Losing ugly is a lot worse than winning ugly.
Losing ugly is a lot worse than winning ugly.
Four reasons to escape to Queensland: Sun, Surf, Sand & the Titans.
Hmmm the myth of us being contenders seems busted. Great energy and grit but we'll never succeed with no attack. Are the dummy half darts for the line on the 5th really being coached? If not who is actually calling the shots? Mead went missing in action last night which was really dissappointing. Was he injured early? James was OK for a first game back but as usual there are too many forwards getting in the way of our backline.
Panthers certainly are not great but even they ensure that Wallace and Soward are standing next to each other to sweep it wide whenever possible. Sezer spends half his time playing it in the ruck after a half ****d run.
Call me Mr Stupid but...
I loved the Bird ball call made on here. Bird was at his worst last night and it cost us. Not sure what happened to Blair. I hope he wasn't dragged after that first try because that was Bird's fault as was another line-break. He has had an excellent season to date but that is one he needs to consign to the history books because we can't afford our focal point to be that bad. He was totally dominated. Blair and Takairangi are important members of our attack and should get as much early ball as we can feed them - especially near our own line - our forwards need to run more decoys and get out of the way. Sezer seems lost and is dying with the ball far too often. Blair will put Gordon away if we give him the chance and Kelly and Mead should be looking to play of Taka and Taylor's offloads. Unfortunately Mead had a shocker and I'll be very pleased if he can get another chance at fullback. Don has been excellent too. Great to see James back, it's going to be a ferocious forward battle against the Tigers - let's hope we can find some attacking plays in the opposition 20m. I won't hold my breath
Geese are the ultimate team players.
They honk to encourage one another!
Harrison must go and Bird must be given a roving commission. He deadset chokes that left side and I have been watching Blair closely and he overcalls Bird which he should but that could be why he got hooked. In response Bird then had to over-play his role to warrant being the dominant left-side player ... anyway that's what I saw and it was rubbish.
The pack should get Taylor and Myles in the backrow with Bird in 13 which has been obvious to so many of us for so long. With James back there can be no reason why not.
Four reasons to escape to Queensland: Sun, Surf, Sand & the Titans.
People are wrong to criticise Sezar as the reason we are stunted in attack.
100% completely and utterly wrong.
We could grab a DeLorian and get Fittler, Daly, Kenny or Lewis from the prime of their careers to play in the 6 jersey and it would not help us attack effectively when we have three one out hit ups by slow forwards in EVERY SINGLE SET inside the opponents twenty.
Sezer needs improvement there's no doubting that.
But I think the more important point is that as a whole team, our formation, fluency and options in attack are so bad/non existent - that even a Freddy Fittler would struggle to make us look good. It's so obviously not because our playmaker isn't creative enough / makes bad choices - our whole style of play, week after week suggests that whatever we do at training (if we practice attacking structures at all) is so off the pace compared to the better sides in the comp, that no single player - can be considered the chief perpetrator of ruining our attack. Even if everyone plays their best game; we wont execute a sweeping backline movement, with well timed decoy runs that results in 1, 2 or 3 man overlaps - because it's plain to see that we just don't have plays in our team repertoire at the moment: probably because our brains trust of coaches (or perhaps just our headcoach) just isn't/aren't as good as the better coaches going around, to be able to coach that kind of football.
Our decoy runners are slow, off-time, and obvious, running fairly vanilla lines that don't trouble well drilled defenses - our support play is patchy at best. The fact that Sezer is the bloke who gets thrown the pill on tackle 5, and decides to put up a bomb, or run at the line (which says less about his own skill, than that of the coach's imo) - isn't because he is a 1 dimensional player, it's because the team is giving him nothing - no shape behind him, no one running a good line, at speed, with convincing decoys to help .. their all complicit in the '5 hit-ups and a kick' game we're playing at the moment. And I find it hard to blame Bird, Harro, Mini or any of the forwards either - their all just doing the job that they're being coached to do.
It seems obvious to me that Carty has decided on percentage footy at this stage of the season. All training and drills on defense and fitness. Focus on yardage and getting into the opposition 20. If we do that enough, we'll win early season games (working so far). Hopefully our attack is a work in progress, and as a team, each individual is being explicitly coached in their own role within each specific attacking structure and set play that we are building within our play book for later in the season (as opposed to our playmakers being pumped with advice, while our forwards get patted on the back), although it remains to be seen that Carty possesses such foresight or coaching nous.
I can't help but feel that some of the young blokes at our club are risking their development and earning potential with the coaching and style of footy they are subjected to at the moment. Such a disservice.
Last edited by K2G; 23-04-14 at 06:05 PM.
Yeah good post. I've said as well that some of our backs are going to wake up and have lost half their career.
the biggest issue with Carty training for a completion based gameplay... We are still have the worst % in the comp. so the tigers and eels with all the razzle dazzle complete better than we do... Work that one out.
Will not be just the backs waking up. I get some of my best sleep while the Titans are playing. Sad really.
I am also a member of Manly and watch their games on tv and get quite involved as they (like most sides) put on moves etc in attack and generally entertain. With the Titans I just sit there, head down on my hands, only moving to take a swig of beer, and never flinch. It's quite staggering that a football side that I am quite passionate about get no reaction out of me when I am watching most of their games. It's like I am in a Titans induced coma which ends at the fulltime siren.
If Bird runs some tougher lines off Sezer and even cuts in behind him, he'll open up the room for his left centre to go to work. He hasn't been doing that. The right side has Harrison doing a fair bit of that and Taylor to a lesser degree but there has been a bit of room for Taka to work in but it hasn't come to much yet. I thought Mead went a bit too sideways when we tried to put some plays on against the Panthers and cramped the left side as well. It will be nice if we can get some rhythm and run the right lines at the right time
Geese are the ultimate team players.
They honk to encourage one another!