Am I the only one?

[altair]

Hey Guys

It’s a Sunday morning. Tele on watching the Sunday footy show and I’m buzzing. Maybe I have low standards and expectations but damn am I excited about our team.

Sure the defence scares me, but can’t help but think it’ll all come together with a few games.

Just remembering our attack, our set plays and the missed opportunities it’s got me thinking positively.

Maybe I’ve just been used to desball so long that anything resembling an attack brings excitement.

How does everyone else feel?

 

[CBDoggies]

I'm excited for our attack but our defence is a big worry... our dogs of war defended like hell and attacked like monsters... we cant expect to attack and then crap out in defence. some efforts were embarrassing from our top players including our captain.... its round 1 so I wont be as harsh but it needs to be fixed and fixed fast.. roosters also have gun players across the park and if we don't fix our defence we can expect the same score line next week.

 

[altair]

I'm excited for our attack but our defence is a big worry... our dogs of war defended like hell and attacked like monsters... we cant expect to attack and then crap out in defence. some efforts were embarrassing from our top players including our captain.... its round 1 so I wont be as harsh but it needs to be fixed and fixed fast.. roosters also have gun players across the park and if we don't fix our defence we can expect the same score line next week.

I share your sentiment re defence

I think it comes down to a couple of factors:
1) not enough game time in trials
2) new defensive combinations

I’m sure with time these issues will resolve themselves, we did tighten it up the second half.

 

[CBDoggies]

I share your sentiment re defence

I think it comes down to a couple of factors:
1) not enough game time in trials
2) new defensive combinations

I’m sure with time these issues will resolve themselves, we did tighten it up the second half.

fingers crossed man.. not in panic attack just yet but after a few rounds if we don't sort it out that's when panic bells will be ringing

 

[Alexander the Great]

If you build it they will come.. round 6 or 7 we will hit our peak.. we need a handful of games to gel and we will be fine.
i loved what i witnessed last night even though we lost.

 

[Mr Invisible]

People are worried about the defence.

We just played the benchmark team in the NRL 2018 season, who were on fire the entire game.... and put 18 on them.

Every time we were in their 30-40m we looked dangerous. 2 tries were flukes you can't guard against, and a third from a pass about 3m forwards. Those 3 tries were the difference in the end.

If anything that's incredibly good signs.

 

[KLil]

I still don't get why people think our defence was poor?

3 tries came out of nothing for the Storm. Two tries came off the back off Jacko who was basically half conscious and the other a freakish try by Carr who had no defence to beat. Total 18 points which shouldn't have come on top of our 5 bombed tries.

In that case we could have won 40 - 18....

 

[CrittaMagic69]

There's just as many negatives as positives atm. We will definitely be less depressing to watch this season but potentially our results could be no better.

 

[CrittaMagic69]

I still don't get why people think our defence was poor?

3 tries came out of nothing for the Storm. Two tries came off the back off Jacko who was basically half conscious and the other a freakish try by Carr who had no defence to beat. Total 18 points which shouldn't have come on top of our 5 bombed tries.

In that case we could have won 40 - 18....

Because our defence was poor, simple. Gave up way too many easy metres to the storm, lost the ruck and made some basic errors in defence. Poor.

 

[KLil]

Because our defence was poor, simple. Gave up way too many easy metres to the storm, lost the ruck and made some basic errors in defence. Poor.

There was no agro in it... That's about it. I pretty sure we broke their line way more didn't we?

 

[CrittaMagic69]

There was no agro in it... That's about it. I pretty sure we broke their line way more didn't we?

Idc if we broke their line, we're talking about our defence here. Our defence wasn't good enough and it hurt us.

 

[habs]

Idc if we broke their line, we're talking about our defence here. Our defence wasn't good enough and it hurt us.

I think our forwards are unbalanced. Jacko looked lost at sea in defence on three occasions being burnt by two forwards and once with munster which all led to tries. He had little support from those on his outside and inside. It’ll get better with some tweaking and better communication. Elliot and Eastwood’s regression are worrying.

What do you think?

 

[Indiandog]

more positives than negatives.

nothing that cant be fixed. its not like we look dumb as bat shit in attack and in defence which you need an entire off season to fix.

these negatives will go away as we progress into the season and the team gets more time to gel and pay gets more time to see who is performing and who is not.

 

[CrittaMagic69]

I think our forwards are unbalanced. Jacko looked lost at sea in defence on three occasions being burnt by two forwards and once with munster which all led to tries. He had little support from those on his outside and inside. It’ll get better with some tweaking and better communication. Elliot and Eastwood’s regression are worrying.

What do you think?

Eastwood and Tolman being largely ineffective off the bench is a massive worry, they're 2 experienced blokes and they just didn't deliver. Elliott is less of a worry but he still didn't perfom at all. Our bench let us down massively imo.

Defence should improve but it is a worry to see such basic mistakes made. I think a lack of match fitness and poor use of trials contributed to this. They can do as many opposed sessions as they like but it's hard to replicate these in game situations without playing other teams. Bellamy knew this and even went to the trouble of organising a closed trial with the Knights despite them having a busy preseason schedule.

Like you said our pack looks unbalanced but that's mainly down to how useless our bench was. Our 3 bench forwards only manged 4 runs over 8 metres between the 3 of them, that's just shit. Our bench has to step up or changes need to be made asap if we want to compete against all teams this season.

 

[Baseball Furies]

Eastwood and Tolman being largely ineffective off the bench is a massive worry, they're 2 experienced blokes and they just didn't deliver. Elliott is less of a worry but he still didn't perfom at all. Our bench let us down massively imo.

Defence should improve but it is a worry to see such basic mistakes made. I think a lack of match fitness and poor use of trials contributed to this. They can do as many opposed sessions as they like but it's hard to replicate these in game situations without playing other teams. Bellamy knew this and even went to the trouble of organising a closed trial with the Knights despite them having a busy preseason schedule.

Like you said our pack looks unbalanced but that's mainly down to how useless our bench was. Our 3 bench forwards only manged 4 runs over 8 metres between the 3 of them, that's just shit. Our bench has to step up or changes need to be made asap if we want to compete against all teams this season.

Agree man, the bench contribution was pretty disappointing, I also just think the way Pay rotated it was just as big a problem.

I just don't see Tolman being useful if we play him that way, he's just not that player...never will be and Eastwood isn't a modern day NRL player any more, it's that simple.

Bring Tualau back in for some punch and someone like Ogden or a bigger body who is mobile, persist with Elliott as I think he really has some ability and I think they will improve.

I saw a lot of positives last night, Foran, RFM, Mbye and Fualalo all were strong and the fact we played such a well drilled unit who just strangle you and put enormous pressure on defences, which in-turn lead to errors and we can only learn from that.

 

[Bluebody]

Match fitness was 10% less than Melbourne. Our attitude and focus kept us competitive.

Falling for Munster dummies was killing me! As he shaped for the dummy, I knew it was going to be a dummy and I was sitting 40 metres from the action! My reaction was why oh why oh why would you let one of their best attacking players run with the ball and dummy and get away with it?

In attack, I loved the fast crisp passing. The angled runs. RFM is going to start offloading to players running off him - on 2 - 3 occasions he is angling to the try line with the defense second guessing his every move and his strength over powering their attempts to contain him - it felt like slow painful motion seeing no support players giving him options to pass so they could crash over or he could dummy and go over himself - this is a massive opportunity to develop for us.

Also, in our haste to get it out wide, the good thing was, I notice an effort to straighten the attack and pass - when we did that, it just worked so well. The issue was, we had no respect for the sideline. I prefer we go out wide but be ready to pass it back inside with support play rather than be angling towards the sideline and ending up over it.

Overall, I was satisfied and excited about the team and about Kieran Foran but concerned about Frawley. Kieran was incredible in his speed, calling the shots and creating opportunities. Frawley is not confident - he is second guessing himself and his 2 step backward shuffle to correct his feet positioning before he kicks seems awkward and he ends up kicking too late and without control. Hence, out on the full when we had momentum and building pressure, only to gift them field position and a turn in momentum! Then he drops a no pressure ball to gift them more points and momentum. It was sickening to see him overthink and hurt the side - I feel sorry for him, but he needs a mind coach badly. He has potential and did do good things, but he can undo a side's momentum single handedly and that is concerning.

At times I felt we were trying to score fast and not be patient and build pressure. We need that focus of kicking for field position and create repeat sets - they did it to us more often than we did it to them. They played to win while we played to compete.

I am confident that Pay and the boys will get a lot out of this game and perhaps build on it for the Roosters game - if we beat the Roosters, I will be on cloud 9 for about 2 months. lol

 

[doggieaaron]

Im with you,the issues we have are very fixable

 

[Trafford10]

Thing is no team can miss three one on one tackles that lead to tries and expect to win any game in the NRL.
Also Melbourne made meters up the middle way to easy!!
Yes the attack was much better than last season thanks mainly to Foran being there and barking orders.
But based on last nights defensive errors NOBODY could be confident against the Roosters.

 

[KiwiDog7]

Eastwood and Tolman being largely ineffective off the bench is a massive worry, they're 2 experienced blokes and they just didn't deliver. Elliott is less of a worry but he still didn't perfom at all. Our bench let us down massively imo.

Defence should improve but it is a worry to see such basic mistakes made. I think a lack of match fitness and poor use of trials contributed to this. They can do as many opposed sessions as they like but it's hard to replicate these in game situations without playing other teams. Bellamy knew this and even went to the trouble of organising a closed trial with the Knights despite them having a busy preseason schedule.

Like you said our pack looks unbalanced but that's mainly down to how useless our bench was. Our 3 bench forwards only manged 4 runs over 8 metres between the 3 of them, that's just shit. Our bench has to step up or changes need to be made asap if we want to compete against all teams this season.

This

 

[The 2nd Spitter]

Are you the only who uses clickbaity thread titles?

No.