NZ Warrior said:
How often do you see Vatuvei rush out of the line and come up either empty handed or taking the wrong option???
Whenever Mannering rushes the line, he usually gets his man.
btw, having a thread like "the weakest link" when the Warriors are going so well, sickens me and is everything that is wrong with the Kiwi sports fan.
Well, I disagree.
I'll agree that Manu often struggles WHEN HIS INSIDE MEN PUT HIM IN THE SH*T. While a winger can't cop the blame for being left stranded, occasionally you expect them to pull off a big play and snuff out the attack. Manu has a pretty low success rate when it comes to pulling off these big plays e.g. sometimes he'll come out of the line to snuff out a 2 on 1 (i.e. his teammates have failed to number up inside him), give himself a decent chance of making the tackle, but miss it.
However he has repeatedly shown me that he is more than capable of holding his position when the rest of the defensive line is well set. A majority of tries coming down his side have occurred when he's in a 2 or 3 on 1 and simply fails to make the big play. Whilst it's equally unfair to just blame Mannering, (it could be the man inside him, or the man inside him, or the man inside him, etc etc etc) most of the time this occurs when the opposing centre has got outside or past Mannering.
A classic example would be Joel Monaghan's hattrick in the draw- Vatuvei copped blame for at least 2 of those tries, but Monaghan was playing CENTRE! The third try, ok, Vatuvei missed a one on one tackle, but this was while Mannering was in the bin and Manu was facing about a 3 on 1. For Monaghan's second try, Vatuvei got blamed even though it should have been pretty obvious that the real problem was Mannering being beaten on the outside. Vatuvei stayed on his winger as long as possible, and finally, at the last second, had to make an off-balance lunge at Monaghan- and then get blamed for failing to stop the try.
Sorry for the rant but I've always felt wingers are hard done by when it comes to this subject, especially big brown ones......
