Match Discussion: Round 24 vs Sharks @ Southern Cross Group Stadium

[Pedge1971]

Relying on U guys to beat the dragons next week

Hah! We will play them back into form lol...

 

[Old dog]

We went in poor, Ponga out, injury doubt replacement in Watson, bench very ordinary, Buhrer, Yates, (both similar), Heighinton (willing but passed it) and everyone's favourite, King. We were one injury away from catastrophe but to be sure we got two. Bad enough Fitz but Watson, no 5/8, and he never looked right, hindsight, Cogger/Lamb better prospect. In 21 selected what happened to Lillyman, Saulo and JJ, surely one or two of them were better than one or two of Buhrer, Yates, Heighinton and King. Why was Buhrer at centre and Sione at 5/8, why wasvYates at dummy half and not Buhrer.
We need depth but we need to look at how we use them.

 

[Old dog]

Follow up to above I thought Denniss and King showed improvement, Meaney was good and Watson never looked right. And while we pick the bench as this week we are putting to much pressure on Esee and DanS to perform not only strong but for long minutes or for the alternative to be poor. I hope they wrap Guerra in cotton wool for next 3 months after next week he has performed consistently above average every game.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Follow up to above I thought Denniss and King showed improvement, Meaney was good and Watson never looked right. And while we pick the bench as this week we are putting to much pressure on Esee and DanS to perform not only strong but for long minutes or for the alternative to be poor. I hope they wrap Guerra in cotton wool for next 3 months after next week he has performed consistently above average every game.

Agreed, Denniss has been solid in D most weeks, he mans up pretty well against much bigger name players i.e. Dugan & Whare last two weeks. His dummy half running is decent as well. Problem is he’s got no speed, no step, doesn’t break tackles and doesn’t seem to get his arms free to create an offload so giving him the ball when we’re in attack is pointless. It annoyed me how often we went left in attack when Denniss was killing the momentum every time. If Denniss wants to be a regular first grader (either here or at another club) in the future then he needs to do more when he gets the ball because as it stands he’s going to be right down the pecking order next year.

King produced some better numbers yesterday, NRL stats has him down as 11 runs for 91 metres and 27 tackles 1 missed. That’s pretty solid for a bench forward in the NRL. And he showed some nice front row play in setting up the try for Saifiti. So he’s shown he’s capable of producing that sort of performance and it was against the sharks who have one of the best packs in the comp. Problem is most weeks he runs 2 or 3 times for about 15-20 metres and makes 2 or 3 errors so I’m really not sure why we see such a big difference between his best and worst. Brown needs to get in his ear and tell him that’s the benchmark he wants to see every week from now on or he’ll be playing reserve grade.

 

[Frederick]

Agreed, Denniss has been solid in D most weeks, he mans up pretty well against much bigger name players i.e. Dugan & Whare last two weeks. His dummy half running is decent as well. Problem is he’s got no speed, no step, doesn’t break tackles and doesn’t seem to get his arms free to create an offload so giving him the ball when we’re in attack is pointless. It annoyed me how often we went left in attack when Denniss was killing the momentum every time. If Denniss wants to be a regular first grader (either here or at another club) in the future then he needs to do more when he gets the ball because as it stands he’s going to be right down the pecking order next year.

King produced some better numbers yesterday, NRL stats has him down as 11 runs for 91 metres and 27 tackles 1 missed. That’s pretty solid for a bench forward in the NRL. And he showed some nice front row play in setting up the try for Saifiti. So he’s shown he’s capable of producing that sort of performance and it was against the sharks who have one of the best packs in the comp. Problem is most weeks he runs 2 or 3 times for about 15-20 metres and makes 2 or 3 errors so I’m really not sure why we see such a big difference between his best and worst. Brown needs to get in his ear and tell him that’s the benchmark he wants to see every week from now on or he’ll be playing reserve grade.

Re. King, it's situational to each game. He was able to make decent numbers yesterday because we were down to two on the bench so he had to play longer minutes, and we were right in it up until the 60th minute before the Sharks steamrolled us. Compare that to, say, the warriors game where stats say he did sweet FA, we were rolled right from the get go, so any time he spent on field was mostly defending or making small gains against an aggressive defensive line

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Re. King, it's situational to each game. He was able to make decent numbers yesterday because we were down to two on the bench so he had to play longer minutes, and we were right in it up until the 60th minute before the Sharks steamrolled us. Compare that to, say, the warriors game where stats say he did sweet FA, we were rolled right from the get go, so any time he spent on field was mostly defending or making small gains against an aggressive defensive line

While I agree that some on-field situations are better than others I still can’t fathom how a front rower could only make 2 or 3 runs in 20-30 mins of being on the field.

As a front rower his job is to take at least one carry per set when we have possession and at least a couple of tackles per set when we’re defending. The fact that there have been games this year when King has made 2 or 3 runs in his whole time on the field is astonishing. I get that we often lose the possession and field position battles against the bigger packs but usually the possession is 55%-45% or 60%-40% at worst so it’s not like King doesn’t get chances to run the ball.

Honestly if he keeps being selected in the team (and he probably will at some stage next year given Heighno and Lillyman are retiring and we’ve only signed one other forward) I want to see him taking 10 hitups a game minimum. Any less than that’s and he’s not doing his basic job description imo.