Kicking responsibility

[silvertail]

Against the Warriors, I am confident that we will address the incredibly soft defence we all witnessed in the opening exchanges against the Vermin. Jake will be back and Starling should start. Lawrence had a shocker last outing, so hoping he is relegated to bench at best.

I pray that we don't pick the same team to play the Warriors. Only because we surely can't pick a team again where one of our halves don't have the ability to construct a decent kicking game.

Apart from the generational worst opening defensive effort we all saw against Souths, make no mistake, we would have won that game if we had a half decent kicking game.

Yeah, good on Api and Walker for having great running games last outing. But, their kicking game was atrocious. For goodness sake, why was Snake placed in the position to complete the set on four occasions. Snake has many abilities but a solid attacking kicking game is not one of them. We even had not rely on Vave putting in our best short grubber of the night!

I can forgive Lyon for kicking out on the full. We all know he can execute superb short or down the line kicks, but he is not a potential solution to take on the dominant halve short and long kick responsibility. His long kicking game kinda sucks.

If we think we can win another game before Cherry returns without having an accomplished short and long kicker in the halves, then think again. If we play with the same halves combination against the Warriors, then it's a given that we will lose. Api and Walker will be found out. Xmas doesn't strike twice in one year and the Warriors will be awake to their appetite to take on the lines themselves. Which will bring to the forefront our inability to execute a good kicking game.

So what are our options?

Funnily enough, young Tommy was probably our best option to play in the halves in the last game against Souths. He is the only one from that squad that looked remotely capable of executing an all round kicking game. But that would have been silly to have played him in the halves. We shouldn't confuse his wing to ultimate elite fullback career path with unnecessary stints in the halves.

Do we have any other halves in the club that can pull of a decent kicking game? Is Moltzen a better option? Can John kick the ball short and long?

 

[Loobs]

Don't forget Vave put a grubber in on one set lol

 

[Turbo]

Against the Warriors, I am confident that we will address the incredibly soft defence we all witnessed in the opening exchanges against the Vermin. Jake will be back and Starling should start. Lawrence had a shocker last outing, so hoping he is relegated to bench at best.

I pray that we don't pick the same team to play the Warriors. Only because we surely can't pick a team again where one of our halves don't have the ability to construct a decent kicking game.

Apart from the generational worst opening defensive effort we all saw against Souths, make no mistake, we would have won that game if we had a half decent kicking game.

Yeah, good on Api and Walker for having great running games last outing. But, their kicking game was atrocious. For goodness sake, why was Snake placed in the position to complete the set on four occasions. Snake has many abilities but a solid attacking kicking game is not one of them. We even had not rely on Vave putting in our best short grubber of the night!

I can forgive Lyon for kicking out on the full. We all know he can execute superb short or down the line kicks, but he is not a potential solution to take on the dominant halve short and long kick responsibility. His long kicking game kinda sucks.

If we think we can win another game before Cherry returns without having an accomplished short and long kicker in the halves, then think again. If we play with the same halves combination against the Warriors, then it's a given that we will lose. Api and Walker will be found out. Xmas doesn't strike twice in one year and the Warriors will be awake to their appetite to take on the lines themselves. Which will bring to the forefront our inability to execute a good kicking game.

So what are our options?

Funnily enough, young Tommy was probably our best option to play in the halves in the last game against Souths. He is the only one from that squad that looked remotely capable of executing an all round kicking game. But that would have been silly to have played him in the halves. We shouldn't confuse his wing to ultimate elite fullback career path with unnecessary stints in the halves.

Do we have any other halves in the club that can pull of a decent kicking game? Is Moltzen a better option? Can John kick the ball short and long?

Haha mate Api and walker have been playing well all year as soon they go there opportunity to take control they did and neither should dropped for lack of a kicking game. Koroisau was told to run the ball a lot by Trent Barret and he did his job. Walker is a running player and his ball playing and long range kicking game isn't there. Same halves as last week but TB needs to tell them use the player around them like snake and Taupau coz more often than not players like snake and Marty can do magic. I back our halves to the moon and back if you going to bag anyone for the kicking, bag Trent he was the one who told the halves run as much as possible. I say we only kick outside the oppositions 20 and when we are inside the oppos 20 we can run the ball like Api and walker showed. John and Moltzen are crap that is why they weren't picked and both aren't great kickers. Tom should stay on the wing we don't Williame back in the side. I think your being a little hard on our halves. They almost won the game and also had a great short kicking game. Snake shouldn't kick anymore either. Kicking wasn't what stuffed us it was the start of the match that did, we missed Jake T he would have stopped McInnes in both occasions. Leave the side the same accept drop Lawrence to the bench and have starlo start.

 

[Turbo]

Oh and drop Mateo to the bench and replace Leary with Tom symonds

 

[Budgie]

No Andrew Johns to call on. What about bringing Cliffy in for a little instruction?

 

[ManlyArmy]

Keep Killer at centre, but move him closer to the ball around the last tackle. He's the best to have kicking the ball without DCE.

 

[Killer03]

Our long kicking game is struggling, we don't seem to have someone to belt the ball up 50m and find grass when we are on our 30 or 40 (admittedly that is not an easy skill).

What's Parcells kicking like? Always good to have a dummy half who can jump out and put in the odd decent kick (not saying he need to replace DCE just saying the odd kick will help).

Killer needs to be an option more often, as this confuses the defence, and Mateo as well. That's where Gifty was gold dust, you could never assume he would just put the ball out to Killer as he would often put in a lovely little kick.

 

[tookey]

No Andrew Johns to call on. What about bringing Cliffy in for a little instruction?

Instruction on smoking and playing the pokies? Cliffs didn't have any plau book

 

[IQofalimabean]

we averaged 15.4 meters per kick

 

[Shoe1]

we averaged 15.4 meters per kick

That's misleading, because for about 50 mins we seemed to be camped inside their 20. No need for long kicks.

 

[wombatgc]

Hardest position to fill. I thought they did a pretty good job considering it was their first outing together in the halves. Have a look at a seasoned veteran Marshal and Widhop ......four tries in three games! Our boys are killen it just based on last week. Can't wait to see Api v Johnson....ripper!
You'd expect they will be putting in a bit of kicking practice in the week ahead.

 

[maxta]

I thought our short kicking game bar Vave, was more an issue.
Still don't get why we don't kick right to Turbo on 5 or 6.... The boy is 6'5 & leaps to 8'2 with great hands??
Did not see 1 cross field kick to his wing in 20 sets in Rabbits red zone??

 

[Dan]

Bring Lyon in on the 5th for kicks and parcell should probably take up some responsibility. It's an easy fix. Especially with Walker being a gun centre it seems logical to swap Lyon and Walker for late set plays

 

[HoldenV8]

Don't forget Vave put a grubber in on one set lol

Yeah and that butchered a try. Both Killer and Tommy were screaming for the ball out on the right because we had a 4 man overlap. The ball goes along the line and one of those two scores easily. Instead somehow the ball was given to Vave, a front rower, on the last tackle who put in a grubber kick. We may have forced a line drop out from it, but we should have scored and no doubt would have if DCE was playing as he usually plays the right side.

Johns said it right at half time of the game, our kicking game without DCE simply stunk and quite frankly, it didn't get any better in the second half.

 

[HoldenV8]

I thought our short kicking game bar Vave, was more an issue.
Still don't get why we don't kick right to Turbo on 5 or 6.... The boy is 6'5 & leaps to 8'2 with great hands??
Did not see 1 cross field kick to his wing in 20 sets in Rabbits red zone??

There were a couple of kicks to his wing in the second half, but unfortunately neither gave him any chance of challenging for the ball.

 

[maxta]

There were a couple of kicks to his wing in the second half, but unfortunately neither gave him any chance of challenging for the ball.

Yep... Seen them H8....just landed 5-10 out....in the zone, can see him winning the contest 7 out of 10 jumps

 

[Fibro Eagle]

A quote from Parcell earlier this year
I'd say he hasn't got much of a kicking game but is keen to get one into his game

Parcell is eager to become a reliable kicking option out of dummy half and expects to learn plenty about how to achieve that from Barrett.

“I’ll just do my best and train as hard as I can but hopefully I’ll definitely aim to play No.9. It’s Trent’s decision and I’ll go with whatever he wants,” Parcell said.

“Trent will be really good for me with a few things like working on my kicking game.

“I haven’t had one too much so I want to try and incorporate that into my game.

“You need to have that option and it also takes pressure off the other guys if you’re able to kick.

“If you’re just passing it to them all the time you’re just putting pressure onto them.

“Before this year I didn’t really have one but I’m slowly improving.”

 

[Fluffy]

I have always found it strange that non halves players have a horrible kicking game. When I was a kid we would kick all types be it bombs, grubbers, longs kicks (the old force em backs) and the favourite field goals from the other ide of half way and that is just playing around at school. Granted there is no pressure etc but surely these guys who love, live and breath footy would be into this stuff as well.

 

[damiennp90]

We're all worrying about nothing. Sure the kicking game was crap. Esp the short kicking game. But they only had 20 minutes training together.
Baz said he was disappointed with the 5th play options. I'm sure they will work on it for most of the week.

Api and walker put in hard, determined performances. If Baz sacks one of them know what's the rest of the team going to think. Not good for moral. I knocked Tooves for not changing at all but you can change too much.

Make it a 5/8 trial. That'll motivate them.

 

[pjayz]

I have always found it strange that non halves players have a horrible kicking game. When I was a kid we would kick all types be it bombs, grubbers, longs kicks (the old force em backs) and the favourite field goals from the other ide of half way and that is just playing around at school. Granted there is no pressure etc but surely these guys who love, live and breath footy would be into this stuff as well.

It might well be trained out of them for players in traditionally non-kicking positions (an assumption only). Coaches might be wanting them to stick to the basics of their position and leave the kicking to the halves. It seems we are too robotic these days and discourage creativity to some degree in lower grades through to first grade (again an assumption only).