I hate it when people are overly critical of a coach, but there are times when it is valid. This is definitely one of those times.
Your side is blessed with some natural attacking talented players in a range of positions. I think your progress in this comp is f**ked due to three things.
1. Coaching: I strongly believe the coaching style of your team is to play "Give the opposition nothing" boring type footy. If you had a strong pack, I could kind of even accept the strategy. The make up of your team atm is just not suited to a grinding style of play. I WILL give some kudos to whoever is coaching your team in defence. They absolutely defend like a top eight side.....so I'll give AOB some credit there.
The most frustrating thing about your coaching was in the last ten minutes. In the last ten minutes, you side actually looked......good. They looked dangerous, desperate and played with some skill. How about they START next week with that same style of desperation they did in the last 10 tonight.
2. Playmakers: NONE of your playmakers are playing good footy....some due to not giving much of a f**k, some due to no ability at all.
3. The Middles. This is an issue that is getting worse as the season goes on. Let's look at them.
Saifiti: Good....but getting more bumps and bruises.
L Thompson: Decent......but the most overrated prop in the comp.
Frizell: Whole-hearted but cooked.
Elliott: Injured.....he gets no wraps out there, but my f**k your team is missing him.
It’s not a coincidence that Elliott is the player with the strongest winning record at the club despite what certain people tell you. The list of players in this competition who are genuine complimentary playmakers at 13 while having huge motors and some real physicality in that role is not long. He’s on that list. He’s not as good as say Cameron Murray but he’s a very good footy player. And he’s essential if your spine is going to consist of five-eighths, fullbacks and meat & potatoes hookers.
And yeah the style of play just does not suit the cattle. The funny thing is we are actually a leading offloading team - it’s how/when we’re doing it and the bizarre lack of players pushing up around the offloads that’s the issue. Even the attempts to generate unstructured opportunities are way too structured.
I can’t pretend I could do a better job than experienced NRL head coaches, but, with the players we have, I would be *heavily* de-emphasising really intricate running patterns. Obviously you need players running decoy lines but instead of training the team to sort of methodically work to certain spots on the field and then running through a complex set play routine with centremetre perfect decoy lines, I’d emphasise instilling general principles about when to be ready to run the unders lines but not stressing about perfection. I’d want my wingers and centres maintaining width in anything remotely resembling good ball, because for my money we don’t want to be compressing the line to go around it - we want to be forcing the opposition to spread their own D line as much as possible and target the spaces between those players. Our most dangerous running threats play further in - Best, Lucas, Ponga, Gagai and Sharpe. Spread the ball with a couple of key unders lines, forces the D to slide, early ball with time and space for our edge players & direct them to straighten or run against the grain. From there hopefully you force legs tackles, ineffective tackles where the ball isn’t wrapped up, and you get momentum, offloads, etc.
So… open footy. That’s the TLDR. Borderline have to not care about field position because we can’t win it.
