What is the most important thing we need to fix to climb the rung, Quigs?
I've had a good long think and an opinion about this for years. And my train of thought has grown stronger over this our most successful season for a long time.
We have a good side, a real good side but they are just not good enough when it matters. We are one or two X factor players away. Although this season was our best chance as the other sides are not as good as they could be. It might still be up for grabs, depends on who can produce it on the day. And who knocks who out over the next couple of weeks - (and who gets reported and suspended - "Hey Mick")
The Storm produced it last night - gave us a lesson in Finals footy.
You need to make chances and take advantage of them. Unfortunately the footy gods didn't let us take those early chances. It might of been a different game.
My thoughts..... ummmmmmm
THE WHOLE CLUB FROM THE TOP DOWN NEEDS TO GET SMART AND BRUTAL.
It is a long process and an expensive one - we are slowly building to having some spare cash.
Every club that has been successful over the last decades have rorted, manipulated, or had a lot of control over the system. Had fingers in all the right pies. Have / Had the right friends for obtaining big sponsors i.e. The Donks and Friday Night footy. We have tried that but keep coming up short. i.e. a long time ago Manly had Kenny Boy running the show and look where that got them. Won their first ever under Kenny. Much Later in footy years (4 of em) they had the Dankafier - won one. We tried it for three months and what happened.
We eventually had one of ours at the head of the trough. Pierce B - what did we get out of it. Nothing but ridicule and near bankrupcy again.
Look at how the top clubs deal with their 'bad boy' players and compare to us, particularly over the past 10 years. If the bad boy is crucial to their club it is covered. Mitchell, Roberts, blah blah blah, there has been numerous - you all know them. If they are dispensible they are gonski and their departures are trumpetted to one and all. It's a joke. If it is a club gun its the token cover up.
I won't even go into player club transfers. Remember Rusty getting Ingliss - they won a comp too.
RE COACHING.
I reckon we go into games with just the one game plan only. We must be the easiest side to coach against because every bastard knows how we are going to play. Crikey we were even outcoached by the Stinking Stains.
(I mentioned posted this in here) The week before the Donks Storm game the Creepin Jesus was interviewed and said that anyside that goes down to Melbourne and attempts to play five hit ups and a kick is going to commit footy suicide. The Donks had to win.. what did Bennett have his side do. Blew them away with the unexpected.
The reason we go so well is we can do the five hit ups and a kick better than most sides. But when we get pressured enough to start buckling we have no plan B.
My opinion only.... Our players appear to be dumbed down. Not allowed to think. Jimmy Maloney is about the only one currently that appears to be able to think outside the box in our games. When he tries stuff half the team looks perplexed. A bit of WTF was that all about Jimmy.
We stand so flat in attack at times it is so easy to defend against. Hence the flurry of stupid tap on passes we are now seeing. Coaches have woken up to how to defend against sweeping backlines. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but we are so slow to respond to their waking up to it. I reckon our blokes are still perfecting the Bennett style sweeping backline moves from three years back.
Example of how dumb we are ... I remember not that long ago when we were going through hard times, we had vital game we had to win playing at Shark Park. One minute to go ..... we were stuck in our own quarter and the only way to score a match winner was to spin it wide and hope and pray. What 'does' our mob do. Give it to the fatest slowest pig on the paddock for another f**king one out hit up on the fifth tackle.
Fast forward to last night. We urgently needed points but especially possession with about 10 mins to go. We are kicking off again after more Storm points. Did we do the short contested kickoff with the hope of getting the pill back. Narhhh its just the long deep kickoff to the ingoal corner. What, was we expecting the Storm to make their first mistake in the entire game that late and from inside their own quarter.
Yeah we a finkers.
We are lacking mongrels. Blokes that dive on dropped balls. Blokes that tackle themselves to a standstill. Blokes that drop the ball and realise that the other mob might pick it up and run the length of the field so they dive on the bloody thing.
IT'S A CRONULLA THANG - WE NEVER LEARN.
I remember when Nigel V was interviewed and asked why he wasn't scoring tries like he did at Canterbury. His reply was "I saw the ball at Canterbury" (Or words to that effect)
It doesn't hurt to try things when you can and we have had the opportunity over the past few weeks. Especially if you have competition points home and hosed. We run the grind 5 hit up style of play. During most of our games you could count on one hand the number of times some one trails the hit upper-er expecting an offload. I think it was once called baking up but now it is called sniffing.
Bellyache instructs his players - all of them, every single one of them, to expect the ball at anytime, during any team move.
Remember Dessie back earlier in the season he had the big pigs throwing short ping ping passes as they were hitting the line. Worked a treat for awhile until coaches woke up to this Dogs move. That is what our blokes should do every now and then. Just do something different. Mix it up. It is not hard.
Our blokes are so set in their ways that if they try something different it is just Clunky.
We are still in this with a chance but after last night I reckon the chance just blew out a lot.
I suppose if the call is run hard, tackle hard, we might get another win or two. Let us just see what happens. Sit back and enjoy the ride I reckon.
