Who will Smitty target ?

[W.Smith]

We have all seen how Brian Smith loves to attack an opposition teams weakness whether it be running attack at him, high balls, low kicks etc

One time that still sticks out to me was when as Saints coach he targetted Brett Mullins in that '92 semi where he had Gordy running over him all day as Saints carved up the Raiders and Gordy even mentioned the tactic in the after game interview

Last week he picked out Kevvie Gordon and Will Zill putting up high pressure kicks that those two struggled with early figuring both would be nervy and he got the results as both struggled and he gave Presto some curry too i guess thinking after a few weeks off making the little fellah work hard and run to kicks etc would knock him up and again i thought it was a good tactic and Presto was pretty quiet

without sounding too parochial i cant see much weakness in Saints back 3 and i reckon Smitty will target the midfield defence with plenty of numbers looking for 2nd phase, especially at Weyman who id imagine Smith will be seeing as a liability with his groin injury and trying to knock him up early and a ton of dummy half runners and plenty of kicking to turn around Saints and make 'em work off their own line all night, which is a tactic i can see St Wayne using too, like Brisbane in '06

 

[St John]

Who will Brian Smith target?
Valium.

 

[Dragon]

All i know he is 0/4 against Bennett's Saints, and will be sh*tting bricks

 

[Godz Illa]

will be sh*tting bricks

Not true, he's super relaxed. Possibly the most relaxed a person has ever been in human history. He makes the Fonz look uptight

 

[Drew-Sta]

He'll target Soward and Weyman.

I think even Gas could have some extra traffic.

 

[redvscotty]

Not true, he's super relaxed. Possibly the most relaxed a person has ever been in human history. He makes the Fonz look uptight

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH awesome.

 

[Daniel Dragons]

Morris and Nightingale have sometimes looked suspicious under kicks this year..

 

[Minh]

It won't matter Saint Wayne would have all bases covered, Smitty needs to worry about his own backyard 0/3 in GF's. Obviously opposition teams have been targeting Soward in defense as a weakness for a long time now and we are still the best defensive team in the comp, if that's a weakness then it's one we'll happily take.

The narrow win last week will steel the boys for this weekend knowing that they are capable of winning from in front or trailing in the big games. We will beat them this week I am sure of that in spite of all the hype surrounding the Roosters. Go the Mighty Dragons!!!

 

[Russell Crowe's Band]

he's comfortable and relaxed about his future.

 

[Mr Red]

we have two areas that can be exploited.

1. soward still cant tackle. if he runs his big guys at soward it will force gasnier and scott to come in and assist, thus forcing them into extra defence work, and will make them tired for attack.

2. we still have problems in defence around the marker area, teams with good running dummy halves can exploit this... and the chooks have two of them in Friend and Aubusson. the chooks can get a roll on out of dummy half and then Pearce and Carney are two of the best light steppers around the rucks - they can punch holes in the defence.

is saying that i think we can do exactly the same thing to them... they are also susceptible with a running dummy half - Fien is key here.. and if we make anasta and carney do a heap of defence it will blunt them in attack.

 

[Sans Souci Sainter]

I thought this was a thread about who J-Dawg (smith) was going to beat the sh*t out of.

I would love to see J. Smith smash Warea-Harblaaah.

Show that quasi-tough guy what time it is!!!!

 

[Sans Souci Sainter]

Morris and Nightingale have sometimes looked suspicious under kicks this year..

Morris maybe.

But I think you may be confused about Flo cos that bloke is rock-steady!!!

 

[to_ddeath]

He will target the following youd think..

Sow - run Catanasta/FPN/etc at him....
Weyman - target the groin...obvious ploy...
Morris - weak under the high ball. Nighty can actually take them more
often than not as we know...
Young - can miss goalline tackles up the middle, slow to react...

T.

 

[Mr Red]

Morris maybe.

But I think you may be confused about Flo cos that bloke is rock-steady!!!

Flo is rock solid when he decides to contest the high ball. i think they may be eluding to the fact that there has been a couple of times when he chose not to contest the high ball when perhaps he should have.
all in all i have complete faith in our back three to handle anything the chooks will throw at us.
i belive we can target their wingers.. perrett is very short, and the other guy is a nuff nuff..

 

[Minh]

Both Nighty and Morris are safe under the high balls, Morris under brown was a little bit butter fingers but since Wayne's coached him he is very solid actually and Nighty has got to be one of the most reliable wingers in the game, rarely does he make any errors, the guy's got great hands.

Everyone can make handling errors it's just the good ones rarely do. Our back three are as good as any in this regard, actually Bennett trained players have always been good in this regard, they have eyes only for the ball.

 

[Ulysseus]

Hmmmmmmmm, I don't think he is in a position to throw the whole box and dice at one defined weakness.

Some obviously stupid ones would be:

Send traffic at Soward
I suppose it works, Jamie just slows them down, the problem is that if they don't hit the deck straight away they run the risk of copping Beau Scott's shoulders into their rib cage.
Not a pleasant thought.

Daniel Conn to try and niggle Mick Weyman
Would be the stupidest thing done on the day, it can't end well for DC....................again.
See the demolition job he done on him last time.

The Roosters pack try and kick off a brawl
Maybe Creagh is not interested in going the knuckle, but that is about all.
Weyman, Smith, Costigan, Saffy and Fien are genuine hard merkins (I remember Fien spitting out a tooth after the preliminary final in 2004 like it was nothing) and trying to start sh*t one on one would lead to the mother of all arse kickings.
Then again they should know that, as much as that Smith-Masoe or whatever his name was kept putting on hit after hit the last time they played (and now his shoulder is rat sh*t............ great) they just kept getting back up smiling.

 

[woodley_11]

Hargreaves, Ryles and Nuuasala will try to smash Weyman, With his hit ups we need a lot of option runners to help him out. They will also try to rush up on Boyd for the sweep play. If they charge at Boyd like the Tigers did we need to play deeper or have Hornby/Soward hit Creagh with the short ball on that sweep play or have Darius straighten up and hit a hole himself a few times early to keep them in two minds, if we go straight to Darius too often they will be able to pick him off. Of course there is the old classic, run at Soward. He defended well against the Tigers though made some good tackles.

 

[Cagey Mac]

The Roosters are going to have to spend some time in our half in order to target anybody
There are a lot of very young guys out there; the pressure and incredible noise levels will be quite unfamiliar
I'm backing our guys experience, great defence and simpler game plan to come through
Running into a 114kg Weyman called Horse may have consequences. Namely spending the greater part of the grand final on a bench in the dressing room
They do so at their peril
Sowie is a much better defender than you give him credit for Red, I think you're pushing an old barrow with that argument

 

[hardbaby]

Sowie is a much better defender than you give him credit for Red, I think you're pushing an old barrow with that argument

Yeah sorry Cagey Mac but while he has improved, I would still rate Soward as nearly the worst defender in the league. Scott has baby sat him for 2 years and Gaz has done a great job as well. He seems to forget he has shoulders.

Still, everyone has run at Soward this year and while he got caught out against the Tigers, the damage has been contained. I'm not too worried about Soward.

I think the Roosters will bust it up the middle really hard for most of the day. I don't think their target will be a person so much. Their target will be playing it on the last and being within striking distance of the line. Their dummy half runners are great. If they go too wide, too often, they lose. But if they push up the middle first and then go wide, they have a chance.

 

[Cagey Mac]

Sowie will get better but the structure that is currently in place works well and he contributes to our defensive effort as a part of that structure