Match Discussion: Round 6 vs Storm @ AAMI Park

[Spot On]

The issue hasn't changed much over the last two a bit years, when the opposition gets a run of the ball we are powerless to stop the run. Comes down to one thing, we are terrible at -hitting hard in a tackle and forcing the ball out, we don't create any dropped ball. We don't create turn overs.
Add that to a sometimes static defensive line results in giving the opposition too much latitude in attack

Absolutely 100% correct.

 

[Haffa]

We barely had any ball though... Dismal stats but in context, wasn't nearly as bad as it seems.

Both hit the line way too soft. Lillyman turns like Tolar and he’s easy to stop.

 

[TooheysNew]

I’m not so sure.
Brown played Lamb off the bench from round 1 just to please everyone when Levi would’ve been a better option.
As for Sione.. moving him back to the centres was always going end in the tears.
But it’s Sione our greatest ever junior.
Brown must find a spot for him in the 13 somewhere no matter what.
Brown needs to harden the f up quick smart.

Levi would not have been a better option. He was playing like a busted as well.

 

[Old dog]

You should all go back and read this thread from game beginning.
Lamb has copped plenty but Watson when he played was no better, Pearce is dominating, maybe that is part of the problem, think about it.
First penalty tonight killed us, first 20 mins didn't help, we were gone after that, strong performance from many. Props made no ground so halves will always struggle, Dan and Lillyman disappointing, back three strong, gave it a go, Griffin seemed lost, should play hooker or bench. Bench was ordinary with possibly Jacob best, Buhrer, Levi, Heighinton very basic but did come on when we was on back foot. Sione looks worse because of earlier mistakes causing him to attempt cover up, back line was poor except for Sio, even Ponga wasn't the star. Basically the front row let us down.

 

[Swarzey]

Poop night.

Scoreline flattered Melbourne, refs handed them the first 25 minutes with absolutely shit tier calls. It's such a draining thing to be defending for so long without any ball, especially 11 minutes of it; I'm surprised we managed to claw it back to 18-8 at half time. I didn't think we were overwhelmingly awful in attack, there were some beautiful plays and some tremendous opportunities that unfortunately didn't result in points; Ponga's break and getting tackled by Slater is something you would expect and I wouldn't be surprised if the script is flipped in Newcastle next time we play them if that same situation arises. Melbourne got lucky with some shit but they spent most of the night running a train straight down Lamb and Sione.

Lamb just doesn't fit into our team. It sucks to say but he doesn't. What he's best at and where he shined last year in 3 games - lets not forget that fact - is covered by Pearce. In defense, he's a liability because of his size. I didn't feel like he improved us when he played off the bench either; felt that was far more Watson going into hooker.

Shit night. I said it preseason that we should expect these kind of nights in the first half of the season. I'll start getting concerned about players and performances by the time we're through with Origin if it hasn't improved. Can never lose sight of the reality of the club's position and the patience we need to have as fans.

 

[Spot On]

Its not just the front row, it's our defensive structures and tackling technique almost across the park that is not up to standard. It's shit tbh. It effects our whole game.

We cant win the ruck with or without the ball imo.

I can't wait for Watson to come back just to see Lamb out. He is not physically up to this level.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

How is it that we don't have a single forward who can put a big hit on and force an error when the team needs it? Our front row especially are as soft as marshmallows sometimes.

Also why don't they ever get their arms free for an offload. It is just totally beyond me how it seems to happen against us every week but we never seem to be capable of it ourselves. Our attack is actually pretty good all things considered but I just wish we could add that extra dynamic of having forwards who can hit the line and produce second phase play. We don't have to go nuts with it but more than once or twice a game would be nice.

 

[Pedge1971]

Looks like the Sharks have dropped Ramien? Seems unfair he was playing great. Might be a good time to get in there and see if there’s any way he could get an early release.

Seriously dropped Ramien? Wow....

 

[Spot On]

Dugan back in for Ramien.

 

[Pedge1971]

Just checked the stats, their starting front row gained 131 and 137 metres. Dan Saf and Lillyman made 27 and 30 metres. Fmd.

They tackled their whole first stint. We had no ball. Even so, those stats sound flaky.

 

[Pedge1971]

Lamb was going to get dropped after the dragons game but saved by leadership group. No way he gets a game next week

So who comes in? I hear what u say but who is better? Cannot see that option...

 

[Pedge1971]

When I saw our draw this year I was thinking 0-5 with all the away games. We are 3-3 with some improvement.

Sione was shit tonight, Lamb got isolated too many times and was never gonna defend what was there.

I did not think the fwds were that bad. Infact I thought with 50/50 ball we were making more yards than them and at ht could win.

We stuffed it in the 1st 10 mins of 2nd half.

We have been beaten away by Roosters, Dragons and Storm. We have massive up side, more so than them imo.

We are a genuine top 8 chance. Anyone who has ever thought beyond that is deluded.

The defence will get better but sadly our 2 best centre options are on the park.

We cannot have Levi and Buhrer on the same bench.

 

[Noname36]

Its not just the front row, it's our defensive structures and tackling technique almost across the park that is not up to standard. It's shit tbh. It effects our whole game.
.

I disagree completely.

After watching the team this year it’s becoming more obvious to me that our defence and general tackling technique isn’t really the problem (for the squad as a whole, there’s obviously a few blokes that don’t have good technique which is what you see at every club).

The issue is we’re getting ourselves on the back of horrendous amounts of possession against us through really poor discipline, and yes, some of the refereeing against us has been really saddening as pointed out week after week by people that were at the game.

Then on the back of no possession we get fatigued, the technique drops and the easy tries against us flow. Last night was a prime example of that. Ese ese is usually a great defender, but at the end of the game when having 80% of the ball against us in the first 20 minutes had well and truely caught up with them, his technique drops and he makes a horrendous attempt on Kasiano leading to a try.

NO team in the comp, not even the best defensively, don’t leak a lot of points giving away as much possession as we do. Sometimes it’s through errors (Roosters game) and others it’s the penalties (last night - we had 13 against us well before the first half ended ffs).

It’s what we’re going to have to expect with a young side - as others have pointed out, we were always going to have some of these games, it doesn’t help either that the refs expect us to lose so we’re an easy target there too.

 

[the seagull]

A couple of observations about the game

1. We give too much latitude to teams with our defence - which starts at marker, Melb had 14 marker tackles we had ZERO- Smith could had played in a dinner suit
2. When we had the ball we got little from our 5/8 and two centres (when we do our attack we go to another level)
3. Some Players rucking it out from our 22 changed direction to run into the Melb defender instead of staying in the gap ( rossdog twice in quick succession in the second half -cost 5-10 metres in ground which is important when rucking out) Maybe too much running at tackle bags instead of the gaps at training
4. The refs blow a lot of penalties but a still making a lot of errors- first try pass from slater looked forward, the stupidity of ten in the bin from the refs with slater taking a quick tap, fitzgibbons interfence, with enough other defenders stopping him from scoring, compare this with a player being offside at the try line preventing a certain try from being scored- and nothing happens -shows a complete lack of understanding of what occurring in games by the refs
5. Certain players are protected species, knees from Melb no.1 when sio scored
6. I feel with a better percentage of possession in the first half hour we may have given Melb a greater challenge - but we don't yet have the capability to turn that possession flow around and that is our major issue

 

[Spot On]

And I completely disagree with that No Name.

Souths had a similar situation V Dragons last week where they had no ball in the first half but their defensive structures and technique kept them in the game. We would have been shredded in the same situation. We can't attack with our defence so to speak.

Ref decisions and discipline are part of the game that a good defensive unit will overcome for the most part.

You need only watch our players struggle to hit ball carriers effectively to halt monentum and put the ball carrier on the ground. We generally fail to win the ruck with ball and without. We do not get off our line. We don't run hard when in possession. We are continually flat in attack as we aren't quick enough to create space between our play the ball and the opposition defence due to be dominated at the play the ball because we aren't running hard enough into the line. How many times did Pearce throw a flat ball to our runners last night that should never have been given?? Countless. They either drop it or get smashed on catching it. It is happening most weeks.

These things are easy to see in comparison to other teams. It has been evident most weeks this season and was easy to see the difference between us and Mlb and both St George and Cronulla last night.

We rarely have decent one-on-one tackles effected. We definitely dont have De Belin style hitters.

We wait for the ball carrier, usually on our heels and generally make contact up top and rarely have a legs tackler rip in to stop forward momentum.

We don't offload and dont place any pressure on opposition defence. About the only time defences need to think against us is when Ponga has the ball. Unfortunately our lack of variety is going to see teams work out our limited attack options sooner than later.

Error count last night was Newy 10 - Mlb 8.

I'll forgive Herman for a missed tackle last night. He is the very last of our worries in both attack and defence

I could not disagree more with you.

 

[Spot On]

You should all go back and read this thread from game beginning.
Lamb has copped plenty but Watson when he played was no better, Pearce is dominating, maybe that is part of the problem, think about it.

I don't get this.

Have you watched Brock being absolutely monstered when defending?? Have you noticed just how easy it is for teams to get to his outside? Have you noticed how absolutely slow he is to move laterally (or any direction)?

I'm not concerned about where his attacking games is at. It doesn't matter. You can't attack when you continually gift tries to the opposition and then get to give the ball to back to them via the kick off and do it all again.

 

[Dave_]

When you watch our games again, you'll see that it's ill discipline that kills us the most. A lot of the glaring deficiencies in our game like lazy defence and lack of aggression by the forwards are directly related to fatigue because we just don't have the ball.

Our boys need to look at this realistically...we are up against the referees every game and that's due to our history of shitness and ill discipline. The only way to change that is to be better... discipline should be the sole focus this week at training. The refs have a perception of us and it's a bad one... that's wrong but it's true. That's why Melbourne and Brisbane can throw forward passes week after week and get away with it but we get line balls called back. They expect us to be crap.

I'm not saying to play Bennett ball (yuck) but honestly, we're killing ourselves. We never get momentum... no roll on. We need to do whatever it takes to keep the ball and we'll slay a few sides because we've got the natural attacking ability in our side. You can't do shit when you're tired and getting whipped by the refs

 

[Burns]

Eh.

We are very Jeckle and Hyde I think. Look like world beaters playing at home in Newcastle, look like trash playing away venues.

I just want to see us not collapse spectacularly when we are going to lose a game. Our defence is horrendous. We will be fighting it out for 8th this year at best. Which is fine and all, but we look decent enough in attack to threaten all the top teams.

 

[Old dog]

Losing the ball early, gifting penalties and lack of leadership in pack are reasons we went bad, gave in to early try but even worse was early second try shows a lack of ability to get over first mistake and be ready to repel next attack, badly need a dominating pack leader who threatens the opposition and inspires his own team.

 

[Noname36]

When you watch our games again, you'll see that it's ill discipline that kills us the most. A lot of the glaring deficiencies in our game like lazy defence and lack of aggression by the forwards are directly related to fatigue because we just don't have the ball.

Our boys need to look at this realistically...we are up against the referees every game and that's due to our history of shitness and ill discipline. The only way to change that is to be better... discipline should be the sole focus this week at training. The refs have a perception of us and it's a bad one... that's wrong but it's true. That's why Melbourne and Brisbane can throw forward passes week after week and get away with it but we get line balls called back. They expect us to be crap.

I'm not saying to play Bennett ball (yuck) but honestly, we're killing ourselves. We never get momentum... no roll on. We need to do whatever it takes to keep the ball and we'll slay a few sides because we've got the natural attacking ability in our side. You can't do shit when you're tired and getting whipped by the refs

Exactly. We could become the most polished defensive unit in the comp but it will mean squat if we dont fix the discipline. That is the cause of our issues.

They looked absolutely shot last night, but that's always going to happen when you give away all that ball early on. I'm actually amazed after being down by 18 after 10 minutes they then managed to hold on for as long as they did and play some attacking football before the floodgates opened.

Warren Ryan about 10 years ago said of the Knights "why do they always shoot themselves in the foot so badly early on and then fight like dogs to get out of it?" - nothing has changed really and like you said we have a reputation for it now so that makes it even easier for the refs to ping us for absolutely anything that the likes of Melbourne and Brisbane don't.

Melbourne, renowned for their defence, let in two tries directly off penalties last night too. It's funny how the team with the run of possession score the points isn't it?