The main problem I see with Wallace is he has no pace at all. I seriously think he'd be the slowest player in the comp. Last night when I think Reed(?) or Hoffman passed him the ball and he had space on our left edge, he fair dinkum got run down by a turtle with 3 legs. His kicking game at times was good - he put in at least 3 kicks I can remember that found space and landed in the in goal, or just dribbled over. The problem is his lack of vision, his play is far too structured, and he really drops the ball, quite literally, when the going gets tough.
Thinking about the game some more this morning, I think there's a lot of positives to take out of it. That Maranta try off the Prince and Hodges brilliance is something we so lacked last season. I really look forward to those 2 combining this season for something great.
Hoffman looks to be injured again already with his left knee. What's the go with this guy? He seems to have good speed off the mark, but lacks confidence or something. I'd prefer to see him play the opposite centre to Hodges, move Reed back to QCup or something, and bring in a fresh young winger like Kahu or something.
A few of our forwards really need to drop some kegs too man. Parker, Hannant, Thaiday and Glenn, to me, all look overweight. Parker particularly. I wouldn't be surprised if he's playing about 7-8kgs heavier than he did last season. For the type of role he plays, it doesn't suit at all. He looked gassed most of the time, and he needs to be our tackling machine, and the bloke that takes that hit up when everyone else is buggered. In saying all that, Jamie Lyon looked pretty podgey too, but I think he's always been a bit that way.
As others have mentioned a lot already too, McCullough needs to play 80 minutes. This whole take him off just to put Hunt on shit has gone on long enough. We lose a massive amount of structure when he goes off, and while Hunt is an admirable defender, Macca adds a lot around the middle - Manly made a lot of meters through the middle as soon as he went off.
I think overall we should be happy with the signs we've seen from our newest recruit Prince, and be grateful that we have some attacking power back in the side, and know that we will actually be able to score some points this season. We really need to work on our fitness as a whole team, and our defense needs to be a bit better around the middle when we start to get tired.
Manly were great last night though. Chery Evans is playing out of his skin, and he looks to have bulked up a lot in the off season. His chest, shoulders and arms appear about on par with Watmough. Him and Brett Stewart will be dangerous to the comp this year, and I think Manly will be top 4 easily based on last nights performance.