Round 15: TITANS vs MANLY

[5 Year Contract]

I think what is painfully clear watching this is that this team cannot play 80 mins. Hell not many teams can play the full 80 but the second any pressure comes they just fall apart. One of the weakest teams mentality wise we have fielded since Zilly was fullback.

Like remember when our club was on fire off field we would still be known as a gritty team that would hang in there but just didn’t have the class of other teams. We have a decent roster now but are weak as piss

This club needs a culture change badly

[Hail Sezer]

Forced myself to re watch this game to see what went wrong. I'd encourage everybody to do the same and focus in on Fogarty. Four of the Manly tries involved Fogarty turning in when he should have trusted his inside man. By doing so he forced the players outside of him to come in which ultimately left the over lap. He has no lateral movement so cannot bounce out on players when we makes a bad read and Herbert knows that. Don't get me wrong Herbert was particularly bad as well, but it starts from the intent on the inside.

Fogarty's other points of notice were the six again again he gave on Lawton when the momentum was really turning against us and a poorly executed kick on the forth tackle to Saab, which was the first time that we had had the ball in 10min. Simply put, Fogarty is not first grade material, and especially not captain material.

Another thing that really annoyed me was there was no attempt to slow the momentum in the second half. It took us until 5 min to go until we decided not to kick deep to the left off the kick off (They had already scored 50 points by then); nobody went down with an "injury"; and the captains challenge wasn't used. Good teams know that they can slow the game and stem the flow with these tactics, we just kept playing the same plays over again hoping for different results.

On the positive side, watching Campbell in the first half was truely exciting. He is something special.

Great summary.

Just rewatched all the tries scored down that right edge -
Try 1 - Fogarty doesn't slide, Herbert forced to come in, Turbo goes on outside
Try 2 - Carbon copy. Fogarty doesn't slide, Jams in on Foran who Stone has covered. Marzhew tries to jam on Turbo bc he's got Herberts outside shoulder. Overlap created, Garrick scores.
Try 3 - Fogarty passive and flat footed, Herbert tries to solve it by jamming but he's too late, Turbo throws long to the space created and they score.
Try 4 - Miscounted numbers and too slow with inside pressure. JC needed to plug the shortside or our marker D/inside pressure needed to be superhuman
Try 5 - Joliffe doesn't get across quick enough, Fogarty jams and takes himself out of the defensive numbers. Rest of the edge comes in with him. Overlap & try.

With that being our right edge, and BK on the left edge, it's really no wonder we're so easy to score against.

And this is excluding the embarrassing misses that saw a prop cut us open from kickoff, Walker run over Peachey, BK fail to wrap-up DCE etc.

Agree about JC. He's got a very high ceiling with his skillset and natural ability. Higher than AJ perhaps?

[Mr Bods]

My takeaway from your posts is to give Sexton a crack and send Fogs back to Burleigh.

[JunctionBlock]

Loving the analysis from everyone. Has us asking questions on the team make up so hopefully it does the same for the people making the decisions.

Just heard on the radio that questions are being asked regarding Justin Holbrooks future so sounds like the media is starting to pick up and may mount some pressure on the club to make some decisions.

PS No leagues club nor any start on the block.

[GCTTSD]

were in a really bad spot when two of our worst players are the captains so pretty much undropppable. maybe thats why the team sucks dont need to try hard for the full 80 when the standards are so low here

[willhelm]

Thoughts on giving Ash another crack at 7 and giving Sexton or Boyd a run at 6? Unlikely to solve our defensive woes but I’m out of ideas.

[NZFan]

Ash’s biggest issues are confidence and effort, not defence. I’d like to see him given another crack in the 7 jersey before he leaves. I don’t think Fogarty is not our long term 7 so we should be looking at alternatives. At the very least I’d like to see Taylor and Fogarty swap for a few games.

[gotitans101_]

Loving the analysis from everyone. Has us asking questions on the team make up so hopefully it does the same for the people making the decisions.

Just heard on the radio that questions are being asked regarding Justin Holbrooks future so sounds like the media is starting to pick up and may mount some pressure on the club to make some decisions.

PS No leagues club nor any start on the block.

How many coaches do we want to throw under the bus though. Personally, I don't think Holbrook is the main issue; I think there has to be more to it than that since every coach we've ever had since Cartwright has struggled to get the best out of this team, no matter who is suiting up for us on the day.

Let's face it, Holbrook has a ****ty spine to work with too. Fogarty and Taylor suck, our 9s suck, but seriously, what's the alternative? We tried the Boyd experiment and it failed miserably. I was actually one of the people fully behind Boyd and thought he'd kick on - he didn't. We could try the Weaver or Sexton experiment too and chances are the outcome will be no different than it was when we tried Boyd.

The defence of this team as a whole though is an attitude thing if you ask me. No team has ever had it since Cartwright other than maybe under Henry before Hayne ruined everything, and just the few games last year. Other than that, we're consistently bottom 4 every single year when it comes to defending sets on our own line. We just don't want to put in the hard yards off the ball, and to me that's an attitude thing. How do you fix that? $64,000 question.

[indoallstars]

Defence is definitely an attitude look at how we played in the last 5 games of last year with almost the same squad. They were hitting with intent, moving up off the line to apply pressure, putting pressure on the opposition kicker, scrambling in broken play, tackling in numbers close to the sideline.

At the moment we have none of that, complete lazy crap, I never see energy from our squad from the get go, they need to fire up a bit to start the game and start the second half.

[Hail Sezer]

I liked this recent article on the topic of depending those compounding sets when the game is moving so fast (no paywall):

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/the...22-p583al.html

[Hail Sezer]

Some good comments there GT but sadly I don't think the defence can be put down to one thing. Attitude at times, but I think we can often confuse the team being genuinely gassed from defending so many sets in a row, with them being lazy (lack of pressure, slower line speed etc.). If we were better in the contact then we wouldn't be sprinting backwards at a rate of knots, and thus could counter the momentum a bit bitter too. My main issues with our defence:

Inability to win the contact in the middle
-A few in our pack always give up a quick PTB, or we over-committ numbers to make up for Rein/Peachey's shortcomings. This compounds issues when we've got guys using extra energy doing cleanup work and fail to get across from marker quick enough especially when the game is moving so frantically quick.
-Those who try to slow it down are repeat 6-again offenders. Giving away a 6 again is a death wish if you're an already tired & retreating defence.

Effort from individuals in key moments
-Don't need to elaborate on this too much. BK, Sami, Fifita at times. Peachey, Wallace, Proctor. Probably others too.

Lack of cohesion and poor decision making when defending our line
-Fogarty on the right, Bk on the left the main culprits

Inability to relieve pressure through a kicking game
-Our halves, essentially. Less breaks in play and less possession means more defending. More fatigue. Etc.

[ozynorts]

Great summary.

Just rewatched all the tries scored down that right edge -
Try 1 - Fogarty doesn't slide, Herbert forced to come in, Turbo goes on outside
Try 2 - Carbon copy. Fogarty doesn't slide, Jams in on Foran who Stone has covered. Marzhew tries to jam on Turbo bc he's got Herberts outside shoulder. Overlap created, Garrick scores.
Try 3 - Fogarty passive and flat footed, Herbert tries to solve it by jamming but he's too late, Turbo throws long to the space created and they score.
Try 4 - Miscounted numbers and too slow with inside pressure. JC needed to plug the shortside or our marker D/inside pressure needed to be superhuman
Try 5 - Joliffe doesn't get across quick enough, Fogarty jams and takes himself out of the defensive numbers. Rest of the edge comes in with him. Overlap & try.

With that being our right edge, and BK on the left edge, it's really no wonder we're so easy to score against.

And this is excluding the embarrassing misses that saw a prop cut us open from kickoff, Walker run over Peachey, BK fail to wrap-up DCE etc.

Agree about JC. He's got a very high ceiling with his skillset and natural ability. Higher than AJ perhaps?

This is what I was alluding to in my post about it not being only 1 or 2 responsible. It struck me when my wife was asking what the centre was doing in no mans land and I noticed in the replay that it was Fogarty that was the issue. After that I watched (in much distress) a little closer and I could see what you have highlighted above.
There is a real lack of confidence and communication in our defensive line.

[JunctionBlock]

How many coaches do we want to throw under the bus though. Personally, I don't think Holbrook is the main issue; I think there has to be more to it than that since every coach we've ever had since Cartwright has struggled to get the best out of this team, no matter who is suiting up for us on the day.

Not suggesting we sack the coach, just saying the press is going to start putting pressure on him. Once they're done with Kevvie it will probably be Holbrooks turn to answer some questions and may force some hard decisions to be made. I'm happy for him to go under the microscope as should everyone associated with team prep. If the club is happy with the outer ring then they can start looking at the players. Again, not suggesting it's not happen but the club seems to react faster when the media puts them under a spotlight rather than when they fly under the radar.

[Mexican titan]

Not suggesting we sack the coach, just saying the press is going to start putting pressure on him. Once they're done with Kevvie it will probably be Holbrooks turn to answer some questions and may force some hard decisions to be made. I'm happy for him to go under the microscope as should everyone associated with team prep. If the club is happy with the outer ring then they can start looking at the players. Again, not suggesting it's not happen but the club seems to react faster when the media puts them under a spotlight rather than when they fly under the radar.

Fortunately I think they will have some fun with Kevvie for a while yet, poor bloke. However the blowtorch does need to be applied to the coach and others here. We just missed the 8 last year and added two supposed top class forwards for this season. We will finish way lower than last year so that to me is a massive fail.
Questions need to be asked. I am a long way from getting on the coaches back yet, however, as there was no way we were going to do much with the spine we had. I also fell for the great finish to last season but from memory we beat lousy sides plus the Knights who staggered in to the 8 and were gone the first week.

[Just-a-Fan]

I think Fogarty plays better on the left side I would blood Sexton on the right with AJ back on the bench with JC at the back
But I know this would not go down to well with a lot of fans not having AJ out the back
But until we settle for a decent Hooker wont really matter what we do
our team has not been any good when Friend left us (not his choice) but did better when he was back in out team before he retired
Clark is only good as a back up 1 or 2 game a season (sorry)
B Smith has made me eat my words this year he can play dummy half I would even offer him our captaincy to get him here
Fogarty and Proctor just don't cut it as captains I also would try to get Cam Smith to do some 1 on1 coaching for out Hooker and anyone we are thinking of our captains
But last game was the worst I have seen of our team no fight at all but like someone else said hard to defend when you are gassed