We’ve all heard this before, forwards win you the game, your backs determine by how much.
They can change rules, they can continue to try and make the game faster, they can do whatever they like with the game, but that old quote still stands true today, and so it will tomorrow.
Rugby League is a very straight forward game, the team that over powers their opponent and eats up the metres, is at the same time fatiguing their opponent, you out muscle & fatigued your opponent, they make mistakes, they get sloppy, they draw penalties, penalties put your opponent on the back foot and you fatigue them even more, obviously, your whole job just continues to get easier.
Who’s the most penalised team in the league right now? … yes you can blame ref’s, you can scream bias ect. but realistically, most of those penalties you can put down to fatigue and stupidity.
I’ve seen fans on TK blaming our losses on Ciraldo, Burton, Flanagan, Mahoney, Perham, I’ve seen comments saying Oloapu doesn’t have what it takes, the poor kids only 18 and played 3 games.
Individually it’s none of those players fault that we lose, these players can’t fully utilise their skills while we’re going backwards, and when they do get their chances they’re generally fatigued ….. we lose because we don’t have a squad that’s capable of over powering most of our opponents, we haven’t since we lost Klemmer James Graham and Co. we don’t over power, we get over powered.
I’m over hearing about the “these days you need more of a mobile pack” that’s not what the Bulldogs are about, it’s not what we’ve ever been about.
Go watch the games again where we lost to the Raiders, Warriors x 2, Sharks, Parra, Rabbits, Manly, we simply struggled to stop them going forward and put them to ground, these teams simply out powered us and in doing so they fatigued us, over power and fatigue your opponent, complete the majority of your sets, and 8 times out of 10 you’ll win the game.
One team in the league suits a mobile pack and that’s the Panthers because they’ve all played together since they were 14, that whole team trusts each other and can all ball play promoting the ball to tire teams out.
If the plan is to develop the “mobile pack” get used to losing, because we’re not good enough for that type of play, and meanwhile our opponents are all focused on building powerful packs.
We are not going to win games or play finals footy until we totally rebuild our engine room, honestly, right now, Max King is the only one I’d keep, some others might make bench or depth.
We do have the makings of a good team and despite what people think, we do have a smart talented coach.
I’m now hoping against odds that we snag Hunt, we need leadership, after 300 first grade games, reps and origin, he’d be very good for us & I think we might be very good for him to finish his career with.
This might be controversial but I feel we need 2 new centres, 2 aggressive powerful centres that can tackle, run, make metres, and break tackles. Personally, I don’t feel either Alamoti or Averillo are powerful enough right now to be modern day centres, (think Ramien - Talakai) whilst Al & Avo hold their own, they get dominated in defence by stronger more powerful body’s and therefore fatigue. Not sure Xerri’s that type of centre either but we’ll find out and hopefully he is ..
We have 2 powerful metre eating outside backs, we have 2 very good wingers, a good 9, we have Burton, Crichtons a ? the squad desperately needs a game managing 7, 3 big aggressive metre eating props, and 2 aggressive defensive tackle busting centres to back them up, we don’t need elite big money players, just aggressive powerful metre eaters that hurt, until we get them nothings changing and not even Cleary would have us winning games ..
The 2 biggest things we’re missing is “power and aggression” get that and we become a fearful pack again, until we get it we’re not going to be winning games and we certainly won’t be playing finals footy.
So continue to individually blame players as much as you like, but power mongrel and aggression is where the real blame lays ..
