Letter to Bulldogs regarding Suttons and Cummins

[Bulldog1966]

Class action? f me we just try to be more American every day lol
@GB..well done on taking the time to write to them, win lose or draw you are going the extra mile which is to be commended.

 

[gbrussell]

Have you actually been to a training session and watched the hard yards that they put in? I went to a couple of preseason sessions and they were mercilessly flogged to the point of exhaustion and then told to get up and do it again. Then twice more early in the season (obviously I haven't been for a few weeks recently), where they worked damn hard, that's 3 times a week, plus the "recovery" session which isn't exactly a walk in the park either.

I have been to a few teams' training sessions over the years and our guys this year have worked as hard if not harder than most. Not always the case in the past mind you.

The fact is we get hammered in penalties (set restarts are penalties) and we don't have the strike players to get us out of trouble easily, we have to grind in defence and then fight hard in offence to make any ground at all. Where we are this year is physically draining, we don't score a lot of points, so the players get no respite because we don't run in multiple tries and take time kicking the conversions. Without players to break the game open we have to defend, defend, defend and then try and use whatever energy we have left for attack, which often starts inside our own 10 metre line.

Last game is a prime example, we only had the ball for 41% of the time, that's 20 minutes compared to 30 minutes, so we defended for almost 50% longer. Made 324 tackles to their 235, our effective tackle % was 82.4% compared to 82.7% despite us making 89 more tackles. FMD is it any wonder the players looked gassed.

Any claimed lack of fitness is 100% bullshit, just add a few strike players, get a fair go from the refs and we would look like we were doing it easy.

Always a Bulldog

All good points. Can't argue with any of them

 

[albatross]

It's more the lopsided penalty and set restart counts we get with some refs than the win/loss ratio that shows clear bias. We've had a shit team with little organisation and leadership, which impacts our discipline, but Cummins and Sutton are way out of this world. Meanwhile, based on career penalty counts, Cummins seems to love Souths and Sutton the Roosters!

Don't think there's much we can do but good on you for trying. Maybe Gus can have some influence with Politis who could then talk to the refs for us

 

[gbrussell]

1. Lewis getting taken out by a lead runner, on Lewis' outside shoulder, preventing the "opportunity" to tackle the passer prior to Katoa's try. Every time this has happened this year the try has been denied, regardless of whether it would've made a difference to the play. Every time. Yet, we get play on.
2. Sharks player grubber kicks for the in-goal, Dogs sticka foot out and kick it back. Ball then richochete's 180 degress off attacker's foot and over dead ball line. Ref AND bunker call drop out due to "not played at". That is a absurd extention of the rule, he played at the ball by kicking the ball for himself to start with, he doesn't then suddenly become uninvolved in the play.

Of course, there is the usual forward passes let go, uneven hold down rulings etc. But they can be explained away as "on the run" decisions by the ref in the middle. The above two items were both reviewed multiple times by someone in the bunker away from game in the comfort of a chair and all manner of replays and time to be able to make a good decision.

Forward passes from dummy half can be hard to pick as they often travel a short distance. One has to pick them by the direction the hands are facing. When it is a long pass it is much easier to pick, particularly for the touch judge. For what it's worth I think a lot of those outside/inside passes go forward mainly because the body is angled out, and if the pass comes back inside the hands follow the body shape which has the inside of the body slightly closer to the attacking goal line.

The dominant and surrender tackles slow down the speed of the play the ball, so average play the ball speed may not be a true indicator of who is holding down. Melbourne are masters of this.

Obstruction is too easily misinterpreted. Bunker and in field ref not always on the same Page, just like Match Review Panel and Judiciary.

 

[gbrussell]

Class action? f me we just try to be more American every day lol
@GB..well done on taking the time to write to them, win lose or draw you are going the extra mile which is to be commended.

Thanks mate. Being retired offers plenty of time, when I am not on the golf course.

 

[CroydonDog]

I think a number of people don't understand what a class action is.

 

[Spoonman84]

Have you actually been to a training session and watched the hard yards that they put in? I went to a couple of preseason sessions and they were mercilessly flogged to the point of exhaustion and then told to get up and do it again. Then twice more early in the season (obviously I haven't been for a few weeks recently), where they worked damn hard, that's 3 times a week, plus the "recovery" session which isn't exactly a walk in the park either.

I have been to a few teams' training sessions over the years and our guys this year have worked as hard if not harder than most. Not always the case in the past mind you.

The fact is we get hammered in penalties (set restarts are penalties) and we don't have the strike players to get us out of trouble easily, we have to grind in defence and then fight hard in offence to make any ground at all. Where we are this year is physically draining, we don't score a lot of points, so the players get no respite because we don't run in multiple tries and take time kicking the conversions. Without players to break the game open we have to defend, defend, defend and then try and use whatever energy we have left for attack, which often starts inside our own 10 metre line.

Last game is a prime example, we only had the ball for 41% of the time, that's 20 minutes compared to 30 minutes, so we defended for almost 50% longer. Made 324 tackles to their 235, our effective tackle % was 82.4% compared to 82.7% despite us making 89 more tackles. FMD is it any wonder the players looked gassed.

Any claimed lack of fitness is 100% bullshit, just add a few strike players, get a fair go from the refs and we would look like we were doing it easy.

Always a Bulldog

Getting mercilessly flogged doesn’t always mean they are fit for football though. I have no doubt they try and work hard but it clear as day we are one of the most unfit sides in the comp.

We often lose first contact in the collision and our wrestle is terrible which causes us to lose the ruck and often results in a glut of restarts. That comes back to strength and conditioning plus skills. There’s no way we are up to standard in fitness.

 

[CroydonDog]

Getting mercilessly flogged doesn’t always mean they are fit for football though. I have no doubt they try and work hard but it clear as day we are one of the most unfit sides in the comp.

We often lose first contact in the collision and our wrestle is terrible which causes us to lose the ruck and often results in a glut of restarts. That comes back to strength and conditioning plus skills. There’s no way we are up to standard in fitness.

Plus every team gets flogged at training. That's not a guarantee of fitness to a standard equal to your opponents.

 

[Gene Krupa]

Class action? f me we just try to be more American every day

If wees don't get our own way, wees gunna sue ya all.

 

[Alex Hunter]

I’ve got absolutely NO DOUBT these refs are gambling on our games. They know there’s a fair probability we’re not going to win in the first place and if they penalise the life out of us we’ve got no chance. Sure the price isn’t great but the payout is if they put enough on. Of all games ours are their best chance of picking up that payout.

 

[dogzofwar]

I know a guy that will take care of the both of them for a fee? He goes by the name nasheed

 

[likeadoggy]

bravo

 

[Alan79]

It's a well written and thought out letter. And while I agree with it I also think the club have very limited options to address the issues. If I ran the club at some point prior to now I'd have staged a walk off when the refereeing hit a certain point of beyond ridiculous. The NRL would slap the biggest fine they thought they could get away with on us. But money would be less important to us than winning games if I was running the club. Short of something like this (which I think is a drastic action intended to make a massive statement that we want a level playing field) I think our club don't have a hope in hell that speaking to the NRL will help. I'm sure that they already tried.

 

[CroydonDog]

I know a guy that will take care of the both of them for a fee? He goes by the name nasheed

For a fee
He's happy to be
Your back-door man.

 

[TwinTurbo]

Getting mercilessly flogged doesn’t always mean they are fit for football though. I have no doubt they try and work hard but it clear as day we are one of the most unfit sides in the comp.

We often lose first contact in the collision and our wrestle is terrible which causes us to lose the ruck and often results in a glut of restarts. That comes back to strength and conditioning plus skills. There’s no way we are up to standard in fitness.

Your opinion and you are welcome to it. My observations are different;

"lose first contact in the collision" - firstly we don't have many (Thompson and ?) strike players that can break a tackle. There is also a size consideration, in Thompson, Hetherington and Ava we have a very lightweight front row rotation. Our back rowers aren't exactly giants either. TPJ somewhat fixes that next year plus adds a bit of strike power and offloads. If it happens, Vaughan doesn't hurt in those areas either.

"our wrestle is terrible" - many times when we try and turn the turtle we get penalised, plus Cummins in particular is a master at calling out our players by name almost the instant they so much as touch the opposition player. Compared to the Melbourne slow pile on and then even slower pealing off, it's embarrassing what they get away with. Not that it's always a perfect statistic, but when was the last time Melbourne lost a play the ball speed comparison?

"That comes back to strength and conditioning plus skills" - I think it comes down to strike power and size, the "skill' is in manipulating the referee into letting you get away with it.

Always a Bulldog

 

[gbrussell]

It's a well written and thought out letter. And while I agree with it I also think the club have very limited options to address the issues. If I ran the club at some point prior to now I'd have staged a walk off when the refereeing hit a certain point of beyond ridiculous. The NRL would slap the biggest fine they thought they could get away with on us. But money would be less important to us than winning games if I was running the club. Short of something like this (which I think is a drastic action intended to make a massive statement that we want a level playing field) I think our club don't have a hope in hell that speaking to the NRL will help. I'm sure that they already tried.

The Belmore walk off by North's in 1970 after Keith Page sent off 2 of their players in quick succession attracted huge headlines, particularly in Rugby League Week which was in it's first year. North's coach Roy Francis did the right thing and marshalled his troops back onto the field. Can't recall whether North's got fined. Keith Page regularly attracted headlines.

 

[Spoonman84]

Your opinion and you are welcome to it. My observations are different;

"lose first contact in the collision" - firstly we don't have many (Thompson and ?) strike players that can break a tackle. There is also a size consideration, in Thompson, Hetherington and Ava we have a very lightweight front row rotation. Our back rowers aren't exactly giants either. TPJ somewhat fixes that next year plus adds a bit of strike power and offloads. If it happens, Vaughan doesn't hurt in those areas either.

"our wrestle is terrible" - many times when we try and turn the turtle we get penalised, plus Cummins in particular is a master at calling out our players by name almost the instant they so much as touch the opposition player. Compared to the Melbourne slow pile on and then even slower pealing off, it's embarrassing what they get away with. Not that it's always a perfect statistic, but when was the last time Melbourne lost a play the ball speed comparison?

"That comes back to strength and conditioning plus skills" - I think it comes down to strike power and size, the "skill' is in manipulating the referee into letting you get away with it.

Always a Bulldog

You do know that losing the collision is a mainly in defence don’t you ? and that’s where we lose most games. Being big has nothing to do with it either it’s all about strength and just because someone is physically big doesn’t mean they are stronger.

We get penalised because we have already lost the tackle when we try and wrestle. That’s the whole issue. This shows you don’t really understand what I’m talking about but that’s ok.

 

[TwinTurbo]

It's a well written and thought out letter. And while I agree with it I also think the club have very limited options to address the issues. If I ran the club at some point prior to now I'd have staged a walk off when the refereeing hit a certain point of beyond ridiculous. The NRL would slap the biggest fine they thought they could get away with on us. But money would be less important to us than winning games if I was running the club. Short of something like this (which I think is a drastic action intended to make a massive statement that we want a level playing field) I think our club don't have a hope in hell that speaking to the NRL will help. I'm sure that they already tried.

Nailed it, in between throwing shoes at the TV it's one of my go to screams, "take 'em off Jacko until the ref treats us fairly". At some point we have to make a statement that we are as mad as hell and ain't going to take it any more (where have I heard that .......... rhetorical question, no need for an answer). If I was Jacko after he got sent to the sin bin for 1 repeated infraction (not sure how 1 can be a repeat), that he in fact didn't even commit, I would have called the team off the field. It was obvious that we were in for a penalty thrashing and nothing short of that was going to stop it.

I feel that it is going to take something drastic to get any action, walking off after repeated stupid decisions maybe a step too far, but it might have to be taken.

Always a Bulldog

 

[TwinTurbo]

The Belmore walk off by North's in 1970 after Keith Page sent off 2 of their players in quick succession attracted huge headlines, particularly in Rugby League Week which was in it's first year. North's coach Roy Francis did the right thing and marshalled his troops back onto the field. Can't recall whether North's got fined. Keith Page regularly attracted headlines.

I can recall Kevin Ryan and Keith Page having some heated "discussions", play stopped for some time when they got into it. Page would wave him away but Kandos wouldn't budge an inch, no wonder he made a good lawyer, barrister and MP.

Always a Bulldog

 

[dogzofwar]

For a fee
He's happy to be
Your back-door man.

He said no already asked