"Milf will be like Locky" - Bennett

[Anonymous person]

His defence was excellent against the rabbits.

he missed 1/3 of his attempted tackles.

We have brought in a 5/8. Milford!

Milford played all his juniors in the halves and was earmarked very early on as a future star - in the halves!

Junior football positions are basically irrelevant. Someone like milford would carve up playing prop in the juniors. They put the best players in positions where they get their hands on the ball the most.

 

[rnabokov]

I am of the opinion if Milford had played 5/8 for Souths last Friday night he would have carved up and everyone would have been praising his move to 5/8

I am of the opinion that if Inglis had played FB for Brisbane last Friday night he would have carved up and everyone would have been praising his move to Brisbane, and this thread would magically disappear.

 

[Porthoz]

I am of the opinion that if Inglis had played FB for Brisbane last Friday night he would have carved up and everyone would have been praising his move to Brisbane, and this thread would magically disappear.

I seriously doubt that. With that forward performance, not even a spine of Inglis, Locky and Thurston would have made a difference...

 

[Anonymous person]

I seriously doubt that. With that forward performance, not even a spine of Inglis, Locky and Thurston would have made a difference...

I disagree.

Milford excelled at fullback last year in a bad team at canberra. Their forwards got dominated and he still carved up.

 

[Porthoz]

I disagree.

Milford excelled at fullback last year in a bad team at canberra. Their forwards got dominated and he still carved up.

I was talking about this particular game.
It's not about forward dominance. It's about the amount of errors and penalties that put us on the back foot when we were getting into a good position. No player can salvage that...

 

[Anonymous person]

Bad forwards or not, Milford returning kicks and chiming in from the back is where he excels and I have no doubt he would've been able to make far more of an impact had he been back there instead of in the front line.

Would we have won? Not a chance in hell. Doesn't mean he still couldn't have played the house down like he did in all of canberras losses.

 

[Manbush]

Bad forwards or not, Milford returning kicks and chiming in from the back is where he excels

Did you ever see him play fullback? His kick returns were appalling one of his biggest flaws at the back, Raiders would start every set on the back foot due to him running back too softly. One of the things Raiders fans were looking forward to having Jack at the back, someone who would run the ball back rather than surrender. Round 1 Jack played a better all round fullbacks game than Milford ever did while he was here, attacking no but kick returns, positionally and defensively.

Thankfully he was great in broken play and creating something from nothing so could look past his issues but he can do that from the halves without exposing the flaws he had at the back, Bennett just needs to come up with the right structure, Milford looked fine at 5/8 his last 3 games for the Raiders.

 

[Morkel]

Either Milford or Inglis playing for the opposite team would have been untouchable last Friday. Pity it wouldn't have counted as it was a Thursday game.

 

[rnabokov]

I was talking about this particular game.
It's not about forward dominance. It's about the amount of errors and penalties that put us on the back foot when we were getting into a good position. No player can salvage that...

... and also, but not only, the halves not getting it out to our edge runners and outside backs consistently ... and we saw what was possible when Gillett came on and got the ball.

As you correctly observe in your other post, our spine had a bad case of scoliosis : "Slow nerve action", deformed, malfunctioning ....

Mind you, some X-Factor would not have gone astray but as others are posting, just one special player carving up is not what it's about. It's all about combinations, passing the ball, getting the ball out to where our strengths are: edges and backs. Well... Gillett and Hodges anyway.

Looking forward to grilled flake this Friday night.

 

[Ari Gold]

Thankfully he was great in broken play and creating something from nothing so could look past his issues but he can do that from the halves without exposing the flaws he had at the back, Bennett just needs to come up with the right structure, Milford looked fine at 5/8 his last 3 games for the Raiders.

Fullbacks see far more broken play than five eights do so i can't see how that logic works.

Milford is best in broken play and when he operates out of the ruck off quick play the balls. He throws a good pass but he's a much better runner of the ball.

None of these strengths were played to. I mean, he had an insane number of tackle breaks last year and he ran the ball a total of three times. It would be one thing if we tried to get Milford involved and he failed trying, but even though our game plan execution sucked, I saw no evidence that Milford running the ball was part of that game plan. All the poor forward performances in the world fail to make this acceptable IMO.

 

[bazza]

I don't necessarily want to move Milford after one round, but I also don't want Milford to continue playing five-eighth like the way he did the other night. What I mean by that is he needs to play with a mentality of running first and passing second.

He needs to be using his pace and footwork to create opportunities such as two-on-one plays rather than trying to create those same attacking opportunities with his passing game. The other night he was too often just shovelling the ball either side of him without actually straightening the attack. We ended up just going sideways and that is extremely easy to defend when all the passing is happening so far away from the opposition defensive line. All the defence has to do is slide across and number up on their man.

The good sides, whilst executing their set plays, pass so close to the line and it often draws in the opposition defence. By doing this it forces the opposition defence to make a decision for you, allowing you to then pass it to your backline players or continue playing what's in front of you.

Foran is a good example of this. He often gets whacked for his trouble but he digs right into the opposition defence before playing out the back, and what it does is create space out wide as the defence tries to compress and shut down the play. Our "set plays" were all occurring well before the defence, and all South's had to do was hold off and wait until the play broke down.

 

[Morkel]

I don't necessarily want to move Milford after one round, but I also don't want Milford to continue playing five-eighth like the way he did the other night. What I mean by that is he needs to play with a mentality of running first and passing second.

He needs to be using his pace and footwork to create opportunities such as two-on-one plays rather than trying to create those same attacking opportunities with his passing game. The other night he was too often just shovelling the ball either side of him without actually straightening the attack. We ended up just going sideways and that is extremely easy to defend when all the passing is happening so far away from the opposition defensive line. All the defence has to do is slide across and number up on their man.

The good sides, whilst executing their set plays, pass so close to the line and it often draws in the opposition defence. By doing this it forces the opposition defence to make a decision for you, allowing you to then pass it to your backline players or continue playing what's in front of you.

Foran is a good example of this. He often gets whacked for his trouble but he digs right into the opposition defence before playing out the back, and what it does is create space out wide as the defence tries to compress and shut down the play. Our "set plays" were all occurring well before the defence, and all South's had to do was hold off and wait until the play broke down.

I'll admit I haven't watched the game on the TV yet, but I was there on the night and where we sit we are right down one end of the field so have a great view of the attacking & defending numbers. Specifically how they move laterally. In my opinion, Milford was shovelling the ball on because the defence had invariably committed numbers to him. They were down his throat all night. But because of this, there was a lot of space outside him, and as I've mentioned before ad nauseam, Hodges & co were receiving the ball with genuine or potential overlaps. It was just the handling of the final passes that undid all the good work. I love watching players in a defensive line move both individually and as units like beads on an abacus, and for mine I think that Milford was predominantly choosing the best option with what he was presented with.

 

[Ari Gold]

Did you notice Milford on the right side at all? I only ever saw him touch the ball on the left side.

So much easier to put numbers on Milford if you always know where he will be.

 

[Morkel]

Did you notice Milford on the right side at all? I only ever saw him touch the ball on the left side.

So much easier to put numbers on Milford if you always know where he will be.

Of course! But committing numbers to one player more often than not means more space for others.

 

[Old Mate]

We don't need to develop a proper 5/8th, we should be focusing on getting an actual 5/8th and bringing them in instead of trying to turn a fullback into a 5/8th.

It feels like we've been using fullbacks as 5/8s for 5 years now, so painful.

 

[bazza]

It feels like we've been using fullbacks as 5/8s for 5 years now, so painful.

Its almost as if our team was predominantly made up of fullbacks and back-rowers all playing out of position.

 

[Marty Deutschmann]

I think we should be saying "milf will be like benji" similar skill set but nothing like what lockyer was... just different

 

[Waynesaurus]

Its almost as if our team was predominantly made up of fullbacks and back-rowers all playing out of position.

Which makes it even more disappointing that we didn't go harder after DCE. With DCE and Hunt in the halves we would then be able to play Milford at fullback for a few more years whilst he is till learning the game. DCE would also have given us a much better and badly missing kicking option.

It was the perfect opportunity to sort three key positions for the longer term and if that meant that perhaps it was time for Thaiday to move on (free up some $$$'s) and maybe Hodges to retire with Boyd moved into the centres I think it would be worth it.