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The little time Walsh had under Billy Slater saw an immense amount of improvement in Walsh's game. He was playing well prior to origin, but Billy mentoring Walsh during Origin did amazing things for his game.
Yep Meaney would do us just fine ...... He is in negotiations now with the Storm ......
Yep, good start. Have to admit it. If he continues to get a bit better every game. Im in, but not sold yet.
The best game of his career. Especially in defence. There's been a definite change there - a revolution almost - both in terms of technique, attitude, and tactically. In the red zone he was exclusively defending in the line (a la Darius Boyd) to give us an extra man and doing a great job of it, pulling off one or two solo try saving tackles. And in the post-match chat he immediately credited Dean Young for this improvement. Was a great start for him in an area he has struggled in. Just the one dropped bomb which was the only blemish but he was under pressure quite a lot and handled it well.
Yep good call, I think Liddle had BMM there as well, but Sloan was the obvious who had to be there and was. I also think Flanno has simplified everyone's job, you have a task, just do it well and the rest can take care of itself. I still give BMM some credit for at least trying to back Liddle up.The best game of his career. Especially in defence. There's been a definite change there - a revolution almost - both in terms of technique, attitude, and tactically. In the red zone he was exclusively defending in the line (a la Darius Boyd) to give us an extra man and doing a great job of it, pulling off one or two solo try saving tackles. And in the post-match chat he immediately credited Dean Young for this improvement. Was a great start for him in an area he has struggled in. Just the one dropped bomb which was the only blemish but he was under pressure quite a lot and handled it well.
And in attack, he was magnificent. Perfect fullback play. The set play for his third try was, as the commentator described, gorgeous rugby league... his support of RFM for the first try was exactly what we want to see around our big offloading backrowers, instinctive and well-timed. But my favourite was the second try, in support of Jacob Liddle. No-one else in our team scores that, except Sloan, and that's where he needs to be. So many occasions last year we'd make a break like that and there'd be no speed in support. On this occasion when Liddle broke through, Tyrell was hovering behind the ruck, just in case, and he exploded into full throttle pace to get into a supporting position. Jacob Liddle did a fantastic job to hold off on his draw-and-pass til the right time but Sloany burned the turf to get there. After that no-one was catching him. It was, dare I say Auntie Gerald, reminiscent of a certain Reece Walsh
Have a look back at Sloans play last year, he made most of his breaks pushing through the line from dummy half or first receiver. He didnt actually find as much open space as I would like. This year he is now finding the space and I hope he can continue to push through the forwards from in close.
Something that Nick Campton on the NRL Boom Rookies podcast (the best podcast btw) said about this yesterday... all of the Sloan tries on the weekend came from situations which can be replicated. That is, they weren't freakish individual efforts where he creates something from nothing, which, while nice to have, can be an unreliable method of scoring points. But things like: supporting a big backrower punching through an edge, or following a fast dummy half exploiting space behind the ruck, or floating wide off Ben Hunt, are scenarios that we can produce every single game. It's a very good sign for us.
