The Panthers defense

Motorhead

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That’s not actually the rule, there is no requirement for the ball to have cleared the ruck. The act of playing the ball is the trigger. The well coached teams go as soon as the ball touches the ground, they practise it endlessly at training, optimising the timing. Then they need the discipline and stamina to execute what they practised during games. It’s been a Melbourne trait for years, the Chooks copied it but their players got old, injured and tired.

Always a Bulldog
I thought the rule is supposed to be that the defence cannot move up until the ball has cleared the heel of the bloke playing the ball. As with all rules in this joke of an amateur competition it is just there to be ignored.
 

steeliz

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That’s not actually the rule, there is no requirement for the ball to have cleared the ruck. The act of playing the ball is the trigger. The well coached teams go as soon as the ball touches the ground, they practise it endlessly at training, optimising the timing. Then they need the discipline and stamina to execute what they practised during games. It’s been a Melbourne trait for years, the Chooks copied it but their players got old, injured and tired.

Always a Bulldog
Defensive line is not allowed to charge up when foot touches ball.

Some teams are allowed to get away with and some aren't.

It worked well for the Panthers.

They played the whistle.
 

steeliz

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I thought the rule is supposed to be that the defence cannot move up until the ball has cleared the heel of the bloke playing the ball. As with all rules in this joke of an amateur competition it is just there to be ignored.
Exactly
 

Janice

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They ALWAYS go early and never get pulled up for it. This makes their line speed look better than it actually is. The Parra game they were moving forward when the ball hadn't even been placed on the ground let alone cleared the ruck. They did the same last night too. Their fitness is good because they are always getting back the ten but it's the going early with no penalty that has won them this premiership.
Melbourne do the same thing.
 

Disposable Hero

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They ALWAYS go early and never get pulled up for it. This makes their line speed look better than it actually is. The Parra game they were moving forward when the ball hadn't even been placed on the ground let alone cleared the ruck. They did the same last night too. Their fitness is good because they are always getting back the ten but it's the going early with no penalty that has won them this premiership.
Mate, can you give Trent Barret the heads up on your observation.

He obviously forgot to bring that part of panthers coaching to the dogs.
 

Noeasyday

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Another factor which assists Penrith is the time taken in the tackle and wrestle.
Buy keeping momentum in the tackle before taking it to ground and a wrestle it gives the defensive line an extra couple of seconds to be set and take a breather.
Across 80 minutes that adds up significantly.
 

Bulldog1966

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I read Edwards played with a broken foot for the last month, huge effort to do so..and the team generally.

Souffs were extremely resilient too(fuck them though lol), with the domination the Panthers had they should have won by plenty.
 
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Psycho Doggie

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It reminded me of the roosters 2002 defence
Came here to say this. Roosters 02 through to halfway through 04. They perfected the hit and drive back defense, arguably did it better than Penriff have the last two seasons. When we played them halfway through 04 and Folkes had Pricey, O'Meley, and Mason passing the ball wide of the ruck half the time, and we belted them, was when that changed.

You need a combination of things going right in order to do this defense:

1. A confident team that trusts each other.
2. Some guys who really know how to hit and sting. Tim Grant, young prop at the time, was asked who in the NRL hits the hardest, he nominated Craig Fitzgibbon, who regularly topped the chooks tackle count at the time along with Ricketson. Morley could hit pretty hard too. Once you stop a guy in his tracks, and keep him on his feet, another two blokes pile in to push them back.
3. A backline that can run for lots of metres. This gives the forwards a break so they can keep putting in in defense, and do so with the opposition deep in their own half. Edwards and To'o rack up 200m on a regular basis each. They both did 230 last night, and Crichton did 200 as well. When your forwards have to make less than half the run meters (the 5 backs and 2 halves for Penriff did 1027 out of Penriffs 1800 run metres), they can do more of the hard work in defense. Think about how many sets last night that Penriff did and 4 out of the 5 hit ups were done by backs.

Our 02-04 team was pretty good at it too, but we picked our moments. We had good help with Utai doing hard run metres, and Hazem and Vagana could make some handy metres as well, usually by beating the first man rather than Utai's brute force.
 

magdog

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Love to see the stat on how often the best defensive team wins the comp.
 

Bulldogsteve

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Out of all my years watching the game i have never seen a defense like this in my life.
Have you ever seen a team that sprints off its line for 80 minutes and not only that, physically man handle the ball carrier and drive them backwards and side ways for 80 minutes?
Souths last night did not get a full set of 6 in the Panthers 20 until the 70th minute mark.
In fact, they barely got a tackle in the Panthers 20 all game.
The thing is, they have pretty much been doing this for the last 2 years.
I am sure every coach would love to see there team do this, but the team would be absolutely exhausted after 25 minutes yet the Panthers can do this for 80 minutes????
Panthers came into this game after 3 weeks of tough grinding games and a few players busted yet it did not matter.
The question is, are they that much fitter and physically more dominant than every other team?
Generally there is an inverse relationship between fitness and strength, yet they have both far far superior than anyone else.
Even Phil Gould said 2 weeks ago in the commentary, he has never seen anything like it when talking about the Panthers line speed and physical dominance.
Not even the storm are like this.
Is there strength and conditioning coach and sports science programmes that much better than everyone elses?
What is going on?
cleary's kicking game was unbelievable, he had them pinned down in their 20. They condensed their defensive line and their line speed was again was unbelievable. their tackle tech was spot on, they were able to hold up the attacker and push them back on every tackle.
it was beautiful to watch.
 

JORDZILLA

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The one question I was considering.

I guess he is versatile but has plenty of errors in him
The worst part of Penrith's Grand Final win is easily the fact that Tyrone May now has a ring and is claiming some sort of vindication (insta post ytd) despite being a below-average footballer and a trash human being.
 

KiwiDog7

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Came here to say this. Roosters 02 through to halfway through 04. They perfected the hit and drive back defense, arguably did it better than Penriff have the last two seasons. When we played them halfway through 04 and Folkes had Pricey, O'Meley, and Mason passing the ball wide of the ruck half the time, and we belted them, was when that changed.

You need a combination of things going right in order to do this defense:

1. A confident team that trusts each other.
2. Some guys who really know how to hit and sting. Tim Grant, young prop at the time, was asked who in the NRL hits the hardest, he nominated Craig Fitzgibbon, who regularly topped the chooks tackle count at the time along with Ricketson. Morley could hit pretty hard too. Once you stop a guy in his tracks, and keep him on his feet, another two blokes pile in to push them back.
3. A backline that can run for lots of metres. This gives the forwards a break so they can keep putting in in defense, and do so with the opposition deep in their own half. Edwards and To'o rack up 200m on a regular basis each. They both did 230 last night, and Crichton did 200 as well. When your forwards have to make less than half the run meters (the 5 backs and 2 halves for Penriff did 1027 out of Penriffs 1800 run metres), they can do more of the hard work in defense. Think about how many sets last night that Penriff did and 4 out of the 5 hit ups were done by backs.

Our 02-04 team was pretty good at it too, but we picked our moments. We had good help with Utai doing hard run metres, and Hazem and Vagana could make some handy metres as well, usually by beating the first man rather than Utai's brute force.
Spot on
 

cookieman909

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The worry for Souths going into the game was the metre gain from the back 3. Clearys kicking game was bang on. Though the NRL need to look at six agains for teams coming out of trouble. Penrith would constantly lie in the ruck and give away six agains when Souths were trying to come out of trouble. Needs to be tweaked maybe in the sense when your in your own half, you get a penalty instead of a six again.
 

Riggs80

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The worry for Souths going into the game was the metre gain from the back 3. Clearys kicking game was bang on. Though the NRL need to look at six agains for teams coming out of trouble. Penrith would constantly lie in the ruck and give away six agains when Souths were trying to come out of trouble. Needs to be tweaked maybe in the sense when your in your own half, you get a penalty instead of a six again.
I was going to post a suggestion on this and you beat me

I would have automatic penalty in your own 30
 
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