What's wrong with our attack?

[Gary Gutful]

There are times where I find myself going 'calm down it is only tackle 2' but I should probably accept that it's not how we play. BA seems to have accepted it.

We don't do boring and structured in attack.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

I tell you what, I'm going to be pretty cranky if we win the comp with a negative points differential.

 

[Obscene Assassin]

Lack of experience in the spine + lack of games played together in the spine. Both will come with time given how talented they are.

 

[hindy111]

I agree that we look poor when we're right at the end. We do not threaten inside the 20m and our conclusion paragraphs are poorly structured.

I put it down to our lack of punchy second rowers. Basically, they don't score tries, so our only options are our three quarters, which makes it easier to defend.

Agree. But also our props. None bar Brown offload to create second phase. Matagi seems to be coach not to throw short pass. One that Terepo is also capable of.
A big prop carting it up close to line and a quick play the ball gives space.
A straight hard running second rower would be great. Tepai shows glimpses . manu and KE are good but run more like centres.

It is up to BA to say lets chance our arm and make a dent in this comp. Id rather go out swinging. Playing this brand wont win us the title this year. We need to play expansive footy.

 

[emjaycee]

Agree. But also our props. None bar Brown offload to create second phase. Matagi seems to be coach not to throw short pass. One that Terepo is also capable of.
A big prop carting it up close to line and a quick play the ball gives space.
A straight hard running second rower would be great. Tepai shows glimpses . manu and KE are good but run more like centres.

It is up to BA to say lets chance our arm and make a dent in this comp. Id rather go out swinging. Playing this brand wont win us the title this year. We need to play expansive footy.

After we get to the semis it is time to go out swinging. Not go out in round 25 or 26 swinging.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

And we aren't going to change our style of play anyway.

 

[Noise]

Who will kick goals now?

Edit: Oh yea - Moses

 

[hindy111]

After we get to the semis it is time to go out swinging. Not go out in round 25 or 26 swinging.

I hope so.

I still dont think we are far away from 30 points a game in attack.

The short turnaround is bullshit. But we can beat the broncos this weekend.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

And we aren't going to change our style of play anyway.

And despite some ill considered ideas that coaching can fix anything, the fact is that rugby league is simple, and teams are optimised to play to their strengths already. If they are not competitive (or just not competitive enough) it is because their players aren't good enough. Therefore 'just doing something different' isn't going to make them more competitive.

A team might have different strengths that can be focused on, but I'd suggest only the shittiest, most hodge podge squads fall into this category. Most of them are built with a certain style of play in mind, meaning the salary cap at that team is optimised toward players that suit a particular style of play.

Therefore not playing that style is an inefficient use of the roster. It would make the team less competitive.

Arthur's has quite clearly built our squad to attack on the edges and 'play some footy'. He brought Nathan Brown in to take the set up run and maybe even get a late offload (sometimes a better trigger than a quick play-the-ball), but that still supports our play style of shifting to the edges.

 

[forward pass]

It is actually a lot harder to attack when you are close to the tryline. There is less space between the teams and the defence rushing up gives you little time to move. You need to change your attack when you are that close to try to have big bodies running straight and hard off short passes. We are not good at that and haven't been for a while.

That is why we are much more dangerous attacking from over 20-30 meters out - that is much more suited to our style of play.

 

[Bazal]

It is actually a lot harder to attack when you are close to the tryline. There is less space between the teams and the defence rushing up gives you little time to move. You need to change your attack when you are that close to try to have big bodies running straight and hard off short passes. We are not good at that and haven't been for a while.

That is why we are much more dangerous attacking from over 20-30 meters out - that is much more suited to our style of play.

It's not harder, you just need to do it differently. Close to the line you need to play a lot more direct and make defenders make decisions. Play short, use first/second/third man plays to either create space around the middle or drag in defenders and create numbers on the edges.

The reason our halves seem to struggle in the red zone at the moment is that they both prefer to attack the edges and neither is great at playing short.

 

[Incorrect]

The reason our halves seem to struggle in the red zone at the moment is that they both prefer to attack the edges and neither is great at playing short.

Then we should have kept Sandow.... he was barely 160cm tall from memory...

 

[Bazal]

Then we should have kept Sandow.... he was barely 160cm tall from memory...

Yeah but he had the opposite problem, he found it impossible to play tall.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

It's not harder, you just need to do it differently. Close to the line you need to play a lot more direct and make defenders make decisions. Play short, use first/second/third man plays to either create space around the middle or drag in defenders and create numbers on the edges.

The reason our halves seem to struggle in the red zone at the moment is that they both prefer to attack the edges and neither is great at playing short.

The play out the back certainly doesn't work as well inside the opposition ten. But then the threat of the grubber should come into play at that range. We need to be more patient. Just like when we're being driven back in the middle by huge packs.

 

[forward pass]

It is actually a lot harder to attack when you are close to the tryline. There is less space between the teams and the defence rushing up gives you little time to move. You need to change your attack when you are that close to try to have big bodies running straight and hard off short passes. We are not good at that and haven't been for a while.

That is why we are much more dangerous attacking from over 20-30 meters out - that is much more suited to our style of play.

It's not harder, you just need to do it differently. Close to the line you need to play a lot more direct and make defenders make decisions. Play short, use first/second/third man plays to either create space around the middle or drag in defenders and create numbers on the edges.

The reason our halves seem to struggle in the red zone at the moment is that they both prefer to attack the edges and neither is great at playing short.

um ....what I said.

 

[Bazal]

Congratulations.... but I was saying that it's not harder as you suggest, and extending that into our perceived problems . We don't create the space on the edges with short play, we just go straight to wide plays. Without using short play you don't create doubt and everyone knows where you're going.

 

[T.S Quint]

There were quite a few times on Sunday when the ball out the back to the centre would have created space out wide, but the pass kept going to the second rower who was clearly covered (Tepai;Ma'u).
It's not that we can't create the space, it's just that we are taking the wrong options.

 

[Bazal]

There were quite a few times on Sunday when the ball out the back to the centre would have created space out wide, but the pass kept going to the second rower who was clearly covered (Tepai;Ma'u).
It's not that we can't create the space, it's just that we are taking the wrong options.

Yeah but the other side of that is that the Tigers have the worst edges in the game, so how much of it was our work and how much of it was their inadequacy?

In other games we've definitely struggled at times to create opportunities.

 

[T.S Quint]

Yeah but the other side of that is that the Tigers have the worst edges in the game, so how much of it was our work and how much of it was their inadequacy?

In other games we've definitely struggled at times to create opportunities.

I don't disagree.
I'm just saying that it seems that when there is an opportunity, our halves don't see it and take advantage.

In saying that, the Tigers were way worse than us in this regard. They had us short on the right hand side so many times and just refused to throw the ball out to their outside men. They could have had so many more line breaks. I'm afraid a better team will take advantage of this against us.

 

[eelegant]

5th tackle options are a bit hit and miss in the red zone.