If we'd lost tonight, the same people now saying "Manly were weak competition & lacklustre" would have been saying "we got beaten by a more settled/experienced/quality opposition that will challenge for the title"
Boy have we got some major issues in defense out wide. Robinson, Tak and Champion are all very ordinary in just reading simple numbers. Radradra is still learning and Sandow, well we all know his short comings due to size.
It was a great win, but when the game was still in the balance, we made the same unforced errors and penalty give a ways as we have always done in the past. Nothing has changed there.
In the positive column, our line speed and physicality appears to have improved out of sight compared to previous years. But considering the lackluster opposition, I can't get to excited with that at this stage either.
If anyone is wondering why the coach ain't to happy after such a good win, these are the reasons. When you can't hold onto the ball, give away silly consecutive penalties, and get turned inside out, out wide defensively, while totally dominating a piss poor opposition pack, then there is plenty of reason for concern and the coach knows it, even when you eventually go on to blow them off the park, not because of your great footballing abilities, but mainly due to your larger more physical presence.
Like I said, we have many issues in our backline and against the bigger and more skillful teams, I fear those deficiencies will become obvious even to the most enthusiastic eels supporters.
On Hopa. We have the slowest fullback in the comp. He is very talented, but speed is vital in his position. So we shouldn't expect to many great moments from him, like chiming in with speed and busting the line wide open like all the great fullbacks can and do.
In fact I have a feeling that coach, may eventually move him back to centre after a couple of months. He will give him apple opportunity to make the position his, but I don't think long term he will it in that position.
What I think will happen, is when coach finally has had enough of our backline conceding simple line breaks and tries, If he can find another player from the lower grades that he feels could handle fullback, he will drop Champion and move Hopa into the centres again.
Or he will move Robinson to the back. Either way, if the backline doesn't improve defensively and Hopa doesn't contribute with sparkling mojo to the backline, expect these sort of changes to take place as the season unfolds.
Ram I agree that we always seemed to be short one defender on the edges. But the scramble was certainly good, and the boys certainly aimed up with a bit of oomph when defending on the goal line.
The rub of the green certainly didn't fall our way...sure they had a try called back but that was more than balanced by a missed forward pass leading up to the first try , and the line drop out call when the ball was clearly not played at by our defender ( think it was Semi) Some 50/50's seemed to favour the eagles more as well
Parra certainly tried to gift Manly the game in the middle part of the first half with as BA says , lack of ball control
Wise words from the Pou meister. Spot on mate they couldn't match us up the middle.We are dominating them physically - too fast, too strong. We just need to hang onto the pill and we'll put forty on them.
:lol: Well said phantom.Glad Ch 9 took an ad break when contract-dodging "starboy" was being walked out in the middle to promote himself... hope he got at least some boos in the live crowd reaction?
Tim Gilbert makes me long for Ray Hadley to come back. Yep, he is THAT bad! Unbearable.
so we are now equal with the bunnies on +30 how does the nrl decide how to rank two teams with the same for & against?
.....up and win by 30Got a bad feeling about this. Think we are going to get pumped.
so we are now equal with the bunnies on +30 how does the nrl decide how to rank two teams with the same for & against?
I'm just watching the game now....gee we threw some funny passes in the first 30 minutes.
To be honest, I thought De Gois shouldn't be in our top 17. Now I think he's a better dummy half than Peats. And almost as good in defence.