No more talk of Mbye coming back to the halves please

[Sword]

NRL.com Stats has crunched the numbers to pin-point the area that each team must fix in 2018. For the Canterbury Bulldogs, finding space with their kicks and forcing repeat sets are areas that need fixing.

Canterbury's kicking game went to the Dogs when Trent Hodkinson left the club in 2016, but the true extent of their alarming slide came to the fore last year.

Between them first-choice halves Moses Mbye and Josh Reynolds forced just 10 line drop outs all season, with Mbye contributing just two from 23 games (19 of which he played at the scrumbase).


Mbye, Reynolds and alternate option Matt Frawley all found space with their long kicks less than 30% of the time, well behind NRL leaders like Corey Norman (45%) and Cooper Cronk (42%).

The addition of Kieran Foran and shifting Mbye to fullback makes plenty of sense considering the importance of short kicking in the modern game.

 

[Sword]

Mbye should never ever get the ball on the 5th tackle unless he runs with it. Watching him kick it on the last in 2017 gave me brain damage all year long. Fullback is his future.

 

[Trafford10]

Man I hope the move to fullback works!!

 

[Wally D]

If he does not succeed as a full back then he needs to be a centre. That’s all he can be.

The fact that we are paying him spine money does not mean that he should be kept in our spine.

He has proven that he does not belong in the halves (can’t kick) nor as a hooker.

I’m worried about his defence and ability to attack the high ball as full back, but we will see how he goes.

 

[Horse]

The forwards must hate Mbye. So many times last year they'd march us into good field position only for him to drill it dead.

 

[Raysie]

I saw some promising signs from Mbye in that first trial. That break made by Josh Morris and missed opportunity with Mbye being in front, I took as a positive that he saw that as a scoring chance. He'll improve on that sort of timing.

 

[COVENS]

Mbye should never ever get the ball on the 5th tackle unless he runs with it. Watching him kick it on the last in 2017 gave me brain damage all year long. Fullback is his future.

Why? The best teams have minimum 3 legitimate kicking options. With Des gone there'll be less emphasis on the high percentage, low error plays like the mid field chip bomb. Pay should also be be designating training time for Lichaa to pick up a kicking game

 

[JUNKYARD DOGS]

The forwards must hate Mbye. So many times last year they'd march us into good field position only for him to drill it dead.

How many times did he do that?? Compare it to dying on the play with attacking play at all..... Like to see the stat of kicking dead actually. We rarely kicked. in the 20m

 

[flamebouyant]

Mbye should never ever get the ball on the 5th tackle unless he runs with it. Watching him kick it on the last in 2017 gave me brain damage all year long. Fullback is his future.

I think it would be best if he put on 15kg so we could play him at lock or second row. Lol

 

[LG]

If he does not succeed as a full back then he needs to be a centre. That’s all he can be.

The fact that we are paying him spine money does not mean that he should be kept in our spine.

He has proven that he does not belong in the halves (can’t kick) nor as a hooker.

I’m worried about his defence and ability to attack the high ball as full back, but we will see how he goes.

i don't think he has proven he doesn't belong at fullback completely, his service was pretty good and we know dessie doesn't like letting his 9's run. that being said, i don't tihnk he'd be a great hooker but i think he could be an average starter in the NRL if need be

i think in terms of mbye ever being worth the money he is on now, its fullback or bust, it all makes sense in terms of his natural speed and having just enough ball playing ability to make those 2nd plays but how he defends the high balls and returns kicks are gonna be big questions marks, before benny barba exploded in 2012, there were some major growing pains the year before that, people won't have as much patience with a guy already on superstar coin

i like the guy, he seems like a smart kid, i think it has the potential to work very well, so i'm cheering hard for him

 

[Phalangist]

If he does not succeed as a full back then he needs to be a centre. That’s all he can be.

The fact that we are paying him spine money does not mean that he should be kept in our spine.

He has proven that he does not belong in the halves (can’t kick) nor as a hooker.

I’m worried about his defence and ability to attack the high ball as full back, but we will see how he goes.

Okay but let's say renoylds was still at the club would you say he doesn't belong in the halves?

I think mbye was unfairly given the role as a halfback while renoylds (the more experienced half) was aloud to play second fiddle as a 5/8
If mbye doesn't work at fullback I think 5/8 would be his position.


Ben Roberts did really well outside kimmorley and I think mbye would do well outside Foran...

Although problem is I consider Foran a 5/8 too

So I'm happy for anything expect mbye playing half back

 

[KLil]

Mbye should never ever get the ball on the 5th tackle unless he runs with it. Watching him kick it on the last in 2017 gave me brain damage all year long. Fullback is his future.

He still kicks from Fb... If he wants to be a star he has to learn to play like Coote.

 

[KiwiDog7]

The stats slightly misleading in that we are the only club that consistently chose to die with ball on 5th rather than the repeat set

That said Mbye didn’t look like a natural kicker, short, long or goals

Lichaa surely has a bit of a kicking game

Because we are going all in on Foz and If he gets injured we are fkd

 

[CrittaMagic69]

I saw some promising signs from Mbye in that first trial. That break made by Josh Morris and missed opportunity with Mbye being in front, I took as a positive that he saw that as a scoring chance. He'll improve on that sort of timing.

Moses was ahead of the play because he ran the decoy on the inside of Frawley. Moses doesn't run that and the raiders inside defence slides and we potentially don't make the break.

 

[Dogna88]

Moses was ahead of the play because he ran the decoy on the inside of Frawley. Moses doesn't run that and the raiders inside defence slides and we potentially don't make the break.

See..... thats football talk. No place for that talk on here.

Reynolds > Mbye.... because passion and screaming and woooooo and stuff

 

[LG]

The stats slightly misleading in that we are the only club that consistently chose to die with ball on 5th rather than the repeat set

That said Mbye didn’t look like a natural kicker, short, long or goals

Lichaa surely has a bit of a kicking game

Because we are going all in on Foz and If he gets injured we are fkd

and if we're being honest, healthy foz is an ok kicker but no world beater himself


which qualifies as basically our best since noddy lol

 

[CrittaMagic69]

any under 5 player know that you have make yourself be behind the ball, he was actually calling for the ball when he was in front, stupid dumb play.
he should have put himself on side, i dont see how anyone can defend mbye on this.

And that's absolute garbage. So what you want him to stop dead in his tracks and lose all momentum and just get tackled if the pass is thrown? Pfft. Analyse the entire situation ffs.

He was ahead of the play because he ran a good decoy, he then dropped his pace to get level with a sprinting Morris who was expected to then pull ahead of Moses. Josh slowed down and drifted infield due to the outside pressure so he never pulled ahead as expected.

It's not as straight forward as "be behind the ball" like some of you think. Like i said there was a reason he was ahead of the play. Josh could have easily looked to his outside and passed to his unmarked brother as soon as he noticed the pressure on his outside but he chose not.

Overall It's just a combination of small errors from more thab 1 player and the entire situation not being as simple as some of you think.

 

[CrittaMagic69]

See..... thats football talk. No place for that talk on here.

Reynolds > Mbye.... because passion and screaming and woooooo and stuff

I didn't even play and i can analyse the situation to a some what reasonable level.. others just want to scream and shout and shit on Moses lol.

 

[Mr Invisible]

Mbye overran the play by hitting the afterburners too early. Simple as that.

Timing will come with his positional change.

He nails that timing and he slices straight through the defence for a try every day of the week.

 

[JUNKYARD DOGS]

Either way, exciting times ahead