Just on the game itself and I have avoided this forum since the game but the thing that stood out for me personally is the form or lack there off of Nathan Cleary. It is a major, major concern. He is a SOO half back supposedly but you certainly wouldn’t know based on his performance.
I think Nathan Cleary will benefit enormously from Jimmy Maloney leaving the club as silly as that sounds. Assuming he is going to continue in the number 7, which he almost certainly will, he needs to benefit from having full ownership of the attacking plays. Currently he is playing in Jimmys shadow and that is doing him no good whatsoever.
I think in 2020, it will be Nathan’s team, rightly or wrongly, with either Laui and or Matt Burton as the support act. Now I see that as a good thing. We need to move on from Jimmy Maloney and reinvent ourselves as a team. The dummy half and fullback positions remain an issue and Ivan needs to make some big calls there going forward. We certainly have two young up & coming fullbacks who are going to put pressure on Dylan Edwards who has been very good in my opinion.
Our biggest issue is the dummy half. We simply don’t have someone who creates anything out of dummy half. Watching some of the hookers in the modern game they create so much either running out of dummy half or just from there creativity and we don’t have that from any of ours. Maybe it is a coaching thing but seriously Egan, Katoa and
Kenny just aren’t in the same ball park as most of the other dummy halves currently. Watching the Roosters v Titans game yesterday the 18 year Roosters dummy half was dynamite, scooting out of dummy half. I just don’t get it. I’m not sure it is all the players fault as much as the game plan we employ. Regardless of where the fault lays we need to get it sorted one way or the other.
I just wonder how more potent we would be if we had a hooker such as Josh Hodgson from the Raiders. It would be interesting.
