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Pazza

First Grade
Messages
9,629
Interesting comment made to me about the Williams signing. "... will suit the style we are going to play."
Who has seen enough of Williams to try and translate that into what we might see differently next year?

we might see some sort of defense next year.....
 
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Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
90,235
PTB speed slow or fast, does not seem to affect a side's ability to win:

I think the secret to slowing the play, and RLET alludes to it in that article, is that the best defensive teams take longer to complete the tackle, by consistently getting numbers in. So they delay how long the opponent has to even start the ‘ptb clock’. This makes it legal slowing down of the opponent. They also need to be good at stopping the offload.

This is why we have been so good at defeating this type of defence in recent years (because we are the best offloaders). Our problem is that we are very poor at implementing this type of defence ourselves. Again this is a matter of personnel. The best offloaders are very big strong merkins who can get an arm free while the defence tries to hold them up. These same very big strong merkins are very poor at joining in on gang tackles and performing these long, drawn out tackles where the ref hasn’t started counting down to a six again or a penalty.
 

oldmancraigy

Coach
Messages
11,870
Knowing our luck V'Landys will change the rules in February and the game will go back to suiting fat slugs... I guess we still have Emu and Jnr on the books so we might still be OK....

I think this is Lane's prayer every night before bed...

Seriously, we're future proof for next year with big dudes.
Paulo, Emu, Lane, Cartwright, Offa - all trend towards the larger end of the spectrum. Most of them played their best footy under the fatter years too!
 

oldmancraigy

Coach
Messages
11,870
Interesting comment made to me about the Williams signing. "... will suit the style we are going to play."
Who has seen enough of Williams to try and translate that into what we might see differently next year?

The downside in Williams is in his hands. A veritable Terepo. So maybe the style was a lot of loose carries? Sivo, Penisini, Moretti, Lane - all exciting prospects in that regard!

More likely mobility. From what I have seen, Williams is mobile, good defender, and "hard" - not afraid of a hit and was fairly good at lifting the tempo for the Sharks off the bench. I imagine that would be his role here as well - tighten up the defence and lift the tempo.
 

Special K

Coach
Messages
19,496
Jack is a love/hate player for a lot of Sharks fans due to his hands. His handling has improved a lot but there are a lot of scars in our fan base around his handling over the years. Often the errors came at the worst possible times such as vs the Warriors when he came on with 3 minutes left, drops the ball on our 35 and the Warriors go and score to win the game for example.

He is an out and out first grader who will bust his arse every week. You can never say he didn't give 100% and often the errors were from trying too hard. He was rated by our coaching staff as one of the strongest defenders in the middle. He was one of our better players in a number of games this season.

Williams was probably one of the best off contract players on the market. You could play him as a small prop/13 but his work off the bench is very good. 3 years is interesting but you haven't broken the bank to get a real professional who will give it his all and it isn't as if at 31 he will be busted. Can't see a downside for any club including the Sharks(outside of our cap pressure/jnrs) giving him that deal.
 

Happy MEel

First Grade
Messages
9,823
Jack is a love/hate player for a lot of Sharks fans due to his hands. His handling has improved a lot but there are a lot of scars in our fan base around his handling over the years. Often the errors came at the worst possible times such as vs the Warriors when he came on with 3 minutes left, drops the ball on our 35 and the Warriors go and score to win the game for example.

He is an out and out first grader who will bust his arse every week. You can never say he didn't give 100% and often the errors were from trying too hard. He was rated by our coaching staff as one of the strongest defenders in the middle. He was one of our better players in a number of games this season.

Williams was probably one of the best off contract players on the market. You could play him as a small prop/13 but his work off the bench is very good. 3 years is interesting but you haven't broken the bank to get a real professional who will give it his all and it isn't as if at 31 he will be busted. Can't see a downside for any club including the Sharks(outside of our cap pressure/jnrs) giving him that deal.
Appreciate the insights mate. You’re welcome back here any time.
 

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