When you’re naturally as good as Joey it’s actually really hard to articulate what you’re doing to people who don’t have it like you do.
I’ve heard his teammates attest to Joey giving the on field direction, “okay three tackles from now, pop up in this area and be ready” and sure enough three tackles later they’re catching a cut out pass with clean air in front of them, or they’re catching a banana kick and falling over the line. He didn’t only think ahead, he was pre-envisioning how the defence would react to what he was doing, and predicting correctly. It’s not even stuff they worked on during the week. It’s all stuff he felt would work as the game went on based on things he noticed on the field.
I always think of Joey’s rant at the end of that Origin game where Thurston buggered his arm and then somehow our halves barely managed to force him to make a tackle for the entire rest of the game. Just losing his mind that we “never targeted him”. But if you watch the game back the ball goes that way plenty, and JT’s back rower covers for him and I think ends up making over 50 tackles. They did target him. They just couldn’t do it effectively.
But Joey’s understanding of this game is on this instinctual level where there isn’t a difference between not doing something effectively and not doing it at all. The stuff you do on play 1 and play 2 to then be able to get Thurston into a 1-on-1 with your back rower and a centre, that just happened for him without him having to cognitively process those steps. Pure feel.
Similarly, I think there’s a reason both Cam Smith and Darren Lockyer seem to show literal interest in coaching. They know it’s not for them. A recipe for frustration that you can’t just tell the guy who plays the position you did to do the really subtle and difficult stuff which always came easy to you.
