Tupou, Hurrell, Henry, Slaimankhel

[KeepingTheFaith]

In Tupous' case he seems to have trust issues.

In Omars' and other cases, being one on two may be a result of our players' really poor numeracy skills

In regards to initially setting the line that would come back to poor communication from the wingers. They should be counting from the outside in and when it's obvious they're outnumbered they should call people over.

Outside of that, Maloney/Johnson both can come up with some horrible defensive reads, combined with the apparent need to have Mannering/Taylor minding them in defence it leads to 2 players on the same blade of grass regardless of which side the opposition attacks.

I suppose if there was one good sign amongst the crap tonight it was Johnson/Hurrell making try savers. They can do it, just have to do it consistenly.

 

[Auckland4ever]

We stunk it up in a number of departments (edge defense, tactical substitutions, go forward/intensity etc etc), but I'm going to give Newcastle a fair bit of credit, too. After the start they had, to grind us down in the manner that they did was reminiscent of some of our winning performances over the past few seasons, when we were a much less fancied side than we are now.

Re: the earlier discussion about our coach - for now I'm prepared to give Bluey a bit of leeway when it comes to the technical aspects of coaching a RL side in the NRL, given his inexperience. But where I consider him to be an abject failure so far, is as a motivator. This was the one area he was supposed to be so good at and an often mentioned factor that would supposedly provide us with what Cleary couldn't - a premiership. Well, there have been a lot of lethargic performances this year and tonight was another one. Yes, there is a fair amount of inexperience in the side, however, I'm still surprised at our lack of intensity given how much was riding on this one.

 

[KeepingTheFaith]

Not sure about the motivator part. Would've agreed for the first 6-7 rounds where we were starting absolutely shithouse. Since the Canberra game we've started pretty strong in most games and faded badly.

Motivation is only the first part of it. Anyone can have motivation when they're fresh and the score is 0-0. There's something missing in the team that is causing us to fade and lose that intensity. It's not something that's new to the Warriors either. We haven't had a genuine ruthless killer edge since 2002/2003.

That's what scares me about a potential Taylor/Henry/Mannering backrow next year. Probably the nicest backrow you'll ever come across, but f**ked if that's what the team needs to win.

 

[_addict]

Regarding our niceness, I get the gist of what you're saying. I think nonchalance, or lethargy, or dependence may be better terms. There certainly aren't many in our team who demonstrate much hustle, and I think Newy showed us the value of a bit of that tonight.

 

[Auckland4ever]

Motivation is only the first part of it. Anyone can have motivation when they're fresh and the score is 0-0. There's something missing in the team that is causing us to fade and lose that intensity.

As far as tonight was concerned, I'd argue that at least in part, the thing missing was motivation. As you say, it's easy to have it when you're fresh, but to me the hallmark of a truly motivated side is the ability to push through fatigue and to give everything you have week in week out. I'd also argue that we fit that mould more closely and more often in the previous couple of seasons than this one.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

Do we badly miss Manu when he's out?

Yes. Yes we f*cking do.

Are Tupou and Slaimankhel, to coin a phrase, "useless"?

Hmmmm. Maybe. They're at least somewhere in the vicinity.

Ben Henry exists in his own universe, "useless" doesn't come close. It's like we've picked a player because we're desperate to have someone who does nothing.

 

[Aragorn]

Do we badly miss Manu when he's out?

Yes. Yes we f*cking do.

Manu is not the ANSWER.

FMD no.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

This thread has proved to be very prescient.

I think most of us can see that our forwards almost always hold their own or better, and our halves are handy. Yet we stink.

Has a generally ok-ish team ever suffered more from having useless centers and wingers? And even in that lot, Hurrell is a gun. We basically have 3 spots taken up by dreadful players and that's enough to make our team bad. Yes people, wingers matter.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

Manu is not the ANSWER.

FMD no.

Manu-Inu-Hurrell-Tupou and we're a whole different team

 

[Auckland4ever]

Do we badly miss Manu when he's out?

Yes. Yes we f*cking do.

Heh heh. Was going to mention this, but thought I'd let you do the honors.

 

[Aragorn]

Manu-Inu-Hurrell-Tupou and we're a whole different team

will never happen so no point debating it.

And I dont see the players as the problem. The coaching staff need to sort out the defensive line and teach them how to read the plays. All this inexperience bullshit when we're now into round 21 is getting a little ridiculous.

 

[KeepingTheFaith]

As far as tonight was concerned, I'd argue that at least in part, the thing missing was motivation. As you say, it's easy to have it when you're fresh, but to me the hallmark of a truly motivated side is the ability to push through fatigue and to give everything you have week in week out. I'd also argue that we fit that mould more closely and more often in the previous couple of seasons than this one.

I agree, and for me that again comes back to the lack of experience that I've been talking about for awhile now. Young guys really struggle to push on when they hit that first wall. An experienced guy knows how to not only keep his head but continue to do his job until he gets that second wind.

This time last year we had Luck, Rapira, Berrigan, Hohaia, and to a lesser extent Heremaia and Moon in the team. That sort of experience can't get replaced by kids and still maintain the same standard. Locke isn't at full fitness and outside of him, Tupou (yes Tupou) is our most senior outside back. That's not an encouraging situation to be in.

The other thing for me is that I believe we over achieved last year, and while I certainly expected us to make the 8 and am disappointed that we won't be, I probably don't see it as big a drop as some in that regard.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

will never happen so no point debating it.

And I dont see the players as the problem. The coaching staff need to sort out the defensive line and teach them how to read the plays. All this inexperience bullshit when we're now into round 21 is getting a little ridiculous.

I think the coaching staff have some responsibility in that they select and encourage the recruitment/retention of useless players, so we're both right in a way

 

[KeepingTheFaith]

will never happen so no point debating it.

And I dont see the players as the problem. The coaching staff need to sort out the defensive line and teach them how to read the plays. All this inexperience bullshit when we're now into round 21 is getting a little ridiculous.

Because once you've played 20 games you should know it all? Seriously, even those who disagree with me would find that statement a bit far fetched.

 

[Aragorn]

Because once you've played 20 games you should know it all? Seriously, even those who disagree with me would find that statement a bit far fetched.

Its a professional sport - its not like they have another job to go to on Monday so dont have time to study the game, view video tapes, work on their line defensive, discuss, debate, test, hypothesize, analyze & train.

It will be interesting to hear what Bluey has to say about this weekends performance - for me,

Excuses just wont cut it.

 

[KeepingTheFaith]

And none of that can make up for in game experience, which a lot of these players don't have.

If anything that's what Bluey should be getting criticised for. It's all good to be on the outside looking in and talking about things that are very hard to judge (tactics, training, motivation etc) unless you're privy to the day to day running of the team, but one thing is obvious, this team is too young, too inexperienced and that is certainly a coaching/management thing.

 

[Aragorn]

true, management should also be blamed for letting so much experience leave the club Inu, Berrigan, Seymour, Moon...

hypocritical to then play the inexperience card like they couldnt see it coming.... next year will be worst - we lose luck and Maloney, replaced with SL experience....

 

[KeepingTheFaith]

It would be hypocritical of management, absolutely. But I'm not management so I have no problem saying that's the reason we're struggling, and I believe it is. I think Bluey misjudged that quite badly.

That's also a big part of the reason why I don't think Bluey's ability as a coach is the biggest problem. I do believe that his faith in so many young guys was a serious miscalculation on his part, perhaps coming from the ESL where not every game is as close and the squads so evenly matched. As I've also said, it's been compounded by having constant injuries to the few experienced heads that we do have (Luck, Lillyman, Rapira, Ropati, Friend).

As for next year, for a lot of these guys who have come through the NYC competition success is all they've known, and failure can often be the strongest learning experience a player can have.

I think Leuluai is a capable replacement for Maloney in regards to both talent and experience. A different style of player but they both have strengths and weaknesses.

As for Luck, I don't think we've missed his defensive ability. Ten Luck's couldn't save our outside backs this season, but certainly we've missed his head and experience.

 

[justagamemate]

Tough loss boys. I don't know how Dane Nielson going to add anything next year. He's been hopeless for the Storms the past month. He's just another Ben Henry to be honest.

 

[Rich102]

Not sure about the motivator part. Would've agreed for the first 6-7 rounds where we were starting absolutely shithouse. Since the Canberra game we've started pretty strong in most games and faded badly.

Motivation is only the first part of it. Anyone can have motivation when they're fresh and the score is 0-0. There's something missing in the team that is causing us to fade and lose that intensity. It's not something that's new to the Warriors either. We haven't had a genuine ruthless killer edge since 2002/2003.

That's what scares me about a potential Taylor/Henry/Mannering backrow next year. Probably the nicest backrow you'll ever come across, but f**ked if that's what the team needs to win.

Agree 100%. In so many sports the Australians go out to win at all costs. Losing is unacceptable. And it shows.
We need some of that - in fact lots of that.