Overstating the "not up for it" excuse.

[swoop]

BTW, what sort of suspension is Kasiano looking at? 2-3 weeks min I would think?
He certainly didn't miss Fui Fui's melon.

The way the dog has been sucking up to the referees this year it wouldn't surprise me if he gets off.

 

[WAMF]

BTW, what sort of suspension is Kasiano looking at? 2-3 weeks min I would think?
He certainly didn't miss Fui Fui's melon.

The way the dog has been sucking up to the referees this year it wouldn't surprise me if he gets off.

His suspension has nothing to do with the referee's. He was placed on report. That's the end of the referee's involvement. The incident moves up the chain to a different department.

 

[Chip and Chase]

The thing with that short passing game before the line by forwards, is that you have to have the threat of being able to bend the line back if the pass doesn't come. That's what draws the edge defenders into the ball runner, otherwise they just hang back. Turning and backing into the defence, or propping and stepping sideways negates the effectiveness of that style of short passing play. That's where our starting props struggle. I don't think that the Dogs forwards are particularly creative, but Kasiano, Tolman and Graham are good at punching out metres and getting quick play the balls, that's the foundation that you need for all the other stuff to work.

By the way, Foran has never been a genuine ball player, and I'm pretty sure by his own admission it's an area of his game that needs a lot of work. His strength in attack lies in his ability to take on the line, and having good hole runners go with him to the line.

 

[The Who]

TC, thanks again for the in-depth analysis.
I'm sure we really miss Matai when he's not playing. Steve is the most direct of our runners, and doesn't crab sideways. We need him to straighten our attack.
I don't think any of us should judge our chances of premiership success until we see how we go this Friday night. We've had no trouble getting up for the big matches, and I'm hoping it will be repeated against against the Dogs.

 

[djaraboy]

If the dogs have lost Kasiano, they are in big trouble.

 

[Stevo]

James Graham will just start and the bench will re shuffle. Not a massive loss.

 

[Masked Eagle]

Due to being in transit and having to listen to most of the game on radio I actually thought we were up to it, in the first half at least. We did everything but score, and it just sounded like it was outstanding Knights defence which kept us at bay. Maybe the second half the energy levels might have dropped away due to the flu side of things but I wouldn't have put it down to us not scoring enough points early when we should have.

 

[Simonmyers11]

People tend to overuse the "not up for it attitude" as an easy way to explain a loss, yes it's a contributing factor but not always the underlying major issue.

It's impossible to maintain a high level attitude in such a brutal contact sport all year what you have to do is mask the low points with class, clinical precision in execution and a will to win when the game is close.

Our technical structural issues/bad habits in attack and not being able to score feed into our defence not the other way around. When you combine the above with our major attacking weapons on the sidelines these results are a no brainer.

Yes sickness, attitude and players out can be offered as genuine excuses but we had enough ball and field position in their 1/4 to score 2-3 tries and we didn't. With two international/rep halves and enough reps in the remaining players--- not scoring points in the first 20mins last night is unacceptable even when the attitude is not "up for it"

Bennett tends to create defensive patterns that are good laterally on their line flooding the areas of ball play with good numbers. You need to either go wide and come back through the middle with hard straight runners(not just crab across and not link with a straight runner) or use shorter more direct and flat passes up the middle before going wide.

Foran in attack usually gets shown up in these games---to be honest for over a year now his effectiveness in creating decent assists or line breaks has been on the slide. Yes injury once again contributes but his attacking passing game is not developing a more rounded edge.

DCE is also developing bad habits that started last year also---both get caught out during "night games" more often than not during the regular season.

We can turn this around but it's getting to the point now where luck and injuries really need to be on our side more so than ever before.

More attacking drills that limit the ball playing to the middle 1/3(width wise) with only one pass outside the zone allowed need to be developed. I have a few in mind that combines shuttle runs for the defensive set to add fatigue into the equation but i'm employed somewhere else these days so only a brown paper bag deal will do lol.

In short Manly need shorter ball playing and flooding attacking areas with more options closer in field.

The Parra game is not a good indicator of great structures in attack as Parra were diabolical.

Just a quick comment about your post technical coach - agree with the comment about the coaching defence of bennet, spot on there. Same defence that caused Manly a few problems when Bennet was coaching the dragons. Just on the backline, I think our sweeping backline moves work well - if Brett stewert is sweeping around the back - not a fill in. Look at some of the highlights of our tries down the right edge this year, it's up there with the best, especially when Gifty is playing! Foran attacks the line more than DCE, and relies on players hitting the hole - choc, T Rex, Matai etc. I think our attack suffers greatly when these 3 players - the Stewerts and Matai don't play. I think Glen Stewerts ball playing and defence has been missed big time, and will see a different outfit with those 3 players back on deck.