All this doom and gloom over a trial is depressing. So I looked at the stats from last night's game and tbh, it's clear why we lost.
This doesn't automatically mean we're fine. Far from it. But most of you are acting like the world is ending, when it isn't.
Key stats: We only had 48% possession and 67% completions. Anything under 70% is dismal, but it can be easily fixed.
Interestingly, despite losing by 24 points, we made 3 more runs than Sharks and made only 58 less run metres. I'm amazed by that tbh. Like everyone else it seemed to me that our forwards were well outplayed, but when you take our lack of possession into account, they actually performed alright. Post contact metres, another metric of intent and determination was even too. 413:422 us to Sharks.
Line and tackle breaks is where they beat us, winning those by 5:2 (line breaks) and the real critical stat 34:10 (tackle breaks). Missed tackles also killed us 34:10 against us. Add in 9 penalties to 5 and the scoreline isn't surprising. They also were much better on kick return metres, but we had some positives too, making the most metres per set and having a much better bomb defusal.
Basically what the stats say is we just need to be far better defensively and discipline wise, although we got shafted as usual in that area. We were ok in some of the important metrics, just need to be better defensively and complete more. Basic stuff. You also have to remember changing your defensive line significantly like they did (because it was a trial) by swapping Burns for Schoupp and bringing on Casey etc. is obviously going to affect your defence.
This is why you shouldn't get so worried about trials. They are far from a regular season game. Players get moved around, combinations change etc. during the match. The areas which lost us the game are easily improved and will be helped by having a settled team.
