chiana
Juniors
- Messages
- 409
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury. For those of you that could not make tonights game count yourselves as lucky.
My only hope is that due to it being our first game of the season we were very rusty, although my first impressions are that there was a lot more wrong tonight than that. Sure it was "only a trial", and we were missing lots of first graders, but we were very poor tonight.
Without going in for a blow by blow of the match, The Sharks were never in the contest (as a 44-0 hiding might suggest). After 15 minutes we were already down 16-0. On three occassions Souths had received a penalty, which brought them into out half only for them to score each time. Our goal line defense was nonexistant during this first 15 minutes. In fact our defence didn't seem to hurt Souths all night.
From the start Souths cut us to pieces in the ruck. Their play the balls were fast and with purpose. Their dummy half running constantly gained ground without effort. Souths little guys were just killing us straight up the middle. Sadly when we received penalties, we never placed Souths under pressure, as our dummy half running was no where to be seen. When we did attempt to move the ball wide it either went behind the expected target or bounced off a dummy runner who was not expecting it.
The only bright spot in the dummy half running was Misi Talapapa. Misi has talent and did some good things, but also has a habit of self destruction, dropping a ball cold from a drop out knocking it on and I felt sometimes getting lost in defence.
Yet as it comes to defence he was not alone. As stated Souths play the ball was swift and we were constantly on the back foot. Yet even when the Souths forwards were hitting the ball up, our defence waited for them to come. It looked more like the defence of Stuart Rapers coaching than the defence we had last year. Souths defence on the other hand was never really threatened, but I'm not sure if that's because they were good, or because our attack was so bad. Mostly both I think. Constantly Souths players had three defenders on them, only to get an offload away. We didn't appear to hurt in defence at all.
Blake Green needs more experiance. Tonight I felt he looked like a deer in headlights at times. His passing was off and he looked a bit lost. There is a lot of work for Green and Kimmorley to do together, but if our forwards had have gotten going, things might have been better. Kimmorley went off with 20 minutes to play and Green did look more comfortable with Seymour at half.
Seymour didn't seem suited to dummy half. We really did miss Issac De Gois tonight. Missed his speed and unpredictability. Seymour seemed to come into the game in the last 20 minutes.
Brett Kerney was our shinning light for the first 20 minutes. Twice he pulled off try saving tackles. Hung off the hip on any forward that was running to the line and looked safe under the high ball. Alas after 20 minutes he did not return to the field, and out best attacking option evaporated.
As you would expect with a 44-0 scoreline Souths did everything better than we did. I only hope that we were rusty. I realise we have lots of players to return, and as a result we would want to look much stronger in our next trial. If there are injuries though we might lack depth. Norrie and Peek played hard and did ok, but the rest of the forwards went AWOL.
At least those are my thoughts from what I saw tonight. If we don't show a lot of improvement in our next trial, we might be in for a long season.
My only hope is that due to it being our first game of the season we were very rusty, although my first impressions are that there was a lot more wrong tonight than that. Sure it was "only a trial", and we were missing lots of first graders, but we were very poor tonight.
Without going in for a blow by blow of the match, The Sharks were never in the contest (as a 44-0 hiding might suggest). After 15 minutes we were already down 16-0. On three occassions Souths had received a penalty, which brought them into out half only for them to score each time. Our goal line defense was nonexistant during this first 15 minutes. In fact our defence didn't seem to hurt Souths all night.
From the start Souths cut us to pieces in the ruck. Their play the balls were fast and with purpose. Their dummy half running constantly gained ground without effort. Souths little guys were just killing us straight up the middle. Sadly when we received penalties, we never placed Souths under pressure, as our dummy half running was no where to be seen. When we did attempt to move the ball wide it either went behind the expected target or bounced off a dummy runner who was not expecting it.
The only bright spot in the dummy half running was Misi Talapapa. Misi has talent and did some good things, but also has a habit of self destruction, dropping a ball cold from a drop out knocking it on and I felt sometimes getting lost in defence.
Yet as it comes to defence he was not alone. As stated Souths play the ball was swift and we were constantly on the back foot. Yet even when the Souths forwards were hitting the ball up, our defence waited for them to come. It looked more like the defence of Stuart Rapers coaching than the defence we had last year. Souths defence on the other hand was never really threatened, but I'm not sure if that's because they were good, or because our attack was so bad. Mostly both I think. Constantly Souths players had three defenders on them, only to get an offload away. We didn't appear to hurt in defence at all.
Blake Green needs more experiance. Tonight I felt he looked like a deer in headlights at times. His passing was off and he looked a bit lost. There is a lot of work for Green and Kimmorley to do together, but if our forwards had have gotten going, things might have been better. Kimmorley went off with 20 minutes to play and Green did look more comfortable with Seymour at half.
Seymour didn't seem suited to dummy half. We really did miss Issac De Gois tonight. Missed his speed and unpredictability. Seymour seemed to come into the game in the last 20 minutes.
Brett Kerney was our shinning light for the first 20 minutes. Twice he pulled off try saving tackles. Hung off the hip on any forward that was running to the line and looked safe under the high ball. Alas after 20 minutes he did not return to the field, and out best attacking option evaporated.
As you would expect with a 44-0 scoreline Souths did everything better than we did. I only hope that we were rusty. I realise we have lots of players to return, and as a result we would want to look much stronger in our next trial. If there are injuries though we might lack depth. Norrie and Peek played hard and did ok, but the rest of the forwards went AWOL.
At least those are my thoughts from what I saw tonight. If we don't show a lot of improvement in our next trial, we might be in for a long season.