Round 7: TITANS v BRONCOS (2023)

[Cowabunga]

The 3 players named yes are at the top of the tree. I could have mentioned Josh King who is an honest toiler at the NRL level who is averaging 13.4 runs per game and 124 meters gained per game and does this consistently every game. Lui stats are well down on even at this level.

I could go on with the majority of locks in all the clubs but it is clear Lui is not sharing the workload and his stats are reflective of this. Remember he is one of the higher paid players in the club and as such he should be consistently putting in the effort each week in attack as well. There is a large gap between his good and bad performances in terms of effort in attack which needs to be corrected.

Lui has shown in the past he can do the workload and in fact the 1st 2 rounds he was rolling up his sleeve and doing the hard yards. Since then he has fallen off the perch

Josh King is a completely different player and used completely different, He's used like a 3rd prop because they have so much creativity in the halves but also need him to get them metres because they don't play like us. That's for Tino, Moe and the others in our team right now. Yeah he was rolling his sleeves up because it was fresh into the season and we'd lost Fermor and Jolliffe and were figuring out the gameplan and subs still, He was asked to do more running those games.

I think a lot of the reason we're using him like this is because Verrills is out as well, We're losing his creativity there so we've asked Liu to be that other guy for now behind the main 3.

The stat I'd counter with is receipts and passes to say he's been involved, He was off against Broncos no denying but if you look at every locks minutes and compared them to Liu over the season, He's getting the ball and passing it as much as those guys in his playing time or more as a first receiver, He's being heavily involved because those passes are going to Tannah or Foran.

A lot of stats like that need to be in context to be taken seriously for me, Eg: with tackles breaks, Munster had 12 the other week but the reason he had them is because he was shutting down all the plays and other guys finished off his first contact. Every try and assist on our left side should be counted to Fifita but everyone else gets them. It all needs context.

I don't think he's one of the highest paid players at the club either, He's mid tier around 600k at most. We can talk about this game but I thought last week was a huge reason why we won, especially his play in the last 10.


I've learnt since the start of the season that 80% of stats are crap and the rest important. There needs to be a whole bunch of new categories to make them contextual.

[willhelm]

@WD thoughts on Joe Stimson so far this year?

[Whats Doing]

Stimson is a player playing out of position. He is not an edge forward but Holbrook sees value for the team in playing him on the edge due to Fermor injury.

He is all effort and is busting his guts out in defence and doing a good job but offers little in attack on the edge and we will get much better value out of him when he moves back to the middle which is where he is much better suited

[Cowabunga]

Stimson is a player playing out of position. He is not an edge forward but Holbrook sees value for the team in playing him on the edge due to Fermor injury.

He is all effort and is busting his guts out in defence and doing a good job but offers little in attack on the edge and we will get much better value out of him when he moves back to the middle which is where he is much better suited

He's never played middle till we made him one, He's always been an edge forward and playing in the position he's played every game of his NRL career. Players have different game plans built around them, Stimson has always been a defending forward who runs a good line. He never had big stats playing at Storm but Cooper Cronk wanted him to run lines and give him options.

Everyone has a game plan around them, you might not agree with it but there's a reason these guys are performing like this most of the time, They're being told to.

On your example for 13's. JT13 from Cowboys would be the GOAT 13, He's just a prop with 13 on his back because of the jersey sales, Cotter is the actual 13 these days. It's like saying last year that Tino was a great 13 because he ran for a lot, He's a prop playing 13, Tyrone Peachey legit offered more then Tino in that role.

[Gold Coast 88]

Whilst I accept your view that Lui is a good defender (although I think he does a lot of 3rd man in tackles and at times he arm grabs which has resulted in tries), his involvement in attack is down near the bottom this year.

In terms of runs made per match (9.5) he is ranked 15th and in terms of metres made per match he is also rated 15th (86). The 10th rated lock in terms of runs and metres made per match is 11.8 runs and over 119 metres made per match and as such Lui is a fair way behind even the 10th rated lock based purely on objective measures acknowleging that this does not include subjective matters

Most locks these days have the lock involved in linking the play but locks also have a requirement to do the hard yards and I would suggest that this is an aspect of Lui game which has really fallen off since the 2nd round and made only 4 runs for 22 metres against the Broncos which was clearly not good enough.

Whilst there is so many components that go into the winning matches, one analysis from left field is the correlation in the main ( a couple of outliers) between the involvement of the lock forward and the teams position on the ladder. The top 8 teams all have locks who have the most involvement in matches bar Manly who are 4th on the ladder but the lock involvement is down at 10. JT makes good metres and is ranked 3rd on metres made but his involvement in runs made is down to 9th.

The first 2 rounds Lui made an average of 13.5 runs per match and 133 metres per match but has since failed to make 10 runs or over 100 metres since. His first 2 rounds shows he can do it and as one of the highest paid players in the club, he needs to step up his performance in gaining yardage and not wear a dinner suit onto the field like he did against the Broncos.

You will see that the good locks (Yeo, Carrigan, Murray) do the hard yards in their own end of the field and then revert to the linking play in the oppositions half. They do this each and every game and this is the balance that Lui needs to do as well as he has shown he done so previously but needs to do it consistently and commensurately to what he is being paid

Absolutely spot on . Lui effectiveness is diminishing.Age and games are taking affect, one on one misses against anyone with footwork. The miss on Walsh was nearly identical to his miss on Kelly in knockout semi in 2021 when he missed Kelly
Rarely offloads. Time for change in 2024.

[Cowabunga]

For who in 24? Clark? who's not really great right now. Seth Nikotemo isn't ready for about 3 years? No one is out there.... Where's this perfect lock who makes 120m a game and sets up beautiful passes? There's maybe 6 and Liu is the next best out of that crew. Carrigan, Yeo, Murray and Victor, Maybe Jake T but I think Liu is a much better passer.. There's not some abundance of 13's who can ball play and run out there.

Liu is legit the next guy who fits that mould, I'm not saying he's better then other locks but he's the next guy who passes, runs and defends of that quality unless others can name some, Everyone else is a third prop pretty much.

If we could convince Wighton to do it I'd be 100% about it but good locks aren't just available to get who have both play making skills. It's probably the least talented spot along with 9 right now.. I rate guys like Gilbert more, But he has no passing game which we are using...

Just watch the game against St.George last 10 mins. Liu is running everything and organising the whole time and set up the last try for Toby... We don't need a lock who makes metres when we have a team like we do.... We need someone who can connect plays.

Or do we just want stats? Noones denying he's had lapses but he's also offered a lot that everyone seems to be completely missing.

[Whats Doing]

He's never played middle till we made him one, He's always been an edge forward and playing in the position he's played every game of his NRL career. Players have different game plans built around them, Stimson has always been a defending forward who runs a good line. He never had big stats playing at Storm but Cooper Cronk wanted him to run lines and give him options.

Everyone has a game plan around them, you might not agree with it but there's a reason these guys are performing like this most of the time, They're being told to.

On your example for 13's. JT13 from Cowboys would be the GOAT 13, He's just a prop with 13 on his back because of the jersey sales, Cotter is the actual 13 these days. It's like saying last year that Tino was a great 13 because he ran for a lot, He's a prop playing 13, Tyrone Peachey legit offered more then Tino in that role.

That’s not correct about Stimson not having played one NRL game as a middle. You must have missed his 3 years at the Dogs where nearly every game he played was from the bench and played plenty as a middle (lock or prop) when he came on. His Storm experience was about 4 years ago.

JT also does a fair bit of link passing if you see him play and you cannot be serious about Tyrone Peachy LOL

[Cowabunga]

That’s not correct about Stimson not having played one NRL game as a middle. You must have missed his 3 years at the Dogs where nearly every game he played was from the bench and played plenty as a middle (lock or prop) when he came on. His Storm experience was about 4 years ago.

JT also does a fair bit of link passing if you see him play and you cannot be serious about Tyrone Peachy LOL

Yeah I did miss it.. They were horrible and I wouldn't watch that crap. You got me there, Was he good at lock? How'd he go there when he played?

I actually am about Peachey and the way we attack and play the game as a team right now and it's the same with Liu being a better '13" then Tino when he was there last year. We don't need someone making 200m a game when we have Tino, Moe and every back running it out for us.

We've always looked way better with a play making 13.

We're a team that plays through our 13s, Last year we didn't with Tino there and we were horrible. If you think JT13s passing is close to Lius then we're just going to have to disagree. Making Liu run for 130 metres isn't going to win us games..

JT13 has been horrible this year, It's those "stats"..... His passing game is shocking, He passes but it's bad, Jake T is very similar where it's just slow. Watch Liu pass and to me it's not close who's actually good at it... STATS ARE **** WITHOUT CONTEXT. Watch the difference in passes and game playing between all locks and Liu...

Watch the last 10 mins purely for Liu of the Dragons game.... That's what he does for us. In all our wins he's been a part of every single part when he plays well, You'd hope for a bit more but he's also 32 playing a tonne of finals and international games.

If there's a lock out there who can ball play and run 15 times a game, We need him....

[Whats Doing]

The linking play of the lock has just come into vogue the last few years. Yes it adds considerable firepower to a side if you have a lock that has the passing skills but the linking play was always in addition to and not at the expense of still getting the hard yards particularly out of your territory.

It is also noted that not only locks do it but other middles do it as well as you have indicated such as props Jake and even Hass is now doing it in parts as well. So it is not just a lock thing and if you have the skills to be involved in ball playing, then it is an added bonus but not at the expense of the middles other function of yardage.

The good locks have added this skill set to their existing go forward and have really upped their own value to the team. Carrigan is doing a lot of link plays but is still doing 16 runs at an average of 163 metres per game. Likewise, Yeo is 18.8 runs per game and 156 metres and Murray 17.3 metres runs per game and 139 running metres. They are ball playing a lot in addition to their other yardage function.

It is clear that Lui has also acquired this ball playing skill to good effect but since round 2, he has really dropped off his yardage. He is on high salary this year (I believe $550k) - (Carrigan is on $500K this year) so high and consistent levels of performance should be given each game.

Whilst Lui is not in the class of the top 3 (and some of the others) he should be adding on the ball playing skills as others have to his yardage and not as he has done since round 2 dropped off his yardage. There is not an expectation that he will have stats like the star locks in the game but it is not a difficult task to be involved in yardage out of your territory and then ball play in the opposition territory as he has the skill set to do both as others do.

Anyway hopefully he comes good this week against the Dolphins.

[gotitans101_]

Just thinking back to the pre-Holbrook days, I think I forgot just how bad we really were. Not only would we leak a ton of points every week but we didn't really seem to have much if any attacking structure either. Since Holbrook got here, I actually mentioned to a friend about how slick our passing looked and how we were actually trying different attacking plays that I'd never seen us do before inside the opposition 20-30. Whereas before it was all the same old simple one-outs and predictable inside balls. And still to this date, I consider us a dangerous attacking side. I do think our defensive structures and scramble defence is a lot better than it used to be as well, but they still do seem to collapse every now and then.

I just wish we would hold it together when something doesn't go our way. The odd try getting past is just footy but when you leak 20+ points in 20 minutes, or even a single half of football, that's what really triggers me. Good teams are usually able to hold it together through tough periods of games (whether it's a sin-bin, try against run of play, errors directly leading to trys etc) but most of the time we just don't handle it well at all. I get that our bench forwards really weren't up to par but let's be honest here, it's far from the first time it's happened to us in recent years? Whilst it's definitely a contributor, I genuinely believe it's a bit of a mental thing as well (as they say, old habits die hard). I've no idea how you change that sort of mindset amongst the playing group though like the better clubs do.

Anyway, I know it's a bit out there and maybe full of fluff so take it as you will.