Thoughts on no Matterson in the side Ram?
Not all that surprising about Matto. While he has been good, he has hardly irreplaceable. I still think it is due to the way we use him but don't start me on that. Anyway with the way our forwards have played this year in general the players the coach has gone with are all just as good.
But my real concern is Ray Stone at nine. He isn't a dummy halfs arse hole and that means everyone else is going to have to jump in at different stages and substitute there which means the team will play disjointed and confused at times. What a terrible injury to happen at this time of year.
Goes to show you can never have enough junior playmakers at a club competing for spots or versatile players who can play in the spine it needed. Like you and I have said many, many times before, Gus Gould's philosophe on junior RL development is to have all clubs put in strong development structures to the point that 10-20 years down the track, if ALL clubs are doing it there will always be more quality players then NRL clubs to fit in. Therefore creating an abundance of players and clubs should then be able to have true depth and hopefully be able to replace crucial player like this with an actual player that can play there.
I know that we have 3 dummy halfs at our club and they are all injured, so you can't stop rotten luck, but if the NRL had a stronger base of players always coming through, I'm sure each club would then have more players that can play multiple positions due to the competition that is being created. All this is navel gazing and speculation of course and injuries are injuries and ultimately unavoidable. Besides, we do have Will Smith that will probably come into the game once the sting is out of the game and Stone is gassed and under the pump.
So in a nutshell the team that BA has gone with is a very strong one and should get the job done against NC, but it is a very real concern that we are going into a semi final with no recognised dummy half and all good performances generally start at the ruck and the crisp passing or options taken there. It will be interesting how we manage the game from there. If the Knights bring their A game we could be toast. They have their best and strongest lineup playing and if their 9 has a big game because of the Saifiti brothers, Klemmer and Frizell leading the way then Pearce, Ponga and Best could literally steal the show.
We need our forwards to shut down their forwards and roll them backwards. We need to slow that ruck as much as possible to limit Brailey's impact which should then limit the stars in their backline. Lets face it, if we just get an average game out of Stone or whoever else substitutes there we are doing well. Moses really needs to have his kicking game on and keep the Knight coming out of their end as much as possible. If we do that we should get away with it even with our limited creativity around the ruck.
Also it wouldn't surprise me if Matto is brought into the starting 17 before kick off, but I wouldn't.
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