Losing The Collisions...

[maxta]

So frustrating to see the opposition winning the contact in both attack & defence.
Its both an attitude & confidence area - key ingredients for a successful team.
Opposition halves are looking like world class superstars as the attackers are playing the ball almost as quickly as a game of touch footy!!
The domino effect has our defensive line going backwards offering time & space to cut holes through a backpeddling defence causing linebreaks & in general, 70 metre sets creating great field position & ensuring Manly start the set inside their 10m line just hacking it up.
In attack its the opposite, with their defenders hitting harder & in numbers dominating the tackle - slowing it down & ensuring the defence is all set & coming up again the next tackle picking off the obvious ball runner again in numbers....
Its tough for ANY halves to get a team forward in these conditions but must admit the halves looked disinterested in that 1st half when the game was on the line & came to life when it was too little - too late.
The ONLY way to win that ruck area is by winning that contact & getting 2nd & 3rd men in to dominate the attacker on his back, buying time to set the defensive line & get up & hit again, or be punished by these 100km play the balls that leak big points - quickly.....if that was Souths/Roosters it would have been 44 - 4 at half time.
Really hope this area tightens up in coming weeks starting with Penrith......
Agree with the thread stating we lack dummy half metres but the fact is, we could have Segeyaro or Luke bouncing out from dummy half without success due to losing the contact & offering pedestrian play the balls....when todays game is won in the middle from the speed of the play the ball.

 

[sheridanstand78]

A big thing is that in the 5 games so far we have not had a stable team, so much changing around because of the injuries. The last 2 weeks we have been dominated at the ruck and the lack of control there is making it impossible for us to get any sort of foot hold in games.

We need variety around the ruck and some good old fashioned dummy half runnning, and quick play the balls works, when we get some key troops back that will improve but the attitude has to change or we are doomed for this season.

 

[HappilyManly]

Give the Hodges kid a go.

Matty can have a rest every half, he made double the tackles again than anyone else.

Foran made 9 in the second, 24 total
Snake made 4 in the second, 5 total

 

[Captain Moondog]

Too many times yesterday we were waiting for them to come to us, not moving up to meet them in defense.

 

[Brett#1]

Exactly, half the time we were moving backwards waiting for the attack to arrive.

 

[IQofalimabean]

Too many times yesterday we were waiting for them to come to us, not moving up to meet them in defense.

I also thought Canberra were better at delaying the play the ball. Manly struggled by comparison giving easy meters the next play.

 

[Technical Coach]

This has been progressively getting worse since basically all of last season, lack of aggression, attitude, size(the right kind of size) and power in the forwards---add injuries, the loss of mature hardened forwards to the mix along with the retention and signing of some reserve grade quality forwards and you end up with the class of 2015.

Don't expect many aggressive powerful performances other than an improvement at Brookie matches.

We have been a passive containment like defence without the same level of ruck slow down intricate qualities of a Melbourne(from the past) which is asking for trouble.

Until we see this element of our game improve big time the losses will keep mounting on a consistent basis.

 

[joeboy]

No line speed, no agression, no offloads, no attitude, no desperation.

All teams can play at 99% it used to be the 1% that manly had in spades. Sorely lacking at present.