Our No. 9, change needed

[Raikkonen]

Lichaa’s not the answer.

He’s a one trick pony.

 

[Headmix]

He's never looked fit to me.. Carrying far to much puppy fat....he needs to run consistantly from dummy half, rather than in stages. To do that he needs to be far fitter and lighter on his feet...
Hooomers don't have to be bulky.. Look at Smith or cook, lean, fast tough.
Lay off the kebabs and weights and do some sprint training

Oops typo... That's hookers..

 

[CroydonDog]

Lichaa pretty much fooled every one (myself included) with his three game streak at the end of last year, and his blaming of Des for being the Bulldogs version of James May.

 

[Dogna88]

Lichaa pretty much fooled every one (myself included) with his three game streak at the end of last year, and his blaming of Des for being the Bulldogs version of James May.

I'm guilty of this as well.

Apart from the raiders. No other club would take him.

 

[Scorpio]

The only thing Cook has is speed.

Has played 5 good games since he started first grade back with St George and 3 out of those 5 games were for us....

Disclaimer - could be 6 or 7 games.... my stats have not been researched.

Some of you need to let the hate towards Lichaa go just because he replaced the journey man Ennis. Take out your hate and anger on Des.

 

[CroydonDog]

Oops typo... That's hookers..

To be fair, I don' like bulky hookers... as long as they don't have a penis

 

[SweetFA]

After watching Cook tonight, I firmly believe Lichaa is a big part of what's going wrong on the field for us. Everything he does is in slow motion compared to every other rake in the comp. This isn't good for the position that has the most touches of the ball.

His dummy half service is really poor and it slows down our forward roll big time. This notion that our forwards dont know how to run onto his passing is nonsense.

He can't offer that 1st or 2nd reciever link for lateral transitions, like Cook has been all night. This is something Pay has stated he want this year.

His apparent running game is pure mythology... when he runs he vary rarely links up with another player or creates anything of note. Look at Cook now thats a running game.

We won 6 of 7 with Cook when Lichaa was injured. How much better did we look last year every game Lichaa came off and Mbye went to 9.

Lichaa is the worst 9 in the comp and the worse I have seen at our club. Pay was decisive with Frawley but I fear he wont be with Lichaa because he is his love child like Happa @ 1 was for Hasler.

JMK or Brown to 9 for me.

If you really believe this, then you are absolutely clueless on the intricacies of rugby league.
Our play the balls are horrendous we are dominated in every tackle which doesn’t allow for quick the ball & good dummy half service as markers/defensive line are allowed to set. He looks slow because our go forward is woeful. You conveniently forgot to mention the fact the Burgess twins bent the Roosters line with every hit up & hence the defensive line was constantly retreating, this & Cook’s acceleration (granted) was very effective, bear in mind that with our lazy middle forwards (and no Tolman) its Lichaa that does the defensive mopping up 30-35 tackles per game; enough to stifle the fittest & sharpest hooker Can Smith included.
Lichaa just the easy target.

 

[SweetFA]

actually we struggled to beat them because it was the semi final and preliminary final

now we struggle to beat anyone and its lichaa's fault among others

rewatch the collapse against souths when they tore us up in the final 10 minutes and you might notice lichaa lagging around trying to catch up to the play, a typical performance

Don’t rewatch, but analyse how poor & ineffective our middle forwards were during the whole game Klemmer,Woods,Fualalo, Tualau & even Nu Brown particularly defensively & then come back & report how badly Lichaa was.

 

[Alan79]

The only thing Cook has is speed.

Has played 5 good games since he started first grade back with St George and 3 out of those 5 games were for us....

Disclaimer - could be 6 or 7 games.... my stats have not been researched.

Some of you need to let the hate towards Lichaa go just because he replaced the journey man Ennis. Take out your hate and anger on Des.

I honestly don't hate Lichaa. And while I think Ennis was a far better player, I don't blame Lichaa for the fact that the club was silly enough to let him go. But Lichaa has spent a good part of his career wanting to do the flashy aspect of a hookers game and seemingly has neglected learning how to time a pass. If he was just being used for spark when opposition forward packs were tired like Penrith used to use Segeyaro his playing style would be ok as is. But part of his job is to allow our pack to reach their best every game and he's not doing that in my opinion.

Once upon a time I thought Danny Buderas was hugely over-rated. But a few years back I was watching some of the games he played and without fail his passes would hit people on the chest whether they were moving quick or slow, so whoever he was passing to only had to worry about was what was in front of them. I watch Lichaa and see that he can't adjust his passing game to allow for the different pace of players. If someone is moving quickly he invariably puts the ball about half a foot behind them if they're further than a few feet away from him. Last year he must have thrown more forward passes than anyone else in the team due to his poorly timed passes too. You might not think that having to reach back to catch a pass would change how well you can adjust your decisions and direction, but it has a huge impact.

Lichaa might not be the only player that has to improve his form, but if he does improve his ability to time those passes it will allow a huge portion of our team to come closer to hitting their full potential.

I'm not going to deathride him. But I hope that someone else gets a shot in the 9 that has the ability to get our forwards rolling because our forward pack can be pretty strong if they hit their best form. But unless Lichaa decides that he needs to fix his passing he's always going to be a player with some fundamental flaws. He might not realize that if the coaching staff don't point out to him that he needs to improve. He seems to be pretty confident that his running game is enough to make him a good hooker.

 

[Oatley Dog]

If you really believe this, then you are absolutely clueless on the intricacies of rugby league.
Our play the balls are horrendous we are dominated in every tackle which doesn’t allow for quick the ball & good dummy half service as markers/defensive line are allowed to set. He looks slow because our go forward is woeful. You conveniently forgot to mention the fact the Burgess twins bent the Roosters line with every hit up & hence the defensive line was constantly retreating, this & Cook’s acceleration (granted) was very effective, bear in mind that with our lazy middle forwards (and no Tolman) its Lichaa that does the defensive mopping up 30-35 tackles per game; enough to stifle the fittest & sharpest hooker Can Smith included.
Lichaa just the easy target.

I was listening to MMM yesterday i think and the conversation got around to the Dogs and the lack of impact that Woodsy is having. It was interesting to hear the boys talking about how the lack of impact of our outside backs in getting the ball out of the red zone means that our forwards have to do so much more work than most teams and that is impacting on their ability to play attacking footy and impairs their defence due to fatigue. It all fits with the realisation that Montoya, BMoz and even JMoz (not so much Hoppa who does a fair bit) are actually dragging our forwards down because of their limited impact with the ball in hand. Pick any other team in the comp even Parra and you see the impact their outside backs have from the red zone. We have bugger all.

 

[Big M]

The whole nrl is fucking rubbish I’d rather watch paint dry

You watch paint dry..I will cure my insomnia by reading your posts....

 

[SweetFA]

I was listening to MMM yesterday i think and the conversation got around to the Dogs and the lack of impact that Woodsy is having. It was interesting to hear the boys talking about how the lack of impact of our outside backs in getting the ball out of the red zone means that our forwards have to do so much more work than most teams and that is impacting on their ability to play attacking footy and impairs their defence due to fatigue. It all fits with the realisation that Montoya, BMoz and even JMoz (not so much Hoppa who does a fair bit) are actually dragging our forwards down because of their limited impact with the ball in hand. Pick any other team in the comp even Parra and you see the impact their outside backs have from the red zone. We have bugger all.

Lack of impact across the park, our big boppers don’t ask Amy questions of opposition defences as all the running is 1 out, we don’t go up in numbers &/or options, left or right. Even when Klemmer & Woods look to offload there’s no support- there is no confidence in this side.
They showed in their last 3 matches last year that they’re capable of playing direct attacking football

 

[Yanni Gogolak]

Can anyone defending Lichaa please answer my 3 questions earlier in the thread.

I'm with Bad Billy on this one. He does not make my first page of urgently needed changes..... Lichaa has been one of our better players this year IMO, even Cam Smith could not ignite our team atm. And to answer your 3rd Question there were no vacancies, but I reckon he would suit plenty of the stronger teams and stronger packs in this comp....

 

[cazman]

Another shit thread...

Lichaa can play, he doesn't have the speed of Cook but he is the least of our problems. You could have cam Smith as our hooker and we still wouldnt make the semis...

I'm sorry guys, Lichaa can't pass his timing is off most of the time his clunky fat and slow

 

[BondiBulldog]

I've always disliked him and it's my number one criticism of Pay.
Easily the worse hooker, probably ever. He CAN'T pass!
People arguing this point simply do not watch League closely and know the importance of a number 9 is to the whole game.
There's no argument about it. I understand stick by your team and he might make a run now and again and it's not cool to hate your players but he is soooo shit. Tolman is a superstar compared to him and he cops a ridiculous amount of shit.

Was actually watching the service of McGinnes and Brailey very closely tonight, light years ahead.
I guarentee if we Cameron Smith we'd win more games, but there is no way of proving this so it's just shit talk really.

There is a way of proving how bad Lichaa is, just watch him pass and compare it to the opposition's service. Simple.
He's a HUGE problem.

 

[Trafford10]

I've always disliked him and it's my number one criticism of Pay.
Easily the worse hooker, probably ever. He CAN'T pass!
People arguing this point simply do not watch League closely and know the importance of a number 9 is to the whole game.
There's no argument about it. I understand stick by your team and he might make a run now and again and it's not cool to hate your players but he is soooo shit. Tolman is a superstar compared to him and he cops a ridiculous amount of shit.

Was actually watching the service of McGinnes and Brailey very closely tonight, light years ahead.
I guarentee if we Cameron Smith we'd win more games, but there is no way of proving this so it's just shit talk really.

There is a way of proving how bad Lichaa is, just watch him pass and compare it to the opposition's service. Simple.
He's a HUGE problem.

Totally correct his passing is shit!!
I watched the women's rugby 7s at the Comm Games tonight.
Those girls passed the ball so much better than Lichaa ever does.

 

[Oatley Dog]

Lack of impact across the park, our big boppers don’t ask Amy questions of opposition defences as all the running is 1 out, we don’t go up in numbers &/or options, left or right. Even when Klemmer & Woods look to offload there’s no support- there is no confidence in this side.
They showed in their last 3 matches last year that they’re capable of playing direct attacking football

I agree with most of that but in their defence, apart from still working on their combinations with new halves, they are too gassed from having to move the ball upfield from our own half all the time because our backs aren't doing their jobs. Look at Kennar/Jennings, Fergo/Manu, McDonald/Nightingale, JAC/SV, Uate/Wright and so on. Every one of those pairings returns the ball from their own red zone along with their FB probably 25+m every set. Our blokes struggle for 15m. That means the pigs have to do the hard yards to get us to a kicking position and then turn around and defend the kick return. That's why we are generally competitive for the first 10mins and then fall away. The forwards are gone and then there is the bench.....

Bottom line is we need fast backs who can in the first instance get us on the front foot out of our red zone and hopefully create some holes in the D that we can then exploit. At the moment we don't do that and their line is set and we only make 30m a set instead of 50+.

 

[Gabe]

If you really believe this, then you are absolutely clueless on the intricacies of rugby league.
Our play the balls are horrendous we are dominated in every tackle which doesn’t allow for quick the ball & good dummy half service as markers/defensive line are allowed to set. He looks slow because our go forward is woeful. You conveniently forgot to mention the fact the Burgess twins bent the Roosters line with every hit up & hence the defensive line was constantly retreating, this & Cook’s acceleration (granted) was very effective, bear in mind that with our lazy middle forwards (and no Tolman) its Lichaa that does the defensive mopping up 30-35 tackles per game; enough to stifle the fittest & sharpest hooker Can Smith included.
Lichaa just the easy target.

Answer my 3 questions, posted earlier in the thread.

Forget intricacies let's talk basic U9's stuff like passing a ball.

 

[Bulldogz82]

You can edit you own posts

I actually didn't know that so thanks for that

 

[justdogs]

Do you know who’s job it is to get the forwards going?

Someone with a big foot to kick them in the back side