Round 6 vs Rabbitohs

[GongPanther]

Re Latu's penalty:It was a penalty.It's not the refs or Souths fault that he miss-timed his leap for the ball.

The Oak milk has been spilled,now is the time to concentrate on catching up to the rest of the field.

I'm confident we'll get there.Slowly,but surely.

 

[TheFrog]

Those spiraling bombs got us numerous repeat sets.

Yes, I think more bombs were put up because they were working.

The form of some of the experienced players like Tamou is below par

I thought Tamou had a good game tonight, making several strong runs into the teeth of the Souths forwards and doing lots of defensive work as well. Merrin isn't quite up to last year's form yet.

 

[souths_reborn]

Yes, I think more bombs were put up because they were working.

I get they were working in the sense that Braidon Burns was dropping them but if that was the case then he should have kept on peppering him instead of trying to put them up in other areas. In saying that, I still think it would have been better to kick for field position when Souths were winning the battle of the forwards in the second half to alleviate much of the pressure we were building.

 

[TheFrog]

The sort of things that happen when you've got a 19-year-old organising a first grade NRL team.

 

[souths_reborn]

Yes, I think more bombs were put up because they were working.

I thought Tamou had a good game tonight, making several strong runs into the teeth of the Souths forwards and doing lots of defensive work as well. Merrin isn't quite up to last year's form yet.

What gets me about Merrin is his fitness. I sometimes wonder how much better he could be if he lost a bit of weight, toned up and started looking like an athlete. The guy could be anything if he didn't resemble Poppin Fresh!

 

[herbert henry1908]

What surprises me as an outsider is the fact that Griffin was brought in to eradicate all of things that you have mentioned and fix the overall culture of the club. I was under the impression that Hook was brought in to fix a lot of the off the field indiscipline in particular. Isn't that why the likes of Segeyaro were given their marching orders? If so I applaud him because while you can win games with ill-discipline you can't win a competition with it. Just on that issue, it can't be a good thing when the captain of your club is acting up like that. I find it strange that someone so young was given the captaincy in the first place! Wouldn't it have made more sense to give it to a more experienced and responsible player, like Peter Wallace?

Not sure where you got this impression but it is absolutely wrong, there was no problem with the club culture under Cleary. In fact Cleary fixed the culture.

Sure there might have been problems with a player or two but the overall culture was not an issue.

 

[TheFrog]

Anyway, we are right where we were last year at the same time. Need to take the points off the Sharks next game, that's a must win now.

 

[kinghippo]

Cleary was kicking most of those bombs from the 50. It was working and since we couldn't get out of our own half before the 5th on most sets it was close to his only option. We didn't have any roll on from the forwards to bring the backs into the game much. Souths kicking game was very good and hopefully we can learn from it.
Anyway potentially 5 first grade players back next week. Merrin could do with a 80 minute stint in the reserves and a ban on offloads until he is fit enough to pass with his eyes open again.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

People on here always suggest dropping one of our big earners down to reserve grade as a punishment for poor form, but it literally never happens.

 

[martielang]

Another frustrating night. We are so clunky in attack at the moment.

Easily Wallaces worst game in a very long time. His service and decision making was abysmal tonight.

I like the look of Katoa in the limited times I've seen him play. Think he should of got time at hooker.

 

[kyussian]

it's easy to be critical after a loss - disappointed but believe the better team won.
some other random observations:

* agree Merrin looks way off - couple of bad misses around the ruck - perhaps the lack of a preseason is hampering him more than we realised - despite the talk he is not Origin ready
* Yeo keeps on keeping on - thought our best tonight
* ruck defence woeful at times - think defence in general was poor - 41 missed tackles apparently. Sutton ran straight through a huge gap in the 2nd half but at least Edwards stopped him on the line - he's definitely the better last line defender
* liking what i'm seeing from CHN - thinking he might actually be our best line runner
* happy with the Cleary bombs but I think he's overplaying his hand with the constant dummy & run - it's no longer a surprise - teams will do their video & learn not to fall for it. want him to look to pass more like he did with the CHN try - revisit that pass that lead to the opening try from the dogs semifinal last year - great vision! keep the defence second guessing!
* Akauola seems to have gone missing - he doesnt seem 100%
* find it interesting that we seem to struggle more in the wet/dewy conditions than the dry - surely we should have ample experience training on our home ground in those conditions??
* fingers crossed the guys dropped to reserve grade dont get injured otherwise we'll be changing the penalty to a fine system moving forward!
* cant underestimate how much punch we lose by taking Mansour & Peachey out of our team - DWZ runs hard but we dont offer much else at the moment - they cant return soon enough!

 

[age.s]

Tonight was Merrin's worst game in a long time. I thought he'd been one of our best forwards this year before tonight. He's the only forward we have atm that even looks like creating some second phase play.

Reckon the criticism of the bombing tactic is harsh too. Most teams have a player that isn't very good under the high ball and when Cleary gets it right it's incredibly difficult to deal with. For example we have to be raining them down on Feki next week. Most of the ones he miscued were when he was under pressure because the ptb was slow or the pass from dummy half was shit.

We look so one dimensional in attack because our set plays in the opp 20 have been crap this year. We have the TMM/Cleary wrap around but very little else, just drab hitups into 5th tackle chip kick. I don't remember us being this pedestrian close to the line last year, maybe getting Cartwright back will help idk.

 

[betcats]

I get they were working in the sense that Braidon Burns was dropping them but if that was the case then he should have kept on peppering him instead of trying to put them up in other areas. In saying that, I still think it would have been better to kick for field position when Souths were winning the battle of the forwards in the second half to alleviate much of the pressure we were building.

It's not easy to direct those floating bombs to one player. They were all over him on the 5th and he still a great job. Those bombs kept us in the game in the 2nd half. That and our desperate defence.

 

[Black Magik]

Tamou needs to study the Broncos forwards. They make it difficult to tackle them and when they do turn it isn't for protection but for a possible offload.

Your a giant James! Play like one....pleeeeease

 

[souths_reborn]

It's not easy to direct those floating bombs to one player. They were all over him on the 5th and he still a great job. Those bombs kept us in the game in the 2nd half. That and our desperate defence.

The ones that he miscued were the occasions where we were all over him on the fifth. We were able to put that much pressure on him on the last because it became obvious what he was trying to do. That is why he should have mixed it up a bit - to keep the South Sydney defence guessing.

 

[snickers007]

Tamou had the most Hit Ups, most Running Metres, most Post Contact Metres and most Tackles of any of our forwards.

He wasn't the problem last night.

 

[Black Magik]

Tamou had the most Hit Ups, most Running Metres, most Post Contact Metres and most Tackles of any of our forwards.

He wasn't the problem last night.

No wonder the forwards were dominated then

 

[kinghippo]

Tamou had the most Hit Ups, most Running Metres, most Post Contact Metres and most Tackles of any of our forwards.

He wasn't the problem last night.

That was tamous best game for us so far and I agree and disagree he wasn't the problem. He played ok but we bought him to dominate other teams forwards. Merrin and Tamou get paid the big bucks to do a job they are not even close to achieving at the moment.

 

[Royce is King]

I cant for the life of me read the comments here about getting rid if the coach without pissing myself.
a few points.

1. Griffin showed a massive set of marbles by dropping the 3 guys .....WTF WOULD A FINE DO TO THESE GUYS MAKING THE COIN THEY DO....NOTHING. You would hope the thing that hurt the players the most was losing the opportunity to put on the jersey and help their mates on the field have a win.

2. Many people have said other clubs would have fined them so that's what we should have done..... Well i can tell you that i live in Brisbane and alot of Broncs fans are sick of the way that they handle problems... e.g James Roberts. Griffin put respect before 2 points and if you think that's not the right call sorry i cant help you. The message that griffin sent out goes alot further than 2 points from 1 game in early April .

3. Griffins track record since coming to the club:
# Gave Nathan Cleary a shot at nrl before most would of considered it
# Converted Peter Wallace from avg half back to one of the better hookers in the comp
# Converted Tyrone Peachey from bench player to starting centre
# And most importantly stopped the cycle of avg jouneyman coming to our club.... and putting his faith in local Penrith juniors and giving many NRL debuts since last year.

4. Could somebody from the 'sack the coach' club please explain to me who should take over? Did you same people see the massive list of candidates for the Tigers job?.... Yeh the coach that got punted from here was the best candidate.......makes me laugh.

Guys we lost by 1 point.... its a long season.

 

[kinghippo]

People on here always suggest dropping one of our big earners down to reserve grade as a punishment for poor form, but it literally never happens.

I know it won't happen, like Moylan to 5/8, but we get these ideas in our head and express them to get it off our chest and highlight our disappointment about something.

To be honest all I really want to see is merrin playing well again and our team winning games.

No matter what we dribble on here I think we all have to agree we are not to far away from getting the formula right, but the set backs are hard to handle especially when it's 2 steps forward 3 steps back.