The weakest link

[Iafeta]

Ozbash is a Mannering hater

no i,m not. I like him but i think he is pretty one dimensional and super predictable. he is gaurenteed to die with the ball, he wouldnt pass to St Peter at the pearly gates..

we would not be sitting in 4th place if it wasnt for logan swann.
price gets all the press and praise re his metres. the real worker in the warriors is loges with his defence. Luck is very similar.

Luck is easily the harder worker out of him and Swann. What games are you watching champ?

Simon is doing a good job in the centres, he may be one dimensional, but as the above poster noted he still sets his man up nicely when needed, such as last night. Not too sure if you're aware from your comments, but there was a game last night at Mt Smart Stadium between the Warriors and Gold Goast Titans, and a fellow by the name of Simon Mannering put another fellow by the name of Grant Rovelli in for a six pointer just quietly.

 

[Fast Eddie]

Well you have a lot of support Ozbash.

Swann is also one diamensional and super predictable.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Basically I reckon our team can be divided into three categories:

1: Solid, reliable players who aren't gamebreakers but don't have any glaring weaknesses either (Luck, Swann, Ropati)
2: Players who can be absolute weapons but who also have some obvious faults (Lauaki, Vatuvei, Rovelli, Mannering)
3: Steve Price.

 

[Sanchez]

i reckon swann
that one handed carry he does

 

[ozbash]

Well you have a lot of support Ozbash.

not after support mate, far from it.

In my opinion it is a very strong team, bit weak in the halves than the 02 side but nonetheless a very good side who on their day, could win it.

Its not strong across the park. ravs will be flavour of the week with his 3 tries but i still think that the guy has a long way to go before we see the best in him.

Crockett doesnt really convince me yet but i think he is the better all round player than paddy is yet.

Mannering can also upset me, he will come in (last night he rushed up on a Tit and left manu with 3 to cover) , did the same v the knights.
He will run at an opposition player rather than try to step him, he doesnt pass to his wing, wont cover the wing.

apart from that,,, he's veeeery good

 

[Fast Eddie]

I agree with you on some aspects. The thing with Rovelli is....is he playing a hell of a lot better than he was a while back? I mean he is scoring tries but mainly just from good support play. Still good to see some improvement from him.

I had thought Crockett was a slightly better player than Paddy but wasn't sure if I was right. I'm convinced of it now. So much more threatening on attack and just as good defensivly. Hopefully he is back this week.

 

[ozbash]

The thing with Rovelli is....is he playing a hell of a lot better than he was a while back?

yes, he was very dissapointing imo, the first half of the season and has picked his game up to the standards he showed us last year.

i think paddy had a "bad day" yesterday. he is a much better player than that.

you forgot the Capt'n...

 

[Fast Eddie]

I think Mannering is a pretty good centre. Doesn't have a lot of footwork but still makes good metres out wide. And if you don't think he passes enough how about Ropati.....he can offload just need to see more of it. Remember that he is a second rower playing centre. His one on one defence is damn good but sometimes he makes poor decisions on defence just like Manu outside. Far from the weak link imo.

 

[ozbash]

well, it was hard to pin point a "weak link" in that team. There is, as feka said, the inexperience of sammy rapira (who i rate as the warriors next big thing) and tuimavave, we have the relative greeness of ravs, mannering playing out of position and a pretty weak positional kicking game from all.

we are not doing too badly considering.

 

[Fast Eddie]

Our kicking game can be our weak point.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

i reckon swann
that one handed carry he does

For everyone saying it's an issue, how often does it acutally result in him losing the ball? Far less often than it results in an offload, so IMO there's nothing wrong with it. It's one of those things that looks riskier than it is, the bloke just has massive hands and can get away with it.

 

[Auckland4ever]

If our opposition is able to limit our offloads and match it with our forwards, Witt & Rovelli are likely to be the weakest links IMO. Have to give both credit though, Rovelli is playing with a lot of confidence right now, lately his support play is "McKinnon-esque" & Witt has proved to be a good buy and has been pretty solid all season, not to mention his great goalkicking.

 

[Rich102]

Sadly, too often the referee has qualified as the weakest link!

 

[JJ]

I don't know that there is a weak link... but if there is it's potentially Vatuvei or Swann (or Ah Van if he plays)

Meh, no, it's the halves, and in particlular the lack of a decent kicking game ...

 

[ozbash]

Sadly, too often the referee has qualified as the weakest link!

dead right.

 

[Kakihara]

Or if Ah Van plays, just kick it to him and form a scrum.

Ah Van is one of our safest players. Hes good under the high ball and very rarely have i seen him make a mistake, the only problem is he's so damn slow for a winger, watching him run this last game the guy has no explosive speed at all.

 

[Kakihara]

Michael Witt will be our weakness in the finals. He makes one or two good plays then will go missing for the rest of the game plus his short kicking game is horrible.

 

[lockyno1]

I'd say probally a good kicking game, whilst Witt and Rovelli do a job, they hardly have a massive boot on them to get the team out of trouble!

 

[MKEB...]

Did you notice a 70m dropout last week?

Although his line kick from a penalty where he failed to find touch this week wasn't overly bright.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

Ah Van is one of our safest players. Hes good under the high ball and very rarely have i seen him make a mistake, the only problem is he's so damn slow for a winger, watching him run this last game the guy has no explosive speed at all.

Absolutely. Ah Van has made a couple of errors this year which have given him an utterly undeserved reputation, because the strong point of his game is his safety and handling/ball skills.

I see him (best case scenario) as a Karmichael Hunt type player. Hunt is, tbh, very slow and not an explosive runner at all- he winds up and returns the ball like a man possessed, but just gets smashed every time and hardly ever breaks a tackle. BUT, he has terrific all-round rugby league skills. He has great hands, great positional sense, generally good attacking skills (passing, vision, awareness), and he gives it 100% for 80 minutes. I think Ah Van could be like that, but I don't think wing is the spot for him.....he's not getting a run at fullback any time soon though.