some moments but we were monstered. Lamb had definitely gotten better defensively 1:1 and that is.pleasing.

Yeah going in to the season I was expecting something like this. We are gonna compete with most teams but we're going to get touched up against the really good sides. It was a miracle we got so close to the Sharks.

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

I agree this was probably Gagai's best game at fullback but that he isn't a fullback.

 

[Still Nutty]

I agree that our first half defensive fatigue impacts on our ability to play out the second half... but I also think our ability to come out and execute a revised game plan or step up and try to wrestle some ascendancy early in the second half is a development shift we need to make this year which is more a mental improvement

 

[Mr_Knightside]

I didn't get to watch all of the game last night, turned it on at the 20 min mark and we were down 16-0 then watched through to about 70 min mark when we had just scored our second try.

Seemed like it was boys v men out there really, Melbourne were just superior in every way. It's really disappointing that we keep losing the possession battle so badly in games, some weeks we've been under 40% possession all game and most teams would struggle to win let alone our young team. On the occasions that we've had the ball we've actually been able to score points and have done some good stuff in attack. But we need to work on completing sets and going set for set with the opposition which is rarely happening. The field position stats are as bad if not worse, we are spending almost the whole game coming out of our own half because we're just allowing them to roll up field with ease and then they're camped on our line for ages.

Also as usual there were a few tough calls in there, we just aren't getting the rub of the green with the 50/50s, that forward pass was marginal at worst and there were a couple of other ones that were called that you would see every week that don't get called. And that Billy Slater try... please! I will go back the the try that Sione should have had against the Dogs this year, if his one is a no-try then I can't fathom how Slater's one is given as a try because he had no control over the ball when he was trying to put it down. There was a similar one from RTS last week that I also was blowing up about. No consistency!

 

[Johns Magic]

Missed the game. How did Barnett go?

 

[Johns Magic]

The little I did see, the ref was a joke. Put the whistle away, see how Origin flowed.

 

[Spot On]

I agree this was probably Gagai's best game at fullback but that he isn't a fullback.

In attack - denitely.

In defence - well, rinse and repeat.

 

[Sydney Knight]

Gagai did have a good game but I wish he would put the fend away on kick returns deep in our half. Seems to just end in him being driven backwards and puts more pressure on the wingers trying to scoot from dummy half.

 

[Glendale]

Missed the game. How did Barnett go?

Barnett was pretty good. We were getting bashed up the middle in the first 20 but then Barnett and others came off the bench and we managed turned the momentum a bit. We scored to make it 16-6 then should have scored another to make it 16-12. After the forward pass call we were doing defence for the rest of the half and managed to hold them out on our goal line, even when going down to 12. Barnett did more defence then anyone with 34 tackles.

 

[Johns Magic]

Barnett was pretty good. We were getting bashed up the middle in the first 20 but then Barnett and others came off the bench and we managed turned the momentum a bit. We scored to make it 16-6 then should have scored another to make it 16-12. After the forward pass call we were doing defence for the rest of the half and managed to hold them out on our goal line, even when going down to 12. Barnett did more defence then anyone with 34 tackles.

Thanks mate

 

[Frederick]

what stood out to me was the speed that all their players ran onto the ball with compared to ours. They always had a full head of steam up when they received the ball and it showed in that they were able to make 5+ meters post contact every single run.

Compared to our players who mostly received the ball from a standing start or jogged onto the ball. Very frustrating to watch and not sure if it's a fitness thing from our players or just plain lazyness

 

[Spot On]

Gagai did have a good game but I wish he would put the fend away on kick returns deep in our half. Seems to just end in him being driven backwards and puts more pressure on the wingers trying to scoot from dummy half.

Is it counted as a 'tackle bust' everytime the ball carrier uses their fend to push themselves back and away from a defender like Gagai does???

If it is then an attacking player could rack up 20 'tackle busts' a game if they touch the ball often enough even though they end up making very little metres and sometimes end up losing ground.

Really is a misleading stat if that's the case.

 

[Swarzey]

what stood out to me was the speed that all their players ran onto the ball with compared to ours. They always had a full head of steam up when they received the ball and it showed in that they were able to make 5+ meters post contact every single run.

Compared to our players who mostly received the ball from a standing start or jogged onto the ball. Very frustrating to watch and not sure if it's a fitness thing from our players or just plain lazyness

It felt neither like last night, at least from my seat. Storm players were prepared to cart the ball up a tackle or two beforehand; they were organised for every tackle while it seemed once every two, three sets we had some sense of composure. It highlighted to me how much we lack an experienced half to organise and direct the play and despite how well Lamb may be developing in that role, he's no where near being ready to lead this side around.

Cronk was absolutely everywhere on the field, talking and instructing the team. Lamb tried but f**k there was a huge difference.

 

[Swarzey]

On Gagai, he seemed to have an alright game but his kick returns are absolutely woeful. Put us on the back foot repeatedly, lost ground constantly trying to go side ways only to be driven backwards. Say what you will about Elliot, the man hits the defensive line and immediately sinks to the field to avoid being driven backwards.

What he did in attack I'm sure he can still do at centre.