Round 4 v Dragons

[chrisD]

Inside balls are a symptom of playing too sideways. Playing too sideways is a symptom of not generating momentum out of the middle. The defensive is comfortably set and so Soward is having to probe wider to find something to work with, running into dead ends. Also everything is going through him and he's not much of a threat on the outside with speed, and so the defenders on the outside don't have reason to get interested and come in on him.

Our two most professional looking tries, ones we didn't pull out of our arse, both having something in common. The first was on the back of a good set with a good interchange of passes from our forwards, we had a break up field, then a quick play the ball by Matagi has the defence only just getting back and failing to push up off their line quickly. Latu got into first receivers, threatened the line and threw a nice ball for Cartwright running straight. Easy try through the good Broncos defence.

The second well worked try was Mansour's yesterday. McKendry gets away a rare quick play the ball, Latu gets into first receiver, runs to the line with Peachey on his hip, the defense compresses and he throws a very nice pass out the back right out in front of Soward who hits it on the fly outside of defenders.

Moylan can near turn water to wine in attack, and we have other players capable of pulling points out their arse, but we have fundamental problems in attack and the root cause is not being able to generate momentum in the middle for more than half the match. And then when we start to get the momentum going half time hits after 10mins, then the players creating it get interchanged off 10mins after halftime.

 

[The yak]

Yesterday performance by Blake easily illustrates why Hiku was bought.
I know Blake is learning but he is a long way off a consistent first grader. He needs to learn how to carry the ball properly too.
I'd rather Yeo at centre next week marking Jennings instead of Blake. He needs to go back to reserves for awhile.

Why did we constantly bomb the ever reliable Nightingale? I would have targeted rookies Peter Matautia and Aitkens side. If they were worried about Mansour in the air swap sides with DWZ for a few sets. Nightingale rarely makes mistakes. I could fathom Sowards attacking game yesterday.

 

[Frankus]

No matter how impotent we were in attack, we won't routinely beat good sides if we continue churning out 30 missed tackles a game. Think of some of the misses in the first 4 weeks. Mbye, Fenson, Dugan. All tackles that good sides would have made. Make those and we win those games. That needs to be sorted ASAP otherwise we will continue to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

It was clear as day to me that DWZ needed to get some clean ball and be shifted to centre. He looked dangerous.

 

[BxTom]

So has anyone heard how Will Smith is?

Tom.

 

[panther.mike]

Have I got it right, according to some posters on here....Gus Gould doesn;t know what he is doing, Hook Griffen can't coach....Our players are terrible and can;t think.......Our 'training' staff are hopeless .....The referees are biased and blind.....and our fans at the games don't cheer loud enough. Have I got it right cos I want to be up to date.?:crazy::crazy::crazy:

 

[BxTom]

Have I got it right, according to some posters on here....Gus Gould doesn;t know what he is doing, Hook Griffen can't coach....Our players are terrible and can;t think.......Our 'training' staff are hopeless .....The referees are biased and blind.....and our fans at the games don't cheer loud enough. Have I got it right cos I want to be up to date.?:crazy::crazy::crazy:

You forgot the "he is not in his best position" type posts as well

Tom.

 

[maple_69]

Man people have got to chill. We aren't the greatest side in the comp but f**k me we're not near as bad as people make out. We got very easily be 3/4 or 4/4 and everyone would be knobbing each other off.

We badly need a straight/line running second rower IMO. We're too sideways, limiting our outside backs room. What I'd do to have Gavin Cooper back! I think Yeo has the ingredients but just isn't quite there yet. Peach needs to play up the middle.

Argue all you want but by adding Moylan, Whare, Segs to that side and we're a totally different proposition.

Edit: Gremsuhl could be that back rower we're after!

I think Grevy could be the guy. We have a great back row on paper in Peach, Carty and Merrin but none are line runners. Agree Yeo looks promising in this regard. Moylan helps out structure in attack a lot but we will always lack a dimension when the defence doesn't have to worry about the decoy runner being a genuine threat like a Cordner or Cooper.

Gonna be great to see how we play with Moylan. It seems we are avoiding engaging the backline because we don't have Moylan to execute it perfectly. Being able to run those plays will see Martin really come into his own as well I think.

Looks like Martin was solid in defence at least (24 tackles, 1 missed) which is outstanding for a young half.

 

[martielang]

Blake wasn't great yesterday but punting him to NSW Cup after one bad game will do nothing for his confidence, especially given he had been solid for us before injury.

I'm happy to eat my humble pie in regards to Hiku.

 

[mxlegend99]

Peta hiku misses a hell of a lot of tackles though... with low tackle counts aswell.

R1 11 tackles. 2 missed. 2 ineffective
R2 12 tackles. 4 missed. 2 ineffective
R3 7 tackles. 3 missed. 1 ineffective
R4 10 tackles. 7 missed.

Seen him get beaten easily a number of times. Really shocked at how poor his defence has been to be honest. His attack has been really good and he's certainly an asset to the team.

But his defence needs some major work. Not just him. But you would expect more from a big signing.

 

[chrisD]

He's not working well with Soward to cover his weakness either.

 

[age.s]

I agree with those saying it's not a doom and gloom, but that's what makes it so frustrating. Both the dragons and dogs games were winnable and we lost due to brain explosions. Soward kicking dead vs the dogs and bitching up the short kickoff yesterday. Being 3-1 with Moylan still to return would be an exceptional start but you don't get anything for sticking in a game and losing. We need to play smarter in the big moments or this season will be over very quickly.

 

[Kilkenny]

Didn't go to the game, thankfully, because it was absolutely awful to watch live on TV.

Again we basically offered absolutely nothing in attack.

There were few positives to come of the game.

The side needs the creativity of Segeyaro and Moylan that is abundantly clear.

There is the nucleus to have a potentially good side but something is seriously lacking and to watch us on the attack, particularly inside the opposition 20 metre zone is painful and depressing.

 

[Pomoz]

I don't understand all the wrist slashing and pessimism. The team does exactly what is says on the tin. Yesterday we had 4 experienced first graders, 6 if you count Matagai and Peachey with 46 and 47 games games as experienced (not even two full seasons and many games as minor bench players). Mckendry, Soward, Mansour and Hiku. That's it. We do exactly what you would expect of youngsters, moments of genius, followed by a loss of concentration and errors. This won't change until they play more games. Benching the likes of Blake to bring in, guess what, another young inexperienced reserve grader will not improve us. Whare, Segyaro, Latimore and Moylan coming back will tip the scales so that more than half the team are experienced. That will make a difference.

So we lost that game playing two players short, with our fullback STRETCHERED OFF at a critical time and yet the best the Dragons could do is beat us with better kicking, by two points, AT HOME. Some people need a sense of perspective.

Step back for one minute. The strategy of Penrith football club is to build team made of 80% local juniors and a few selective marquee signings. This is an exact copy of the Broncos model and when Bennett was there, that model continued to pump out competitive teams with mainly juniors. Don't bother with the ridiculous argument "but he had the whole of Queensland to pick from". The club could still only pick 25 players and every team has scouts in QLD. This model works, but it takes time.

Look at that team yesterday. It is made up of a core of local juniors and young, inexperienced signings that look to have great potential like Latu, Peachy and TMM. The club is building the foundations, when they have another two seasons under their belt, they will be a brilliant skilful side. A replacement half (probably Cleary) being the only gap I can see at the moment.

We have begged for years for the club to use the junior base properly. Now we have an academy built, another u20 team looking like it is going to win a comp (number 3 in less than 5 years, not counting chickens, but jeez they are impressive) and a first grade team full of juniors, at last. The wins will come.

 

[murraymob]

So has anyone heard how Will Smith is?

Tom.

he was up and walking around after the game .will have a head ache today for sure

 

[betcats]

We missed 50 tackles yesterday. A better side would of put a score on us for sure. When teams play poorly and still beat you it's not good.

 

[franklin2323]

Pomoz spot on we aren't far off with the young guys.

We play GC, WT, Newcastle, Manly twice. All teams I don't see making the 8. Roosters before then get reinforcements. Souths without Origin players. Storm after origin 2. If we win all those that gets us in the 8 these close games help. Can be done when we get guys back. We are starting to get some guys in good form.

 

[umina panther]

Whole year rests on Moylan playing every game from here. Its that simple

 

[Kilkenny]

I don't think any of us doubt the potential in our line-up and certainly it remains a young squad the majority of whom are only going to get better. However, the style of footy we have dished out in the first four rounds is very one dimensional and seems totally devoid of structure and set plays. Given the amount of set's we have enjoyed inside our opposition metre zone thus far our return is less than satisfactory and for the most part we have rarely looked like scoring or even threatening to score. It is not a case of being doom and gloom, yesterday was extremely painful to watch. It was not enjoyable and while we could have snatched the points, again, it does not alter the fact we were very poor in attack.

 

[PenrithPanther45]

A bit more confident after the eels had a bit of a dour game too

 

[hindy111]

I think a lot of your problem is the forwards.
You needs guys who just run straight and hard. Latu - Matagai - RCG all do in the front row.
But then you have the side steppers or guys who are sort of forwards and sort of utlitlies. Bryce- Yeo - Peachey. They play big minutes and do not help with go forward.
The problem is the balance right there. Peachey can create but most the time he is just dancing around like a moron. Yeo is a good prospect and been better this year but along with cartwright to many times they just do not pin their ears back and run straight and hard. It does not give the halves any chance .What is soward meant to do on a play after peachey has danced around for 10 seconds and not made any meters? Just letting the defense set. You needs guys like Matagai style to just roll up the guts and get a quick play the ball for guys like Soward to be able to give early ball yo your backs who are your weapons.
Id only ever have 2 of the 4 guys between - Peachey-Cartwright - Yeo - Taylor.
Id lean towards Cartwright with peachey on the bench. Hard luck for Yeo but for the balance of the team you need a mongrel.