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Rumoured & Confirmed Signings - Part 5

maple_69

maple_69

Bench
Messages
4,531
Actually diving into Luke’s Cup stats, he’s having a monster year.

Leads the league in line break assists, dummy half runs, 2nd in try assists and has a good bag of offloads, forced line drop outs and tries to his name plus doesn’t seem to have too many errors in his game. His run metres are trending right up lately as well.

As an injury ravaged dude he’s only been off the field for 40 mins since R2. His other biggest question mark was defence but making 35 tackles a game at 93.5%.

The NRL is a whole different ball game and I’ve only seen him play a few times but no one’s stats jump off the page like his, would be nice to pull a late bloomer like Cook out our ass.
 
Original Name

Original Name

Juniors
Messages
1,365
maple_69 said:
His other biggest question mark was defence but making 35 tackles a game at 93.5%.
Click to expand...
It was never going to be missed tackles that was the question. The question is a big destructive forward running at him, generating a quick play the ball and what happens after that. It allows a shift to be more effective and even if you defend that it's going to be one on one tackle which very likely means another shift will be more effective on the next tackle and the one after that if it's one on one until the set ends. That's what the game's all about at NRL level, momentum and denying teams it through dominant tackling. Doing that to other teams to set up one on one tackles one after another to wear teams down is what Penrith does and exploiting it is a reason we are so dominant.

You control the ruck through your tackling contact and you minimize the amount you have to scramble, make one on one tackles, concede offloads, etc. If want an example watch closely Wayde Egan and the speed the guy playing the ball he's tackling on all his tackles and in the next game watch and compare it to say Api, Cook, Grant, Mchollough, Blayke Brailey, Robson, Starling, etc. Any one of them will do.

Not to say Egan doesn't bring his own positives just like Soni would even if the guy does end up being a target in the line defending in the middle.
 
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Aliceinwonderland

Aliceinwonderland

First Grade
Messages
7,808
In 2023 it wouldn't surprise me to see Kenny at 9 for first 20 mins. Not unlike what happeneelid last Thursday night.

Soni come on at 20 min mark against tiring forwards and do his magic.

Perhaps Thursday night was a trial run for 2023.

This I believe could and would work well.

Kenny is a good hard defender. Luke is more of a lightweight, but could make a mess of opposition forward packs when tired.
 
Original Name

Original Name

Juniors
Messages
1,365
Aliceinwonderland said:
In 2023 it wouldn't surprise me to see Kenny at 9 for first 20 mins. Not unlike what happeneelid last Thursday night.

Soni come on at 20 min mark against tiring forwards and do his magic.

Perhaps Thursday night was a trial run for 2023.

This I believe could and would work well.

Kenny is a good hard defender. Luke is more of a lightweight, but could make a mess of opposition forward packs when tired.
Click to expand...
The problem comes when a team brings their equivalent of Spencer Leniu (E.g Kamikamica, Hamlin-Uele, NAS)
off the bench and targets him when he comes on. Api can handle those guys. Kenny's gotten much bigger and improved his tackling technique, he does it well now. Can Luke prevent a quick play the ball every time a fresh guy like that runs at him and to what extent is it quick?


Not every team has a forward that destructive with the ball on the bench but it's a problem facing the better teams. The Dogs are set to get someone like that in Pele, just look at his highlights as a destructive try scorer he's better than Hass. The Chooks currently have May who is in that mold and will probably start in a few years for them. Those big, explosive leg speed props are popping up more and more so your defence is more important to handle them. Our premiership might just hinge on how well the team contains NAS and limits the momentum he generates for Storm's creative players. You'll be able to covered for on the bench less and less in games that matter as the best teams look to exploit any weaknesses they can get at.
 
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soc123_au

soc123_au

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
19,224
Aliceinwonderland said:
In 2023 it wouldn't surprise me to see Kenny at 9 for first 20 mins. Not unlike what happeneelid last Thursday night.

Soni come on at 20 min mark against tiring forwards and do his magic.

Perhaps Thursday night was a trial run for 2023.

This I believe could and would work well.

Kenny is a good hard defender. Luke is more of a lightweight, but could make a mess of opposition forward packs when tired.
Click to expand...
Very good chance that is the plan I would think. Time will tell if it works as intended. Fingers crossed Luke can be the next late bloomer.
 
age.s

age.s

First Grade
Messages
7,601
Yeah, I'm not convinced that having Api come on after 20 contributed much to us winning on Thursday, but if we're considering that kind of arrangement next year I'm all for using these last few regular season games to test the formula. There'll never be a better chance to tinker in an NRL environment without repercussions. The idea of a guy with Luke's skillset/history being shielded from the most physical period of the match has plenty of merit as well.
 
maple_69

maple_69

Bench
Messages
4,531
Absolutely effective tackling and managing the speed of the ruck is important to the grind, agree. Yeo, Fish & Leota have a job to do to support whoever the little guy is next to them in this regard and Api has that benefit currently. We'll see how Luke does fair in this regard when we get to watch him closely next year. I'm encouraged by the only stats available for Cup, where he's shown demonstrated improvement in defence and durability. He could continue to take steps as he builds confidence in his body holding up and just gets minutes under the belt at hooker. Obviously what he could offer with ball in hand could be magic towards the end of halves in particular.
 
Iamback

Iamback

Coach
Messages
19,001
maple_69 said:
Absolutely effective tackling and managing the speed of the ruck is important to the grind, agree. Yeo, Fish & Leota have a job to do to support whoever the little guy is next to them in this regard and Api has that benefit currently. We'll see how Luke does fair in this regard when we get to watch him closely next year. I'm encouraged by the only stats available for Cup, where he's shown demonstrated improvement in defence and durability. He could continue to take steps as he builds confidence in his body holding up and just gets minutes under the belt at hooker. Obviously what he could offer with ball in hand could be magic towards the end of halves in particular.
Click to expand...

While his NSW Cup numbers are great. The standard is very poor down there, hopefully he has a great pre-season and can start the year well
 
B

Black Panther

Juniors
Messages
1,648
Original Name said:
The problem comes when a team brings their equivalent of Spencer Leniu (E.g Kamikamica, Hamlin-Uele, NAS)
off the bench and targets him when he comes on. Api can handle those guys. Kenny's gotten much bigger and improved his tackling technique, he does it well now. Can Luke prevent a quick play the ball every time a fresh guy like that runs at him and to what extent is it quick?


Not every team has a forward that destructive with the ball on the bench but it's a problem facing the better teams. The Dogs are set to get someone like that in Pele, just look at his highlights as a destructive try scorer he's better than Hass. The Chooks currently have May who is in that mold and will probably start in a few years for them. Those big, explosive leg speed props are popping up more and more so your defence is more important to handle them. Our premiership might just hinge on how well the team contains NAS and limits the momentum he generates for Storm's creative players. You'll be able to covered for on the bench less and less in games that matter as the best teams look to exploit any weaknesses they can get at.
Click to expand...
Speaking of Terrell May, wasn’t he rumoured to be coming back next year? Or weren’t we trying to get him back somehow?
 
G

Girds89

Bench
Messages
3,138
As a few have pointed out
Luke has always had the attacking skills
Longevity and defence were his issue.

Needs to stay fit and have a huge preseason
 
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