Opinion Paper thin defense

Deathspell

Kennel Established
Joined
Oct 19, 2017
Messages
521
Reaction score
315
Respectful discourse! I asked you twice for your theory re Pay changing R to L etc JJ, RFM, Holland, Foran etc ;)
Sorry I wasn't ignoring you, but this is the second time I've logged on after a lengthy spell in Europe. My bad, I should have replied to the older posts (yours included) first.

I think the problem Pay has is to try and balance attacking and defensive combinations and skills of his players. Except for Smith, the other three-quarters are not complete players. Pay could have used Meaney at fullback and played Hoppa at center, to inject much needed speed. But as we experienced last year, fielding Foran, Hoppa and Smith on right edge was a disaster. Foran advances solo whilst Hoppa back paddles, this puts Smith in two minds, thus dropping off his man and/or leaving himself open to deep kicks. This drags the fullback towards the right and out of position for a left cross kick. A lot of work needs to be employed for any of these edge combinations to be defensively sound.

As for the left edge, I believe with better communication between the half and his inside-outside men and as long as Holland takes seniority over his winger, we should see better defensive performances, but Crichton's diffusion of high kicks when defending the line needs addressing. Unfortunately we are very limited in experienced first grade three-quarters and I don't have enough knowledge on the fitness and current performance levels of Olive, Okunbor, Harper, Anderson and Katoa to recommend different edge combinations.

The attack is still a huge problem. Foran needs to direct the attack to both sides of the ruck. He's predictable and stifles the attack, as he keeps running whilst shifting consistently towards the right. This tends to limit JJ's options but is more suited to RFM direct running style of a short pass and executing decoys. Unfortunately we do not have a modern fullback that links as a 2nd five-eight, so Pay used Lewis as a roving shifting half, similar to how Holland was used last year when coming off the bench. The problems with this style of attack is that you lose a penetrating half and if the hooker is not up with the play and cannot shift the ball fast to the half, you'll end up with a very poor rushed kicking game.

It was obvious that after the 20 minute arm wrestle, our forwards were getting outmatched in defense and gaining attacking meters was only going to further their fatigue. In my opinion whilst in attack only, Pay should have moved JJ to hooker, replaced Lichaa with JMK as a roving half and moved Lewis a bit deeper. This would have allowed for a better kicking game with more options. Once our kicks turned the Warriors around, it should have been imperative that the two markers moved fast onto the dummy half and first receiver, with the inside defensive line coming up fast as a group to stop second phase play whilst the outside defense position themselves for an quick outside sweep or kick.
 

Deathspell

Kennel Established
Joined
Oct 19, 2017
Messages
521
Reaction score
315
Enough of the analysis;

Let’s see what happens Sunday afternoon from 4:05pm when the rubber hits the road
Like Neil Young says

Your Cadillac
has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track
 

wendog33

Kennel Immortal
Premium Member
Ladder Champion
Joined
Aug 6, 2016
Messages
24,741
Reaction score
27,950
Sorry I wasn't ignoring you, but this is the second time I've logged on after a lengthy spell in Europe. My bad, I should have replied to the older posts (yours included) first.

I think the problem Pay has is to try and balance attacking and defensive combinations and skills of his players. Except for Smith, the other three-quarters are not complete players. Pay could have used Meaney at fullback and played Hoppa at center, to inject much needed speed. But as we experienced last year, fielding Foran, Hoppa and Smith on right edge was a disaster. Foran advances solo whilst Hoppa back paddles, this puts Smith in two minds, thus dropping off his man and/or leaving himself open to deep kicks. This drags the fullback towards the right and out of position for a left cross kick. A lot of work needs to be employed for any of these edge combinations to be defensively sound.

As for the left edge, I believe with better communication between the half and his inside-outside men and as long as Holland takes seniority over his winger, we should see better defensive performances, but Crichton's diffusion of high kicks when defending the line needs addressing. Unfortunately we are very limited in experienced first grade three-quarters and I don't have enough knowledge on the fitness and current performance levels of Olive, Okunbor, Harper, Anderson and Katoa to recommend different edge combinations.

The attack is still a huge problem. Foran needs to direct the attack to both sides of the ruck. He's predictable and stifles the attack, as he keeps running whilst shifting consistently towards the right. This tends to limit JJ's options but is more suited to RFM direct running style of a short pass and executing decoys. Unfortunately we do not have a modern fullback that links as a 2nd five-eight, so Pay used Lewis as a roving shifting half, similar to how Holland was used last year when coming off the bench. The problems with this style of attack is that you lose a penetrating half and if the hooker is not up with the play and cannot shift the ball fast to the half, you'll end up with a very poor rushed kicking game.

It was obvious that after the 20 minute arm wrestle, our forwards were getting outmatched in defense and gaining attacking meters was only going to further their fatigue. In my opinion whilst in attack only, Pay should have moved JJ to hooker, replaced Lichaa with JMK as a roving half and moved Lewis a bit deeper. This would have allowed for a better kicking game with more options. Once our kicks turned the Warriors around, it should have been imperative that the two markers moved fast onto the dummy half and first receiver, with the inside defensive line coming up fast as a group to stop second phase play whilst the outside defense position themselves for an quick outside sweep or kick.
Thanks for replying :grinning: Enjoy your analyses DS. Brings a fuller picture of our problems and roster shortcomings. I certainly couldn't work out Pay's change up on positions which sounds ok in theory..but. I guess it strengthens his decision to stick with his selections for Week 2.
 

Big M

Kennel Established
Premium Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2018
Messages
849
Reaction score
461
the problem was Montoya and Holland love to rush in all the time and 99% of the time the miss the tackle
So you blame the two players who defend two in from the sideline!!!! Wow glad your not a coach lol.Not enough space to explain defensive patterns but suggest you google some.Hint,there are 8 other players defending between them..
 

WFC03

Waterboy
Joined
May 18, 2018
Messages
74
Reaction score
71
I put it down to bad decision making in defense. Besides the first try from a kick all the others were preventable.
2nd try Crichton was there to stop the guy jumping for the ball like he did the previous effort so Holland should have stayed in filed to block and tap back but instead got drawn in to a player who was in the air. Third and fourth tries we had the numbers but first Montoya rushes in on the man that Lewis had covered leaving overlap outside which Lewis tried to cover leaving a massive gap inside for him to slice through and second Holland runs out of the line and takes no one forcing Jackson to rush out to the center and miss the tackle

Same continued in the second half bad decisions. If that doesn’t change neither will the score lines
 

DT

Kennel Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 12, 2008
Messages
1,911
Reaction score
1,732
RFM is not an 80 minute player...id rather see him come off the bench, have some impact runs then get off...Lichaa, please, enough, Montoya was appalling and appears clueless as a centre...that’ll do for this week
 
Top