I believe that we will lose tomorrow. The Tigers defense will shut us out. The Tigers have a more savvy coach then us. That is already evident by how well he has recruited in one off season compared to the five by our coach. He also inherited a basket case of a club when he signed on, but it didn't take him that long at all to attract the right type of players to his club to change their attitude.
I have said it before, in the salary cap era it should only take a decent coach/recruiter one to two years to create a good roster. I know we had our issues due to the previous management team, but boy were we cheating/paying overs for a long time for some real crappy players. Anyway some of it was BA and some of it not, but his inability to address our forward issues quickly(in one off season) has led us to this point.
Sure he doesn't want to pay big bucks, but that's to bad for him, the team and ultimately us the fans who make the team and his job possible. The more I think about it and watch other teams in the comp play the more bleeding obvious it is that he has failed big time in recruiting to our club what is the foundation of any team that wants to win the big end of season games.
He has done well only with the halves, well in bringing Moses back anyway. But to constantly overlook the frontrow, is coaching suicide. The game has never really changed from the very old adage that forwards win you games and the backs dictate by how much.
We are lacking massively in the frontrow. The only real class forward we have is Brown. from there it really goes down hill as far as genuine game breakers. Sure there are a few quality workers like Mannah and Alvaro and I like Edwards for his enthusiasm and up tempo approach coming off the bench which is always a necessary thing that a bench player should possess coming on. But the rest, well who really cares. Now don't get me wrong, Mannah and Alvaro, are not the answer to our engine room woes, but should only be a part of a bigger and more destructive running duo that we bring to the club.
Then having those two worker type of frontrowers makes sense and they shouldn't cost a fortune being tradesmen types. But size, power and muscle up front is what it is all about. Then our halves will have the freedom to play their natural and talented game. Look at the Warriors yesterday. That pack obliterated the Chooks. Why, because as good as their starting pack is, they don't have the go forward of the dynamic pack that is the Warriors and a good to solid half in Blake Green thrived and looked like a SOO player. People will say that maybe the Chooks did it to themselves with all that dropped ball. Yes maybe they did, but if you look closely, you will see that it was the intensity of the Warriors pack that helped in creating those errors.
Last year even when we were going well, we couldn't really put teams away or backup, back to back to back quality performances. Some games we would look tired or lacking enthusiasm, until someone like Semi would turn it for us. That is because our boys were trying their collective guts out last year, but being on the smaller side, would really struggle to play with the same ferocity week in week out. This year we have no Semi.
When was the last time that we had a powerful frontrower that consistently came on and made space by breaking up structured defense. Junior and before him Fui. Well that just isn't good enough BA. Now there are quite a few gorillas off contract this year, lets see what BA does from here. But if he can't bring at least two major scalps to our club, he hasn't got what it takes to win a premiership. Which is the best coaches are the best recruiters.
Also, don't get me started on our backrowers, this year. Or should I say our non-existent backrowers. Do we even have backrowers???
