It was a crappy day yesterday. Weather was atrocious, making for an ugly match, we lost our best forward early and had a kid on debut that really shit the bed.
If you analyse why we lost it is very simple, 3 defensive errors. Even with the aforementioned issues, it came down to 3 poor efforts in D. It's not like they beat us with brilliant plays. That is difficult in those conditions anyway, but it was the simple defensive errors that cost us. Which in itself is disappointing, but easy to fix.
Casey was off his wing, covering Talakai which was necessary because we've seen what that bloke can do one-on-one. They put on a basic backline movement and he didn't cober Mulitalo quick enough. More blame on the inside men for not coming across, but also a debutant being caught out. Their other tries were so basic. Another backline movement. God knows why but JAC was infield again. Why does he do that?! Simple ball on his outide and Katoa? managed to get past him. Should never allow such tries. Then their 3rd was a really poor miss from Burton iirc. Just a forward running straight and he flung an arm out.
While it's disappointing to lose a game that we weren't ready to do the tough and basic stuff right, I'm not jumping off a cliff just yet. A lot of things went against us and we've shown we struggle in the wet. Our evasive guys can't do their thing at their best and Burton's aerial raid isn't as dangerous. I reckon he mustn't be able to get good grip on the ball from his boot when it's soaking wet.
Another big reason we sucked was a poor game by the forwards. Losing TPJ was big. In those conditions you need a strong forward effort. None of our's really stood up. For Sharks, Hynes' organisation really helped them. We were rudderless, which was especially bad since we played on a lake ffs.