Rumours and Stuff

[Chipmunk]

Every team is playing the ball slower.

That might be true, but perhaps we're not able to adapt to the rule change as well as some others.

We've never been a team who's middle forwards made it over the advantage as well as the majority of our opponents. It seems to me that if the ball is going to be played slower and teams aren't going to move up as fast, that those teams with forwards who know how to get over the advantage line are going to go better than those who don't. I think the Dragons early season form is testament to this, as has the Panthers.

 

[Chipmunk]

Your post below would suggest otherwise.

View attachment 18785

Well you obviously photoshopped my post, because this is what I found was the actual post

 

[Gary Gutful]

Outsmarted me again Chipmunk.

 

[Chipmunk]

Outsmarted me again Chipmunk.

I will have to save that one for future use...

 

[Poupou Escobar]

He looked like a pretty big liability last week times.

He wasn't on long enough to be a liability last week. Twelve tackles, none missed, one ineffective.

He's been average so far, certainly due to making too many tackles. It's not his job, much like Nathan Brown. This year Evans has missed 5 tackles from 61 attempts (92%), and attempted 0.68 tackles per minute. That is very high. We would prefer his defensive work to be below 0.5 tackles per minute. That will allow him to make more runs.

Here's some more middle forwards for comparison:

Alvaro: 3 missed from 108 attempts (97%), 0.81 attempts per minute (NRL gold standard)
King: 10 from 114 (91%), 0.60 per minute
Brown: 2 from 88 (98%), 0.45 per minute
Mannah: 6 from 70 (94%), 0.57 per minute

Bromwich: 4 from 93 (96%), 0.39 per minute
Asofa-Solomona: 2 from 62 (97%), 0.31 per minute
Taumalolo: 7 from 99 (93%), 0.41 per minute
McLean: 2 from 74 (97%), 0.36 per minute
Scott: 11 from 78 (86%), 0.39 per minute (a considerable factor in why the Cowboys aren't going so well this year, and why he was probably no great loss last year)
De Belin: 5 from 99 (95%), 0.39 per minute
Vaughan FFS: 2 from 101 (98%), 0.44 per minute
Paulo: 2 from 71 (97%), 0.59 per minute (much higher than normal, which explains why they're winless in 2018)
Boyd: 0 from 75 (100%), 0.40 per minute
Napa: 7 from 87 (92%), 0.38 per minute
JWH: 3 from 83 (96%), 0.70 per minute

https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/stats/

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Your post here below would suggest that you expected otherwise. Twice as good???????

View attachment 18784

Well he's only been playing 30 minutes per game due to our lack of possession, with over 21 attempted tackles in that time. Given more possession he will play longer minutes and get more runs. In 40 minutes he will double his attacking output from last year as I said.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

That might be true, but perhaps we're not able to adapt to the rule change as well as some others.

It doesn't matter how slow we play the ball if we never have the ball in the first place.

We've never been a team who's middle forwards made it over the advantage as well as the majority of our opponents. It seems to me that if the ball is going to be played slower and teams aren't going to move up as fast, that those teams with forwards who know how to get over the advantage line are going to go better than those who don't. I think the Dragons early season form is testament to this, as has the Panthers.

The Dragons had great early season form last year too. Let's wait a few weeks before awarding the J.J. Giltinan Shield.

 

[Chipmunk]

Well he's only been playing 30 minutes per game due to our lack of possession, with over 21 attempted tackles in that time. Given more possession he will play longer minutes and get more runs. In 40 minutes he will double his attacking output from last year as I said.

And if we win our next four games with the forwards we put on the field without him over the next few weeks I'd suggest he won't be getting a game. He's a 4th to 6th quality middle forward, just like the rest of our middle forwards outside of Brown.

If he was that good he would've seen more game time at the Roosters, regardless of any excuse you want to come up.

 

[Chipmunk]

It doesn't matter how slow we play the ball if we never have the ball in the first place.

The Dragons had great early season form last year too. Let's wait a few weeks before awarding the J.J. Giltinan Shield.

We're losing the play the ball and playing the ball slower than our opponent from the opening set of all each games, that has nothing to do with possession or fatigue. Even when we had all the ball against the Panthers and they kept dropping it every set of six, they were still making more ground with the ball than we were. Once they held onto the ball it was all over.

The Dragons did start well last season also and time will tell if that continues on. I don't necessarily see them winning the comp, but I think they're a far superior team with Hunt and Graham than they were last season. I was astounded that people believed that they were twice as less chance of winning the comp than Parra were at the start of the season.

 

[Chipmunk]

,,,

 

[Chipmunk]

He wasn't on long enough to be a liability last week.

He was the primary cause for our opponents only try last week. We shouldn't have to worry about defensive lapses from players only on the field for that short period of time.

 

[strider]

Graheme would of been a good leader

Graheme Labroy? ... his names graham hindy111

 

[Poupou Escobar]

And if we win our next four games with the forwards we put on the field without him over the next few weeks I'd suggest he won't be getting a game. He's a 4th to 6th quality middle forward, just like the rest of our middle forwards outside of Brown.

To rank them 1 to 6 (or whatever) is simplistic and ignores the fact that they play different roles. But I agree he isn't so good that he will walk straight back into a winning team unless there are injuries. But I suspect Arthur rates him much more highly than you do. He also rates Tony Williams a lot higher than you do. These two are legit first graders, with more attacking ability than most of our middle forwards.

If he was that good he would've seen more game time at the Roosters, regardless of any excuse you want to come up.

Except the Roosters have some excellent middle forwards, and as I said, Taukeiaho (an absolute gun) overtook him. It's no different to Nathan Peats at Souths or Corey Norman at the Broncos.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

We're losing the play the ball and playing the ball slower than our opponent from the opening set of all each games, that has nothing to do with possession or fatigue. Even when we had all the ball against the Panthers and they kept dropping it every set of six, they were still making more ground with the ball than we were. Once they held onto the ball it was all over.

It was all over because we started taking short cuts in defence (Evans included).

The Dragons did start well last season also and time will tell if that continues on. I don't necessarily see them winning the comp, but I think they're a far superior team with Hunt and Graham than they were last season. I was astounded that people believed that they were twice as less chance of winning the comp than Parra were at the start of the season.

Because they lack class and their defence is poor compared to ours. This will become apparent later in the season, as it did last year.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

He was the primary cause for our opponents only try last week. We shouldn't have to worry about defensive lapses from players only on the field for that short period of time.

It wasn't a lapse, he bought the inside support runner (another example of hard work off the ball making it easier for your runners) and expected Norman to get his body in front of Gallen. The better decision might've been to push out to Gallen but what if his inside defender didn't follow him and pick up the support runner? It wasn't a massive lapse, it was no different to plenty of decisions that occur every game. Norman did stop Gallen but he left his arms free to offload to Bukuya. Other defenders should have been on that merkin anyway. Conceding a try is always a team effort, despite agenda-pushing merkins looking for a scapegoat.

 

[hindy111]

Graheme Labroy? ... his names graham hindy111

Attention to detail was never my strong point

 

[Soren Lorenson]

Attention to detail was never my strong point

Are you saying that 85% is only approximate then?

 

[Glenneel]

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???

Trouble is, from what BA has said before the season started, he over-estimated our forwards ability and discounted the loss of Semi. Maybe he is too close to the action and can't see the obvious (can't see the forest for the trees). Maybe he needs to take a step backwards and have an honest assessment of the players and recruit accordingly and get rid of those non performing. We seem to hang onto players one year too long rather than letting them go one year too early.

Imo BA's philophesy has been to injury proof the team at the expense of building a very good first 17. Therefor our team is fairly average across the board with very few stars. Unfortunately our performances have reflected our team's makeup and so far have ranged from average to diabolical. One can hope that today is the day we'll get our first win but I'm really worried about this year. Looking at the improvements the bottom 8 teams from last year have made to their rosters I honestly doubt our ability to make the top 8 this year. This is the year BA has to become proactive and start improving the roster for next year and he has to start with the forwards.

 

[Chipmunk]

To rank them 1 to 6 (or whatever) is simplistic and ignores the fact that they play different roles. But I agree he isn't so good that he will walk straight back into a winning team unless there are injuries. But I suspect Arthur rates him much more highly than you do. He also rates Tony Williams a lot higher than you do. These two are legit first graders, with more attacking ability than most of our middle forwards.

Except the Roosters have some excellent middle forwards, and as I said, Taukeiaho (an absolute gun) overtook him. It's no different to Nathan Peats at Souths or Corey Norman at the Broncos.

When did I say that I don't rate Tony Williams?

 

[Chipmunk]

It was all over because we started taking short cuts in defence (Evans included).

Because they lack class and their defence is poor compared to ours. This will become apparent later in the season, as it did last year.

Lack class? I've heard it all.

Not one of our forwards, including Brown, would make their starting forward pack. Brown would still get a game off the bench.

Norman and Moses aren't better than Hunt and Widdop.

McDonald and Nightingale would both be the starting wingers picked at our club.

Only someone with bias blue and gold goggles would think otherwise.