Today's Tactics

[aqua_duck]

We tried to play over expansive football and over ambitious football even though we got rid of our halfback, thats what shocked me. The decision to play Karawana suggested to me they wanted to keep it tight, especially defensively and play a controlled game, instead we dropped the ball countless number of times, missed a heap of tackles and generally lacked any desperation.
Ben Cross, seriously get rid of him, send him to French rugby or something, what on earth did White and Taufua do wrong to get dropped for this imposter. I said it when we signed him, he had Reynoldson written all over him, career journey man who found abit of form at the storm, now showing us he's nothing but an imposter.

 

[antonius]

Smith showed today why he's never won a premiership. Change a winning team in a game we had to win. We had nothing in attack today with Dureau gone is was back to zero last tackle options, zero kicking game, and no organisation at all. Ben Cross was ordinary, and Wicks ...well what can you say? look at his stats!!! Royal wasn't that flash either. Matt White must be thinking he's had a name change to Reynoldson.

 

[Pika]

Dropped balls is the not the Coaches fault.

Cant say I agree with his changes.

Cross was overplayed because Royal was under done. I posted somewhere else that in happened against Brisbane and I was concerned it would happen again... it did.

Cross was beaten on the inside twice because Wicks was crap out of marker.

We were poor.

 

[roopy]

I could see what Smith was trying to do.
I have to say Canberra just swamped us with wave after wave of attack and stacking the defence wasn't that bad a plan - although i agree it went horribly wrong when we had nothing but desperation in attack.

 

[antonius]

Dropped balls is the not the Coaches fault.

Cant say I agree with his changes.

Cross was overplayed because Royal was under done. I posted somewhere else that in happened against Brisbane and I was concerned it would happen again... it did.

Cross was beaten on the inside twice because Wicks was crap out of marker.

We were poor.

We were poor because we changed a winning side. Cross, Royal, Karrawana, and Wicks (especially Wicks) shouldn't have played. Maybe one of them for Taufua.

 

[Adsy]

Have to say everyone (including Karma) have hit the nail on the head with what was wrong with our game plan today.

K-man your initial post was absolutely spot on.

I still don't know why our winning team was changed so dramatically. Seriously bringing back all those players who weren't match fit was a disaster.

We got killed by the speed of Canberra's play the ball today. It was either one of their forwards going through some horrible ruck defence or spreading the ball wide then cutting back inside.

We may not have won today with the team from the last 3 weeks but I can say pretty confidently that I don't think we would have lost by anywhere near as much.

 

[antonius]

He would be at the moment with Bailey unavailable.

Yeh he'd make a huge difference at 5/8th :roll:

 

[Pika]

We were poor because we changed a winning side. Cross, Royal, Karrawana, and Wicks (especially Wicks) shouldn't have played. Maybe one of them for Taufua.

I agree that we should not have changed the team.

I cant agree that we turned over the ball today because it was changed.

Our completion rate was diabolical. Dropped ball is dropped ball, regardless of who is on the park.

Our defence was certainly poor because we changed the team.

That said, if we did not turn over the ball, we would have been far more competitive.

I am talking in circles......

 

[Yosh]

Jeez havent sworn that much in a while... Yeah shcking... K-Man covered everything I guess.. I think that dude should of got sent off for that tackle on Cross... Cross was okay... Got targeted hard though they just ran rings around him...

Wicks was aggressive and good, defense wasnt too bad, very fat though and the new hair doo... Cant say I liked it...

Very frustrating... We need Duearu, the Kidley playing everthing and having 509 forwards on the field isnt working... Jeezz...

 

[Pika]

Wicks defence was terrible.

Not only did he miss 6 tackles, his lazy slide and non existant push form marker lead to other missed tackles and two tries.

 

[antonius]

Jeez havent sworn that much in a while... Yeah shcking... K-Man covered everything I guess.. I think that dude should of got sent off for that tackle on Cross... Cross was okay... Got targeted hard though they just ran rings around him...

Wicks was aggressive and good, defense wasnt too bad, very fat though and the new hair doo... Cant say I liked it...

Very frustrating... We need Duearu, the Kidley playing everthing and having 509 forwards on the field isnt working... Jeezz...

Wicks was bloody aweful shouldn't be anywhere near first grade.

 

[Nuke]

I had high expectations of Ben Cross when we signed him. I have to say, in the small handful of games he's actually played for us (and what he was doing being selected for NSW is also a mystery to me), I haven't really been impressed. Yes, he runs straight and hard, but I don't think I've actually seen him not get tackled by the first man he comes to. I rate Matt White in much higher regard than I do Ben Cross. Mark Tufua is also not one I would've dropped for today's game.

About an hour after the game finished today, I am still frustrated and pissed off at what I saw. We'd better flog North Queensland next week, then have a couple of good games against Melbourne and Brisbane in the following two weeks after that, otherwise goodbye 2008.

I think I'll go for a run now ... get rid of some frustration.

 

[Nuke]

... oh and another thing, when I watched last week's after-match show with Brian Smith's post-game media conference, he was asked who would be available for next week's game (injury-wise). He listed just about everyone who was injured and hinted that the majority would walk back into the team. I smirked because I didn't honestly think he would do it (why the hell would he? We'd just won 3 games by decent margins in a row ...).

 

[antonius]

I agree that we should not have changed the team.

I cant agree that we turned over the ball today because it was changed.

Our completion rate was diabolical. Dropped ball is dropped ball, regardless of who is on the park.

Our defence was certainly poor because we changed the team.

That said, if we did not turn over the ball, we would have been far more competitive.

I am talking in circles......

Can't agree entirely there Pika, Wicks, Cross and Royal all contributed to turnovers, if not always directly The fact that we were chasing points leads to those sort of mistakes, and the changes I believe were the reason we were chasing points, we were also back to our undiciplined best giving away penalties.

 

[Whats Doing]

Wicks defence was terrible.

Not only did he miss 6 tackles, his lazy slide and non existant push form marker lead to other missed tackles and two tries.

Wicks was a disgrace. He had no form on the board, was not match fit and was lazy in defence which directly led to 2 tries.

Over paid hack and get rid of him for good.

 

[doggone]

Did anyone have a good game???? I don't think so.

 

[Pika]

Simpson, as usual, though he did turn the ball over on the line.

Regardless, he was class in a pack getting smashed.

 

[roopy]

I thought Pato went pretty good, especially his try, but he did plenty of other good things.

 

[antonius]

I thought Pato went pretty good, especially his try, but he did plenty of other good things.

Yep gave my points to Pato

 

[Johns Magic]

LOL at the Cross bashing