Sure but the point is offloading is a very low risk way to use the ball. Generally the more passes our halves throw the worse we go.
Jeez, do we need to go back and find all the post that you have bunged on about how risky it is to throw the ball around and offload, also known as Parra ball?
Yes I know you will break it down into two types of offloads, the gay abandon type wankingly throwing the ball around and constantly moving laterally without taking the ball forward first with direct and purposeful running and taking the advantage and then judiciously throwing the offload type.
Sure there is less risk in the taking the ball forward first type of offloading, but that also has risk in it and can lead to errors I would say just as risking as playing direct and playing flat and fast. It has all to do with execution and how good you are at doing either. But both are almost unstoppable if you have a fast play the ball to compliment either style/type of play and then finished off with a great kick. We have the great kick, which is what mostly saves us so often, but our play the balls are all over the place depending on the mood we have come to play with and or the oppositions mood and aggression against us.
All these things and more subtleties matter and can't be thought of in isolation otherwise you are skewing your understanding of what is really going on. Fore example offloads are great, but if our defense is not connecting as a unit and we are allowing the opposition to capitalise on space and territory when they have the ball, we soon start to lose confidence in our processes and normal game structure and even team mates, which has so often happened. Then our attack goes out the window and we start to try and fix it by throwing the ball from side to side and offload at will the bad way.
This is one of the reasons we need to be better defenders and be able to fight better in the ruck. We need to learn to defend like the Cowboys have this season. That is what has saved them so many times this season when teams have come at them hard. They haven't panicked because they back their defense to hold out for the entire game and then on the back of that their oppositions frustration will lead to mistakes and their attack will them come off the back of that. They have many weapons of attack in their arsenal as do we, but it's their defense that has made all the difference this season.
The added bonus of having a steady and experienced half like Townsend just steadies the ship so to speak so they all know where to be or get to on any given play and having an experienced premiership winners voice out there is a great way to give them all confidence and a positive mind set. But generally defence builds attack and we are a yoyo team in this aspect of the game. If our big boys don't come out in the right mindset to dominate with good strong and hard 'win the collision' type of running, then our game quickly falls away because we rarely have the defensive mindset to weather the storm and wrestle the game back if the opposition is on song and playing strong.
I think that those stats are favourable to us because we generally play a very boring and conservative style of play that mixes in many offloads that stick because of our great go forward when we are dominating and then we can finish our sets off with a great kick from Moses. But that is great when things are going our way and things generally go our way because we have such a strong and powerful team. But our for and against tells us that even with all that might and power up front, something isn't right in Denmark. Something stinks and the coaching staff haven't been able to fix it in forever. Why is that??
Surely it ain't that freakin hard is it? I mean I would have turned the world upside down and around and around to get it fixed. The Cowboys addressed it in one offseason, our guru head coach hasn't been able to get it done in nine off seasons and people like you just keep defending this mediocre, but decent guy. Well nice doesn't get you trophies, hiring the best defensive coaches does. Now who the hell have we had doing the job without success forever?
Money should never be an issue when sorting out your defense otherwise why even bother. We can afford to get the best defensive coach, to say otherwise is just being ridiculous. We spend millions on our football department ever year and we have struggled in this area of the game for donkeys, we should have spent massively if need be to fix it by now.
After a season or two of watching us losing the ruck and disintegrating and melting away like snow in a sudden heatwave you would have thought this guy would have woken up and put aside friendships and or personal nervousness or fears about getting people that are more or equally as competent as himself and FIXED IT!!!!
But no, we are still the liability that we have always been in defense that we have been since he got here, just that the team as a whole is far more superior then before as individuals so it is hidden better. Also don't give me that crap that we are to big and cumbersome to defend well like other teams. Bullocks and more bullocks. The storm for example when fully fit are a big squad too. It comes down to fitness, technique and mindset. Besides other then Junior everyone else including Lane can, do and would defend well when they are being used the right way or if the coach used the bench the right way. Even Junior is an adequate defender, think of him as our Taumalolo and the Cowboys are defending just fine now that they have learned as a team how to defend...in one freakin OFF SEASON!!!
Our for and against is the health barometer of our team and at the moment it is barely adequate. If we want to actually ever really be a premiership contender then that needs to look more like the current top 3 teams in the comp not like the 4th to 8th teams in the comp. None of those teams have a prayer in Hell of taking out the title and us being able to beat both the Panthers and Storm in one off games isn't the same as when you have to back up that performance with another 2 or 3 of equal intensity and brutality back to back. Where will our mental and physical focus be then? We have shown we can't maintain that type of intensity within two consecutive halves let alone 3-4 games in a row.
I ask the question again, why has the coach not fixed this in 9 freakin years? It doesn't take a genius to tell you we are inconsistent and defense is the primary reason and what everything else hangs off. For this reason alone the coach needs to go, let alone his inability to use these talented players the right way without breaking them down with his mono game plan of chasing the collision. But don't start me down that rabbit hole or we could have another essay on the way.
