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Round 23 V Souths

Messages
4,310
The pack steamrolls everyone regardless
I obviously hope it doesn’t happen, but it would be an interesting experiment to see how the full strength pack would go without Cleary.

While I think our pack is very good, I think it really benefits from the positions that Cleary puts them in. Of course, maybe Cleary puts them into excellent positions because he is often playing off the front foot. Maybe it is a team game and both are important.

Anyway, just some musings on the train to work…
 

BxTom

Bench
Messages
2,674
Its not like defensivley hes been brilliant either. Last game he missed a one on one on topou which youd expect a winger to normally make.

Hes been good in defence but not outstanding. Given his output in attack i dont think being ok in defence is enough to be picked.

Not sure who said it the other day about ivan wanting the best mix of attack and defence across the back but i think they may be right.

Defensivley its hard to argue with
2. Critta
3. Momo
4. Burton
5. Too (when his back)

Wouldnt be my choice backline but defensivley its the safest.
What an utter load of crap!!! Watch it again and you will see two players coming at him, one to the left one to his right (Topou). He tried to cover for both, but last minute Topou got the ball. He had a fraction of a second to act, he tried to tackle Topou, but missed, just.

See from 3.25 on.
 
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franklin2323

Immortal
Messages
33,546
I obviously hope it doesn’t happen, but it would be an interesting experiment to see how the full strength pack would go without Cleary.

While I think our pack is very good, I think it really benefits from the positions that Cleary puts them in. Of course, maybe Cleary puts them into excellent positions because he is often playing off the front foot. Maybe it is a team game and both are important.

Anyway, just some musings on the train to work…

I still think we can win the comp with a couple out. If we have no Cleary a full strength pack and Api ( which we never had). even as ordinary as Kenny is behind a pack that has Martin and TPJ off the bench he would look ok.
 

WestyLife

First Grade
Messages
7,391
Its not like defensivley hes been brilliant either. Last game he missed a one on one on topou which youd expect a winger to normally make.

Hes been good in defence but not outstanding. Given his output in attack i dont think being ok in defence is enough to be picked.

Not sure who said it the other day about ivan wanting the best mix of attack and defence across the back but i think they may be right.

Defensivley its hard to argue with
2. Critta
3. Momo
4. Burton
5. Too (when his back)

Wouldnt be my choice backline but defensivley its the safest.

He's been outright elite in defence bar one miss.
 

Vicpanther

Juniors
Messages
888
i just looked at this years draw. Rabbits haven't played anyone decent since us and melb put 50 on them. i know they are playing well but constantly playing bottom 8 teams isn't really showing how good they actually are.
 

maple_69

Bench
Messages
4,594
We’ve conceded 13 tries all year down the right. The least in the league by a distance. The next best is Melbourne, Gold Coast and Sharks on between 22 & 23. That’s considering the vast majority of sides are much more potent down their left edge in attack. Capewell, Cleary, Crichton and Staines are all a big part of that. They all make great decisions, effective contact and they trust each other.

Whoever said Souths ceiling is higher than ours a few pages back gave the perfect demonstration of attacking bias. No team that is distinctly average in defence will hold a candle to a historically good defensive team regardless of their attack. Breaking up our right edge because one of its members, our leading try scorer, has ‘only scored walk ins’ and doesn’t make 200m when you have two of the most effective metre making backs in the world, would be the most insane example of attacking bias.

Staines for sure needed a rest. Every player that hasn’t had a break should be getting a break against a rabble like the Dragons/Tigers. I remember Franklin said pre-season a successful year for Charlie would be getting through 6-7 games of first grade unscathed. He’s played 20 and should absolutely finish on 26 or there’s every chance we’ll be trashing Ivan for another f*ckhead galaxy brain move costing us a premiership.
 

Original Name

Juniors
Messages
1,413
Nice article.
Just typical stuff like teams trying under the radar or whatever. Though I don't think it really matters. I don't know if 5% of our fans even know the name of name of our Chairman. I don't think think Souths players are gathered around a paper seeing this thinking oh boys the pressure's on us now.
 

billypilgrimnz

First Grade
Messages
5,168
Wake up call.

No amount of waking up is going to put 5 kg of muscle on him before the finals. Like it or not, our team wouldn't skip a beat if Staines was injured and out for the rest of the season, unlike a lot of the other players in the team (the flip side of that is, of course, that we can carry him just fine if he is in the side). He's deeply average, but Cleary has waited too long to see whether May is worthy of jumping him in the rankings. Playing May for the last four games of the round and it not working out would mean having to bring back Staines for the finals, who would be down on confidence.

So instead Cleary decides to move Crichton to the wing who is not a winger in the slightest. Whatever happened to his reasoning for sticking with Tyrone May over Burton in the halves: minimize disruption to positions?

Edit: Some Staines numbers:

Running meters per game: 79 m (ranked =18th in the squad, tied with Capewell and Eisenhuth)
Runs per game: = 9 (=14th in the squad)
Errors: 22 (2nd in the squad)
Missed tackle %: 25.3% (To'o 14.9%, Jennings 16.7%, Naden 30.9%)

And before someone mentions his tries, here is a list of players this season with around the same number of tries as Staines. Would you want any of these guys?

Jason Saab
Mika Sivo
Ken Maulamo
David Nofoaluma
 
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Original Name

Juniors
Messages
1,413
Critter and Nathan totally shut down Trubo. Pure insanity if he plays anywhere but right centre
They shut him down when he was one game back. Bloke was so tired he was bludgeing on the wing when he took that intercept. Completely different to the usual Turbo taking a bunch of one off the ruck hit ups like a prop.
 

mxlegend99

Referee
Messages
23,327
We’ve conceded 13 tries all year down the right. The least in the league by a distance. The next best is Melbourne, Gold Coast and Sharks on between 22 & 23. That’s considering the vast majority of sides are much more potent down their left edge in attack. Capewell, Cleary, Crichton and Staines are all a big part of that. They all make great decisions, effective contact and they trust each other.

Whoever said Souths ceiling is higher than ours a few pages back gave the perfect demonstration of attacking bias. No team that is distinctly average in defence will hold a candle to a historically good defensive team regardless of their attack. Breaking up our right edge because one of its members, our leading try scorer, has ‘only scored walk ins’ and doesn’t make 200m when you have two of the most effective metre making backs in the world, would be the most insane example of attacking bias.

Staines for sure needed a rest. Every player that hasn’t had a break should be getting a break against a rabble like the Dragons/Tigers. I remember Franklin said pre-season a successful year for Charlie would be getting through 6-7 games of first grade unscathed. He’s played 20 and should absolutely finish on 26 or there’s every chance we’ll be trashing Ivan for another f*ckhead galaxy brain move costing us a premiership.
Exactly. Staines until last week was the only constant on the best defensive right side in the competition. At it's peak it's Cleary, Crichton and Staines together. He was also our leading try scorer until Burton passed him.

Staines just reads the game well and seems to make good decisions on when to rush out of the line and has the pace to make sure it works. He also has the pace that it's hard to kick in behind him and he tends to nullify other teams speedsters pretty well.

He's far from perfect. But he has a great strike rate, rarely concedes tries and he has speed to cancel out players in other teams which would otherwise be able to shred us. We need to use him better for sure. We just don't seem to create space on our right edge to put him into gaps. But when Cleary has missed as much of the season as he has, and half Staines games on that wing were outside of a centre that doesn't pass it's pretty hard to get the best out of a player who needs space. We should try and get him to follow guys who can offload though too. If someone can poke their nose through and get it into his hands it will be a try more often than not. He doesnt really follow people for offloads, but we also don't seem to have many offloaders in the team.
 
Messages
4,310
Exactly. Staines until last week was the only constant on the best defensive right side in the competition. At it's peak it's Cleary, Crichton and Staines together. He was also our leading try scorer until Burton passed him.

Staines just reads the game well and seems to make good decisions on when to rush out of the line and has the pace to make sure it works. He also has the pace that it's hard to kick in behind him and he tends to nullify other teams speedsters pretty well.

He's far from perfect. But he has a great strike rate, rarely concedes tries and he has speed to cancel out players in other teams which would otherwise be able to shred us. We need to use him better for sure. We just don't seem to create space on our right edge to put him into gaps. But when Cleary has missed as much of the season as he has, and half Staines games on that wing were outside of a centre that doesn't pass it's pretty hard to get the best out of a player who needs space. We should try and get him to follow guys who can offload though too. If someone can poke their nose through and get it into his hands it will be a try more often than not. He doesnt really follow people for offloads, but we also don't seem to have many offloaders in the team.
Be great to see him with the licence to follow TPJ; he would pop a few passes…
 

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