Things that seemed evident to me from watching the game at the ground:
- we look much bulkier than last year. Almost everyone has put on a lot of size. Players like Luai and Phillips are almost unrecognisable physically compared to last year. Even players that used to be more rangey like Yeo and RCG have filled out compared to the end of last season.
I suspect that means we have traded size for a bit of the cardio endurance we used to show last year.
I also suspect it means we will start games better but we won’t come home super strong and over come late deficits like we did last year. We therefore better hope we can stay in games.
- We look much better drilled in defence. Our defensive structures are much better. Our scramble was good. We are approaching tackles in an organised way and our wrestle was better. Even our warm up looked significantly more organised than what it was last year.
- Our attack was directionless and did not look any better than last season. When both Cleary and Maloney were on the field Cleary was the one calling the shots and our attack was flat.
- I am not sure why but we also didn’t offload. I only remember two offloads from us in the entire game.
Your description was very sound,and it reflected what I saw on the broadcast.
We did look bigger,and defending for most of the game wasn't ideal if you wanted to do some ball work.
Take nothing away from Parra,they played what was put in front of them. We were ill disciplined, predictable from dummy half or one pass off the ruck,not to mention the odd dropped pass.
It will be a different result in round 1 as we'll be fielding a much different line up, and we'll be more than ready for them. That, I am very sure of.
