Originally Posted by
Hail Sezer
Pretty easy loss to diagnose really. We completed at only 69%, had moments lacking urgency and focus and our right edge got torched on D, mostly for being too passive. Neither team was particuarly good at earning field position but they were much better at finding points from a distance. Did anyone else think it looked like our spine didn't have much fluidity at times? Is Foz able to train during the week or is this injury going to see us just roll him out on gameday without any reps during the week and hope for the best? Either way, our D is the bigger concern. We were miles away from the weekend before.
On our work with the ball - For the most part Newy were over-committing to shutting down our left edge shifts from the inside (and pushing up outside Foz) and the one time we turned Fifita underneath early on he went through and scored. I would've liked to have seen some more of that or some variations in our angles at to scramble their numbers around the ruck a bit at the very least - we made it easy for them to defend against us but still scored 26 points. They've also got the worst defensive winger in the NRL on the left (sorry Marz but it's true) and we threw little to no shape at that edge to force him to make decisions.
46 is a big number to concede and when you look at their tries, there's a few consistencies and things that just shouldn't be happening at this level. I wouldn't usually bother with this but the way they sliced us up without even really building pressure is just U20's stuff:
-Dom Young catches ball in air and grounds it in one motion. Fair play there, pretty impressive.
-KP under zero pressure puts in a grubber that anyone can see Frizelle steaming onto it from a mile away but our left edge is caught napping. Lofi reacts far too late. BK sees it but instead of competing just subtly tries to run him off the ball. Big ask for JC to get to that ball even if he was slightly caught out of pos IMO. Can't help but think there was little communcation or awareness happening out there given the reaction.
-Marzhew's ball carrying arm is held up by Jojo and the high IQ Phil Sami gives Marz the assist by dragging him off Jojo and helping him to plant the ball.
-Klese Haas overcommits on a decoy runner forcing Tanah to be caught too far in and KP strolls through, passes to best who scores
-KP spots the mismatch and just 1v1's Iszac, made easier by Jojo/Sami being passive and already taking backwards steps outside him, so there's some space created there that he strolls through.
-Foran believes he's obstructed but it's inside shoulder and called a defensive decision. It's not easy for BK there but it's still a piss poor effort to try and solve it.
-Tanah drops it in the in-goal and they score
-Dom Young intercepts Foran's pass
Concentration, communication, urgency and intent all issues. Edge D is about understanding your role in the system, being connected with your inside and outside man and working hard within that. If you're a centre or winger, throw in knowing when to be passive or jam on shape. We're a fair way off with all of that on the right edge at the moment. I've been sulking about Schoupp being dropped for weeks and I think now it's pretty clear he needs to be back in at right centre. Jojo is a favourite of mine but he's struggling on that edge with his defensive decision making and I think he'd be better off on the left with Foran and Fifita on his inside.
Really interesting observation from indo about being at the game and the level of communication compared to what he'd seen previously, and that aligns with what I saw at the Manly game too. It's impossible to tell watching it on the TV so really appreciate the insight. Says a lot I think.