I haven't posted properly on BHQ in a few years, but I still watch every single game of NRL every weekend. I'll share my thoughts on a couple of glaring issues with this team.
Problem 1)
Our middle forward rotation is too big and too immobile. Take a look around the NRL at the moment, the middle forwards who've had breakout performances over the last 24 months are as follows: Max Plath, Connor Watson, Josh Curran, J'maine Hopgood, Reuben Cotter, etc.
They're all undersized. The biggest players on this list are Curran & Hopgood who both play at a little over 100kg. Our forward pack has no variability. Jensen, Haas, Carrigan, Willison, Te Kura, Baker, Taupau, Hunt.
The only middle forward on our entire roster who fits the mould of the way the modern NRL is going is Kobe Hetherington, who is underutilised, undervalued, and seemingly being told to find a new club. In my opinion, we should've been starting Haas & Carrigan at prop, with Hetherington playing big minutes at lock. Hetherington is our best defensive middle, and it's not particularly close. He moves well laterally and has the motor to make repeat efforts. He almost won us the Grand Final last year with his defensive clean-up work.
We're going to lose the middle most weeks next year (outside of the anomaly weeks where we get a roll-on early due to mistakes from the opposition or yardage penalties), unless we make drastic roster changes. I like Corey Horsburgh, but he's more of the same, not great laterally in the middle. We need to recruit several smaller bodies in the middle, and when recruiting them, we need to focus on motor, defensive technique and character. Hard workers. We have enough strike everywhere else that we don't need game breaking forwards to partner with Haas & Carrigan. We need to surround them with big minute, hard working, great defenders.
Problem 2)
We have no yardage from our outside backs. This goes hand in hand with Problem 1. The reason we've felt the need to recruit so many big middle forwards is because our outside backs are low work rate, lazy players. Our roster is constructed completely opposite to the way that the modern NRL is trending. Look at what the Bulldogs have done this year, they figured out the way to go about 24 months ago and have been building the roster around it. Their entire forward pack is undersized, almost exclusively hard working, high character players. They've got the yardage problem completely solved by having Kiraz, Tracey, Xerri, Skelton at the back, all of whom run for 150m+ every week, most of which is in post-contact metres. They've even had Addo-Carr put on about 5kg of muscle in recent years to help with his work out of his own end.
Now compare and contrast that to our current back 5 -
Walsh, Arthars, Staggs, Cobbo, Mariner.
There isn't a single player on that list I would say has an above average work ethic, or ability to make post-contact metres out of trouble. Arthars, Staggs & Mariner are barely hitting 100 metres per game, a lot of which are stat padded by free running metres when Walsh puts them in gaps. Cobbo is marginally better, but he has close to the most inconsistent work rate in the NRL. Some games he's running 18 times for 230 metres, other games he's running 9 times for 65 metres. And then there's Walsh, who has probably overtaken Latrell and Drinkwater as the laziest Fullback in the NRL this season. And don't even try to pull the "well he's an undersized Fullback so that's why he doesn't run very often", because I'll just present to you the stats of Keano Kini.
Once again - we need to make some tough calls, and recruit better.
I could probably name about 15 other problems, but this is a good place to start.
alright Gordon
