Where to start with that one

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Kiwi Eagle

Moderator
Staff member
Well, what can we say after that ? Very disappointing final 15mins, I could handle the 1st 65 but that last 15 tipped me over the edge

Starting off with the big positive from tonight, Peta Hiku

I'd think he would have silenced any doubters tonight, I think we have a future star here, very impressive for a bloke playing his 2nd NRL match in a top of the table effort. Defensively he will get better when faced 1 on 1 like that, but he took the ball nicely and in attack was always where he should have been in the set moves running nice lines. Passing ability in that situation will come with experience and on the kick return I thought he looked good bringing it back

Defensively both sides showed why they are 1 and 2 on defence this season, very tough to crack and not 1 try given away through the hands for either side shows the commitment and scramble both sides have in them

Now onto the other stuff. We looked like we were coming good in attack early in the 2nd half but it fell to bits near the end.
As I mentioned last week, the aimless flicking out the back has to stop, too often it is costing us metres and putting a receiver under pressure, there are multiple players guilty of this.
When we were looking good, it was on the back of a player running a straight hard line, Foran led the way with that tonight and we needed to play his way more as Horo and Matai were dangerous around him. It is happening too often now, and Foran maybe needs to man up and demand the ball more on that side.
Glenn will probably cop plenty for the right side attack but I don't put it down to him (other than the grubber on the 2nd tackle), some of his play made us look a bit more dangerous tonight, 1 that springs to mind is when a nice ball put DCE into a massive gap.
Daly needs to change his game up, I have noticed it the past few weeks but tonight will be the 1st time I mention it. There is too much glory play stuff in his game at the moment. I have no issue with him looking for the big play from time to time, but it is happening too often for my liking.
Too often his passing game is putting his receiver under massive pressure, case in point tonight when close to the line he gave one to Stewart who was under massive pressure and spilt it. His passing game has also been lacking in execution far too often with the ball hitting the ground or too high for the player. He isn't playing crap, but he is capable of far better and I have no doubt we will see it within the next few weeks if he puts in the hard work and reins some of those plays in a bit.

Now is the part I will probably be slammed for. Ballin is a great defensive player, but in attack, extremely ordinary. No dummy half running game to speak of, but the bit of his play that gets me the most, is his option taking when we are within 10m of the line. 2-3 times a set he will throw a face ball to a forward on the burst, never any variation to it and usually very easily covered and it costs us prime opportunities in the attacking zone.
I have always been more of a fan of the 2008 model where we had Ballin for 50 and L'Estrange for 30 to add some attack and I would love that type of player in our set up again.
Outside of the silly offloads I feel our forwards are as good as any in the comp and are setting the platform week to week

I don't think it is all doom and gloom, can't win the comp situation as some people will carry on with, but there are a few things that need to be addressed

Player wise I already mentioned Hiku, very impressed

Matai, an all time Manly legend imo, commitment every week, into everything and hardly ever lets us down

Lyon is a bit down on his best at the moment, A lot of people are putting that down to Stewart but that is too simplistic, he isn't creating his own stuff like we have become accustomed to either

Foran, going from strength to strength, needs to see more ball

Kite and Lawrence are laying a nice platform week after week, and Choc is just Choc. Couple of penalties from lawrence at the end were disappointiing

Glenn Stewart, another big talking point at the moment. Mixed bag tonight, good in defence, in the 2nd half for me his attack looked to really be coming back nicely, but really let himself down with a horrible play kicking on the 2nd, will only get better though i think

Rose will be another talking point no doubt. Shoulder charge extremely disappointing. I read during the game some saying he had zero impact, can't agree at all, he is still a handful to bring down every time he has the ball, and showed a few times how good his footwork can make him close to the line. Solid game without being outstanding, but his carries tonight and his tackling last week for me show he is far from the spent force many people are saying he is.

Buhrer. I'm lost with him at the moment. He has ability, but I just can't see where he fits into the side anymore with the emergence of Horo and Symonds. Horo was outstanding hitting the holes tonight and Symonds is always dangerous. Buhrer works hard but isn't offering any impact. I think he could shine as a Horo type line runner and has shown that ability early in his career, if we use him i'd love to see him close to Foran. Maybe an impact hooker could be his best role currently ?

The send off. Classic high tackle send off for me, if that doesn't go, then nobody will for a high tacke. Swinging, Rose never lowered and he smashed him square in the head. Cracked me up how the commentator said "If he stayed down injured it's a definite send off", that shouldn't come into the equation, the contact should

All in all, we have a right to feel a bit downcast on that one tonight as fans. However I think we should also remember, that a good defence will always keep you in the game, and we are near the top of the heap in that area and it will win us many games. If the attack sorts out we are still up there with the contenders, it isn't all doom and gloom as the next week on here will probably portray. Souths are without a doubt a mile ahead of the rest at the moment
 
We really need to sort our attack out. Dumb football aside I can't see anything that could have stopped us from being 9 and 0 at this stage.
 
We lacked composure tonight, it seems as if we are trying to score off every tackle in the opposition 10
 
Nice read and agree with most of it.

DCE doesn't need a half fit extra half in Glen at the moment. Glen in nowhere near fit enough and should get back into form and fitness doing the hard yards.

Agree, Ballin looks like he is on Valium at the moment. If we are playing 16 players atm, the may as well blood a dynamic hooker to lighten his load.

Buhrer,,,,,offering bugger all value this year. Needs a long spell to put on some bulk.
 
Thought Hiku showed some great confidence and you've got to applaud that. He missed a couple of 1 on 1's but there was commitment there, which is all you can ask. Another socks down Kiwi fullback ?? let's hope. Showed enough to make me think he'll be a good solid back up for Brett in the short term and maybe something pretty good in teh long term

Watmough too much passing in the first half, needed to knuckle down and lay a platform. Tried hard though as usual. I thought Horo was probably our best tonight, kept SBW quiet and ran tough all night. Lawrence is a machine, so I will forgive him a few errors.

I agree on Ballin, I think I said the same last week after the Dragons game, his dummy half work has dropped off and he puts too much pressure on his runners. No variety in his game is a big downside.

Foran had a quiet start but finished strong, and our LHS looked most likely in the end.

We probably out "line breaked" them, not sure what that stat ended up, but we just kept pushing miracle balls and crazy last passes.

I thought it was a good game in greasy conditions and wasn't overly disappointed with the result. They scored an early try and a very late one from two dropped balls by us. I didn't think they dominated the game, but they did defend well I wil say that.
 
I agree with almost everything you wrote KE but i think our right side attack is being stifled by Gift. Our attack looked great until the exact game that Gift came back, it was clear as day to me. Im not blaming Gift for our losses as the whole team is making stupid decisions and mistakes but it is one area where i can see an issue. DCE has been average with moments of brilliance, he needs to work on his consistency but again he looked much better when Gift was out.
 
Good thoughts KE, I think you sold Lawrence a bit short though, he has a massive motor and was one of our best tonight. his covering tackle on the sbw off load was an awesome efort although not needed due to a forward pass but he was still covering for the winger.
Is it just me or did DCE dummy a lot more before? We seem to get him the ball a bit flatter these days and his dummy is less effective.
I agree with the Balin Buherer thing, give mat a rest either side of half time and let Jamie B try hooker, its a long season for Matty B otherwise.
 
Agree with just about all of the comment, bench is not so good, Gower Burher both didnt contribute a great deal. One question what has happened to farrer, wasnt he bought to be a replacement wing/fullback?
 
Farrar picked up an injury, due back in the next week or so.

Fair point MF76, Lawrence was very good as we have come to expect, just took a touch of shine off his efforts near the end
 
Agree with Torana, Glen was crap tonight and looked buggered towards the end. Not sure how many tackles he missed but guessing about 5 but I probably missed some since I was watching live.

We absolutely have to stop playing this catch up type footy throwing poor offloads and passes pushed with tackles in hand on the break.

Hiku will get better over the next few weeks with experience and i'm sure there will be a lot more work on the 1 on 1 tackles.
 
Agree with most of that

Hiku was pretty good but not sure he will be a future star. Solid performer yes but need to see a bit more x factor to ascribe to the future star theory.

2 major things stand out for me.

When we played direct in the early rounds we looked composed and threatening.Stewart has changed that for the worse.He needs to play a role but to keep him on the right edge off DCE looking for long balls to wolf or a wrap around to Hiku /Brett in my opinion will kill us.Big call but that stuff is passed its use by date and it finally registered with me tonight as being basically season ending to keep it going.I would give him a roving commission in attack not limited to the right and fast. We will die on the vine otherwise.

Secondly our go to play of the long Brett Stewart sweep around which created so much trouble due to his blinding speed is also done as he simply does not have the extra speed any more,and Hiku doesn't either.We need something different here.

Lastly we need more players pushing up supporting line breaks and not just looking round to see where bullet is because he wont be there all the time anymore.Our conversions off line breaks is disgraceful.

Our defence is great with great attitude and I love it and it will keep us in most contests.

I may be old fashioned but the only way I see our side winning this comp is playing simple straight hard running tight football via Choc,Horo, and Symonds running tough lines and hope Glen can create something every now and then on iether side of the field AND then defend like our lives depend on it.Our only hope is to win big games 12-6 or the like-ours is not a pointscoring team and we need to realise this.Play tough,control the pill and bash the **** out of them when we defend.

The Storm will get us next week via injuries and pinkies but to be honest it may be sides like the raiders and dogs who worry us down the track as they can score points quickly which is something we simply cant do.If we play tough and simple most sides cant go with us in an arm wrestle but only if we keep it simple and complete.Old school is our only hope.

ps agree totally re Ballin.Not sure if anyone noticed but the young heavily wrapped knight Clydesdale reneged on a contract with us last week.I think Tooves may have a similar view but has no one to use like a a lestrange and he may have been our man.
 
We didn't use that second man play much in the first few rounds Susan and we looked much better in attack. The Dogs game was a classic example, I don't think we ran that play at all, just flat balls and cut outs at the line. I think our LHS has looked better overall this year than the RHS.
 
susan said:
Agree with most of that

Hiku was pretty good but not sure he will be a future star. Solid performer yes but need to see a bit more x factor to ascribe to the future star theory.

2 major things stand out for me.

When we played direct in the early rounds we looked composed and threatening.Stewart has changed that for the worse.He needs to play a role but to keep him on the right edge off DCE looking for long balls to wolf or a wrap around to Hiku /Brett in my opinion will kill us.Big call but that stuff is passed its use by date and it finally registered with me tonight.I would give him a roving commission in attack not limited to the right and fast. We will die on the vine otherwise.

Secondly our go to play of the long Brett Stewart sweep around which created so much trouble due to his blinding speed is also done as he simply does not have the extra speed an more,and Hiku doesn't either.We need something different here.

Lastly we need more players pushing up supporting line breaks and not just looking round to see where bullet is because he wont be there all the time anymore.Our conversions off line breaks is disgraceful.

Or defence is great with great attituge and I love it and it will kep us in most contests.

I may be old fashioned but the only way I see our side winning this comp is playing simple straight hard running tight football via Choc,Horo, and Symonds running tough lines and hope Glen can create something every now and then on iether side of the field AND the defend like our lives depend on it.Our only hope is to win big games 12-6 or the like-ours is not a pointscoring team and we need to realise this.Play tough,control the pill and bash the s**t out of them when we defend.

The Storm will get us next week via injuries and pinkies but to be honest it may be sides like the raisers and dogs who worry us down the track as they can score points quickly which is something we simply cant do.

Susan have you seen the NSW cup half we have who played rugby 7s Seage i think it is? I think he is the kind of player you are talking about re; snake hiku. He is fast off the mark and a great numbers reader in my opinion plus he is a ball player.
 
No Havent seen him but we need something different in the next couple of years as our stars fade or become different styles of player.Agree we didn't use that play early Cand C and that was great but it has crept back along with our sliding stuff on the right.

Just tighten up and bash them boys.Outside Tafua and maybe Lyon we are a team of warriors,not Ferraris-so lets play that way.No one does it better.
 
Team P W L PD Pts
3 3 0 48 6
4 3 1 28 6
3 2 1 10 6
4 2 2 39 4
3 2 1 28 4
3 2 1 15 4
3 2 1 14 4
2 1 1 13 4
2 1 1 6 4
3 2 1 -3 4
3 1 2 0 2
3 1 2 -5 2
3 1 2 -15 2
3 1 2 -22 2
3 1 2 -36 2
2 0 2 -56 2
3 0 3 -64 0
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