Opinion Paper thin defense

[wendog33]

Yep that probably hurt us the most, I covered that in......

Very slow line speed: by not limiting progress over the advantage line. Our inside defenders failed to focus on the halves restricting their room to move and time to think. This allowed Blake Green to exploit us with his kicking game and the luxury of going to the line with support. Our inside defenders also failed to pressure their forwards, allowing them to gain easy ground and/or plenty of time to work the ball to the outside men.

And Pay's tactic of swapping JJ, RFM etc sides of the field? Interested in your possible theory with change up in game planning.

 

[Jean-Claude Juncker]

We were monstered. It was like men against boys.

 

[TwinTurbo]

Defense wins games and Pay's defensive structures against the Warriors were the worst we've seen in years. We displayed.
Very poor defensive reaction: by not restricting second-man sweep play behind a lead runner thus allowing the Warriors to sweep around at pace to create the extra man.
Losing the ruck: our markers failed to initiate the speed of the game and remove all momentum by not engaging the hooker, to either shut him down or limit his options at the defensive line.
Very slow line speed: by not limiting progress over the advantage line. Our inside defenders failed to focus on the halves restricting their room to move and time to think. This allowed Blake Green to exploit us with his kicking game and the luxury of going to the line with support. Our inside defenders also failed to pressure their forwards, allowing them to gain easy ground and/or plenty of time to work the ball to the outside men.
Poor coordination when employing ‘shut the gate’ (middle defenders move up and slide with the play, keeping a uniform line and not dropping off too early, ensuring they are ready to tackle a runner on an inside line). Very slow and poor execution of rush forward and ‘wedge in’. Our defenders employed 'wait and hold' instead of 'move up fast' thus giving up 10 or 15 meters before stopping the attacking play.
Poor communication caused failure to shut down the attack by not staying on the defender’s inside shoulder, nominating the attacker and avoiding going past the ball.
Mistake riddled outside edge defense. Our Edge defenders are not flexible, instinctive and proactive in their movements. Their response, summary, commitment and positioning awaits disaster by making the wrong calls. To compound the problem our tight forwards are not forcing the play makers decisions and our third man (usually the half) in the line must be prepared to leave the lead runner and drift onto the fullback. He determines what the outside two defenders do, giving them a chance of stopping attacking players steaming through on the edges and the chance of herding the opposition towards the sideline. .
As Warren Ryan once said " tackling is the individual’s responsibility. Defense? That is the team’s responsibility".

And yet last year our defence was pretty good. For example we finished with less points scored against us last year than the Broncos who finished 6th. Plainly scoring points was the problem not defence. With the same coaching and a very similar playing roster did everything turn to shit in just one game?

Personally I don't think so, most of what you have noted is recognising the full game occurrences. But with the start of game roll on and weight of possession the Warriors had fatigue was unavoidable, and with that comes mistakes. It's a circular reference, the defensive lapses contribute to the fatigue and in turn the fatigue contributes to the defensive lapses. For me it will take more than one game to believe that we have "paper thin defence".

Go Dogs

 

[MountMontoya]

the problem was Montoya and Holland love to rush in all the time and 99% of the time the miss the tackle

 

[Howard Moon]

And yet last year our defence was pretty good. For example we finished with less points scored against us last year than the Broncos who finished 6th. Plainly scoring points was the problem not defence. With the same coaching and a very similar playing roster did everything turn to shit in just one game?

Personally I don't think so, most of what you have noted is recognising the full game occurrences. But with the start of game roll on and weight of possession the Warriors had fatigue was unavoidable, and with that comes mistakes. It's a circular reference, the defensive lapses contribute to the fatigue and in turn the fatigue contributes to the defensive lapses. For me it will take more than one game to believe that we have "paper thin defence".

Go Dogs

The Morris boys were a brick wall so generally teams only attacked one side of the field.. We will make far less meters this year also so teams will be starting their sets in better position against us than they did last year, which means more attack on our line

 

[TABOO]

Holland and crighton together on that side was a nightmare to watch!
Absolutely no communication whatsoever, every time Holland came rushing in crighton did not follow therefore leaving huge embarassing gaps in the defence line.
Put Holland back with Reimes ffs

Agreed, Holland back with Smith.
Either; Hoppa to centre and Meaney to FB.
OR
CHN to centre.
Martin and Ogden to bench, Lichaa or JMK out entirely (Take your pick).

 

[MattyB]

We played well in our Trial - Were the Warriors that good, or are we that bad
We played very well in our last few games last year - Where has that form gone

 

[TwinTurbo]

Were the Warriors that good, or are we that bad

Bit of column A and a bit of column B. There is no doubt the Warriors had one of those games were they look unbeatable, as they can do. With him gone they weren't standing around waiting for Johnson to perform some magic and win the game for them. They had to win it for themselves (without him) and they were fired up, right on it from the kickoff and didn't take their foot of the pedal, which is most unlike them.

In contrast, we had a shocker. Despite a near to perfect completion rate (best of the round), next to zero unforced errors, more offloads than the opposition, less errors, more kicked metres, nothing in attack really worked and as a result they got frustrated.

There are a couple of stats that stick out for me, we only had ~26 minutes in possession (45%) with only 32 tackle sets, it's pretty hard to win a game with that little ball. Plus they were 10% faster playing the ball than we were (we weren't that slow they were fast), that's plainly not good. Which all adds up to tired players who miss tackles.

A couple of strange ones, we only used 7 interchanges, RFM played 80 mins and CHN only played 30 mins. Personally I'd reverse that for Game 2.

Go Dogs

 

[boggie23]

That’s why I’ll never respect an assistant coach that has never coached seasons as a head coach of reserves or u20.

Fair enough pay was nsw coach. But I’d much rather someone who did the years and won a premiership with lower grade teams. To keep players focused and driven for 30 weeks is harder then winning an origin series.

Pay seems lost with the defensive structure. It’s much easier taking orders from the head coach as the assistant and following his game plan. Compared to creating it yourself and coming up with your own defensive scheme and structures and attack etc.

The quote from the off season is our aggression and line speed. Our defence and our attack is at its best level in years. And we start the season with a -34 for and against.

Hopefully it was just a tough week. Away trip. Rust from not having much game time in the preseason

Bad thing is we completed 90% of our sets. So it’s not like we hold on the ball we win.

It was we ran with no intensity. We had no line speed. We had shit defence like mentioned above. Maybe it was just the warriors coming out fired up? Let’s see how we go on Sunday. Maybe it was a bad week and after that embarrassment we turn up.

 

[KiwiDog7]

Fitness ( lack thereof)

If you were at the game you would have seen what the camera does not pick up

We were out on our feet within 20 minutes

Guys like Napa and RFM were sucking in the big ones early

At one point you could have chucked a blanket on our players all huddled near the play the ball when we got the ball back after defending

When I say fitness, I don’t mean aerobic I mean match fitness

I hate to sound like I’m repeating myself from 2018....but...I’m repeating myself from 2018!

Pay thinks it’s sufficient to play our top team for 40 mins in a proper ( not behind closed doors scrimmages/hit and giggles but a real trial) yet 15 other sides have a minimum 2 trials, lots have 3.

The Warriors got the jump on us and we couldn’t keep up, hence why they outplayed us 1-17, hence why you could drive a truck through the middle and our edge defence was non existent and hence why we had no gas in attack...

Just like last year it will take us a few weeks to get back on par with other teams match fitness (1-3 after 4 rounds last year)

We are behind the 8 ball

I was invited into the players lounge with the old Warriors boys ( few of them are good mates) and I specifically asked Wiki about purpose of trials and he said ‘uce, all the training in the world does not substitute for proper match fitness ‘

He is part of the Warriors trainers so he knows a thing or two.

I cannot believe two years in a row Pay has decided to effectively brush trials

Round 1 2018 Storm put 36 past us

Round one 2019, Warriors ( not even full strength) put 40 on us

Coincidence? Nope

I don’t think it was lack desire but it was lack of match fitness

 

[Bulldogz82]

Agreed, Holland back with Smith.
Either; Hoppa to centre and Meaney to FB.
OR
CHN to centre.
Martin and Ogden to bench, Lichaa or JMK out entirely (Take your pick).

Totally agree with all of that

 

[Bulldogz82]

Fitness ( lack thereof)

If you were at the game you would have seen what the camera does not pick up

We were out on our feet within 20 minutes

Guys like Napa and RFM were sucking in the big ones early

At one point you could have chucked a blanket on our players all huddled near the play the ball when we got the ball back after defending

When I say fitness, I don’t mean aerobic I mean match fitness

I hate to sound like I’m repeating myself from 2018....but...I’m repeating myself from 2018!

Pay thinks it’s sufficient to play our top team for 40 mins in a proper ( not behind closed doors scrimmages/hit and giggles but a real trial) yet 15 other sides have a minimum 2 trials, lots have 3.

The Warriors got the jump on us and we couldn’t keep up, hence why they outplayed us 1-17, hence why you could drive a truck through the middle and our edge defence was non existent and hence why we had no gas in attack...

Just like last year it will take us a few weeks to get back on par with other teams match fitness (1-3 after 4 rounds last year)

We are behind the 8 ball

I was invited into the players lounge with the old Warriors boys ( few of them are good mates) and I specifically asked Wiki about purpose of trials and he said ‘uce, all the training in the world does not substitute for proper match fitness ‘

He is part of the Warriors trainers so he knows a thing or two.

I cannot believe two years in a row Pay has decided to effectively brush trials

Round 1 2018 Storm put 36 past us

Round one 2019, Warriors ( not even full strength) put 40 on us

Coincidence? Nope

I don’t think it was lack desire but it was lack of match fitness

WELL SAID BRO

 

[Kempsey Dog]

Yep that probably hurt us the most, I covered that in......

Very slow line speed: by not limiting progress over the advantage line. Our inside defenders failed to focus on the halves restricting their room to move and time to think. This allowed Blake Green to exploit us with his kicking game and the luxury of going to the line with support. Our inside defenders also failed to pressure their forwards, allowing them to gain easy ground and/or plenty of time to work the ball to the outside men.

apparently we work on line speed every year lol, worst in the game at it period

 

[Dingo]

Fitness ( lack thereof)

If you were at the game you would have seen what the camera does not pick up

We were out on our feet within 20 minutes

Guys like Napa and RFM were sucking in the big ones early

At one point you could have chucked a blanket on our players all huddled near the play the ball when we got the ball back after defending

When I say fitness, I don’t mean aerobic I mean match fitness

I hate to sound like I’m repeating myself from 2018....but...I’m repeating myself from 2018!

Pay thinks it’s sufficient to play our top team for 40 mins in a proper ( not behind closed doors scrimmages/hit and giggles but a real trial) yet 15 other sides have a minimum 2 trials, lots have 3.

The Warriors got the jump on us and we couldn’t keep up, hence why they outplayed us 1-17, hence why you could drive a truck through the middle and our edge defence was non existent and hence why we had no gas in attack...

Just like last year it will take us a few weeks to get back on par with other teams match fitness (1-3 after 4 rounds last year)

We are behind the 8 ball

I was invited into the players lounge with the old Warriors boys ( few of them are good mates) and I specifically asked Wiki about purpose of trials and he said ‘uce, all the training in the world does not substitute for proper match fitness ‘

He is part of the Warriors trainers so he knows a thing or two.

I cannot believe two years in a row Pay has decided to effectively brush trials

Round 1 2018 Storm put 36 past us

Round one 2019, Warriors ( not even full strength) put 40 on us

Coincidence? Nope

I don’t think it was lack desire but it was lack of match fitness

No coincidence at all. The lack of a second trial does us no favours.

 

[Jean-Claude Juncker]

Fitness ( lack thereof)

If you were at the game you would have seen what the camera does not pick up

We were out on our feet within 20 minutes

Guys like Napa and RFM were sucking in the big ones early

At one point you could have chucked a blanket on our players all huddled near the play the ball when we got the ball back after defending

When I say fitness, I don’t mean aerobic I mean match fitness

I hate to sound like I’m repeating myself from 2018....but...I’m repeating myself from 2018!

Pay thinks it’s sufficient to play our top team for 40 mins in a proper ( not behind closed doors scrimmages/hit and giggles but a real trial) yet 15 other sides have a minimum 2 trials, lots have 3.

The Warriors got the jump on us and we couldn’t keep up, hence why they outplayed us 1-17, hence why you could drive a truck through the middle and our edge defence was non existent and hence why we had no gas in attack...

Just like last year it will take us a few weeks to get back on par with other teams match fitness (1-3 after 4 rounds last year)

We are behind the 8 ball

I was invited into the players lounge with the old Warriors boys ( few of them are good mates) and I specifically asked Wiki about purpose of trials and he said ‘uce, all the training in the world does not substitute for proper match fitness ‘

He is part of the Warriors trainers so he knows a thing or two.

I cannot believe two years in a row Pay has decided to effectively brush trials

Round 1 2018 Storm put 36 past us

Round one 2019, Warriors ( not even full strength) put 40 on us

Coincidence? Nope

I don’t think it was lack desire but it was lack of match fitness

Which is just negligent. Especially when the first 3 games were / are winnable and could have set our season in motion.

 

[CBDoggies]

The Warriors were so hungry and motivated to defend, they had 3 - 4 defenders in most tackles, dominating and driving us back. We, on the other hand, had 1 - 2 defenders per attacker and were dominated, also giving away post contact metres every time! We just weren't focused and driven to compete - we looked asleep to what was going on and what we needed to do about it!

Agree with everything you said. They turned us on our back and slowed the ruck so well. We barely put any of there beasts on there backs and they just always ran 50-60m every set minimum. It gassed us out so early, we got hit by a semi. I don’t see it happening with parra but I also can’t see us winning with the line up if pay persists. A better attitude and some changes to the line up and I will have just that little more hope.

 

[Straight18]

Fitness ( lack thereof)

If you were at the game you would have seen what the camera does not pick up

We were out on our feet within 20 minutes

Guys like Napa and RFM were sucking in the big ones early

At one point you could have chucked a blanket on our players all huddled near the play the ball when we got the ball back after defending

When I say fitness, I don’t mean aerobic I mean match fitness

I hate to sound like I’m repeating myself from 2018....but...I’m repeating myself from 2018!

Pay thinks it’s sufficient to play our top team for 40 mins in a proper ( not behind closed doors scrimmages/hit and giggles but a real trial) yet 15 other sides have a minimum 2 trials, lots have 3.

The Warriors got the jump on us and we couldn’t keep up, hence why they outplayed us 1-17, hence why you could drive a truck through the middle and our edge defence was non existent and hence why we had no gas in attack...

Just like last year it will take us a few weeks to get back on par with other teams match fitness (1-3 after 4 rounds last year)

We are behind the 8 ball

I was invited into the players lounge with the old Warriors boys ( few of them are good mates) and I specifically asked Wiki about purpose of trials and he said ‘uce, all the training in the world does not substitute for proper match fitness ‘

He is part of the Warriors trainers so he knows a thing or two.

I cannot believe two years in a row Pay has decided to effectively brush trials

Round 1 2018 Storm put 36 past us

Round one 2019, Warriors ( not even full strength) put 40 on us

Coincidence? Nope

I don’t think it was lack desire but it was lack of match fitness

Hence why i have turned on pay, we dont have time for these simple fuck ups anymore.

 

[Bluebody]

Agree with everything you said. They turned us on our back and slowed the ruck so well. We barely put any of there beasts on there backs and they just always ran 50-60m every set minimum. It gassed us out so early, we got hit by a semi. I don’t see it happening with parra but I also can’t see us winning with the line up if pay persists. A better attitude and some changes to the line up and I will have just that little more hope.

I wonder if we get to compete in the forwards whether our backs can get a break and build some confidence and momentum. Fingers crossed with parra that this happens.

 

[Dingo]

RFM and Elliot...

 

[Jean-Claude Juncker]

Says it all.