NEWS Player Ratings: Savage Reality Check for Weak Broncos

[Pub Steak]

Wow what a load of utter crap I'm reading everywhere. It's the same regurgitated crap for 19 years everytime we play Melbourne. Then every time we have a good game all I hear is how had the opposition were. Blah blah blah. We pretty much beat ourselves by giving the best team in the comp unlimited field position. By the time we were on the attack, we were obviously gassed. And the young fellas heads dropped. Stop panicking and let's move on to next week. Hopefully soon we can get some halves back in the 6 and 7 and figure out what to do with the captain. Oranges maybe? Water bottles? Blood towel? Left centre? Obviously.
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Everyone agree Haas was our best player on the field last night?

I'd say lodge or Milford.

 

[Hoof Hearted]

Just a few thoughts....... I reckon we have two guys who can takeover the captaincy straight away in gillo or Glenn....both can look themselves in the mirror after every game and say I tried my guts out tonight.....also the result last night should not be wasted by the coach. He now has the perfect ammunition to push Boyd out to centres where locky says he’s best position is and bring in sos or Dearden. ...... after 10 years of the same flogging from the storm in a perverse way we know the dread nsw must have felt when facing smith and co from qld and losing....and more importantly we know that dreadful feeling ended.....just like ours will...

 

[Alec]

Wow what a load of utter crap I'm reading everywhere. It's the same regurgitated crap for 19 years everytime we play Melbourne. Then every time we have a good game all I hear is how had the opposition were. Blah blah blah. We pretty much beat ourselves by giving the best team in the comp unlimited field position. By the time we were on the attack, we were obviously gassed. And the young fellas heads dropped. Stop panicking and let's move on to next week. Hopefully soon we can get some halves back in the 6 and 7 and figure out what to do with the captain. Oranges maybe? Water bottles? Blood towel? Left centre? Obviously.
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I'd say lodge or Milford.

I don't think Lodge was. He just gives away too many penalties and drops the ball too often. 2 and 2 last night I believe?

 

[Thelmus]

One line break in the whole match, wow, that’s very poor.

I wonder if last night was a case of bad coaching or a case of players reverting to deeply engrained bad traits. I hope it was the latter because this side looked nothing like the offloading and attackingly minded one of the last month.

That may have something to do with the quality of teams we played. A genuine half playing halfback will help. I think Turpin is a good young hooker, who can fill in at half when required but his time at half should end with a fit dearden.
I'm not sure what is going on in the head of Darius Boyd but we need a leader out there and he has not been it.
I hoped he would lift both himself and the team with the kind of direction a senior player of his Ilk, who has done it all can do. After a brief moment of hope, where he shined in a game or two, he has struggled.
I have been reluctant to join the hyper critical nature of Boyd and macca (whom I still believe is a quality player, albeit aging rapidly) because both players are great club men in their time and have had games where their efforts have lifted the younger players, but in Boyd's case, he has shown he can no longer compete on the field, at least at 5/8th.
Perhaps there is a spot there in the centres where he was once a stalwart in his younger years, but that is it.
I feel sorry for him because he is trying, despite what many believe, but for whatever reason he can't seem to put it together. If in form and able to justify his spot he would be glue to hold these young players together, but he isn't and can't.
This club has found itself with a bunch of young players, many some of the brightest hopes for the future a club could hope for, left rudderless, without direction, and with an overtly complex strategy, easily broken down with the absence of key personal, either through form, injury, or a lack of retention in recruitment.
How can we solve it? To me it comes down to looking at the players we have and recognising their strengths and weaknesses. Kicking in general play is one. A fullback who can kick is handy, but genuine general play kicker in the halves is a must. We need a leader in attack though as well and Milford just isn't it. That leaves an obvious deficiency that isn't easily solved without going to market. Since it won't be solved in the short term we need to look at how we approach games.
Minimising the exposure of our weaknesses seems to be a fairly sensible strategy but seems to have eluded our coaching staff.
We should be using our forwards to dominate field position early and wear our opponents down. We do need to take risks, just not with our backs.
Our game should emphasise taking advantage of offloads through our spine players, playing field position ahead of possession to limit our kicking deficiencies, and using the backs sparingly except to aid the forwards in our own halves, and nailing our opponent only once we have worn them down.

 

[Gaz]

we know the dread nsw must have felt when facing smith and co from qld and losing

Qld never laid all over NSW the way storm laid all over us last night.

 

[pagey]

Wow what a load of utter crap I'm reading everywhere. It's the same regurgitated crap for 19 years everytime we play Melbourne. Then every time we have a good game all I hear is how had the opposition were. Blah blah blah. We pretty much beat ourselves by giving the best team in the comp unlimited field position. By the time we were on the attack, we were obviously gassed. And the young fellas heads dropped. Stop panicking and let's move on to next week. Hopefully soon we can get some halves back in the 6 and 7 and figure out what to do with the captain. Oranges maybe? Water bottles? Blood towel? Left centre? Obviously.
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I'd say lodge or Milford.

Yeah, can't give storm 70% possession and expect a good outcome.

 

[Hoof Hearted]

Qld never laid all over NSW the way storm laid all over us last night.

Ha ha I think ule find they did or else that was Cam Smith’s twin brother **** playing last night....

 

[WASSHHH]

I suspect Corey is playing injured, he just can’t seem to run or react as well as he used to. He’s a gun but like most others in the side, is struggling at present. Keep him but don’t throw the bank at him (I mean that probably wouldn’t be a great idea anyway, break him even further).

Given his form this season, he’d probably drop it anyway.

 

[Mustafur]

The kickoff and the kickoff after the first try set the tone for the game.

 

[Battler]

Qld never laid all over NSW the way storm laid all over us last night.

Quite the coincidence that they were very average last year during the period where the NRL was cracking down on the wrestle. I don't particularly rate any Melbourne player outside of Smith, who is the GOAT, and Munster, although he is way better at FB, that highly: they just play as a unit and exploit the obvious flaws in NRL refereeing. Bellamy and Smith know referees aren't going to penalise them out of games so they're not even bothered if they cop early ruck penalties because they know they'll get square ups later on when penalties are more valuable.

 

[Mustafur]

To me it looks like Melbourne are fitter then everyone else.

They must have a more grueling pre season then any other team, and a key model of their strategy is having alot of experience in that team to pick apart everyone's game on the fly, the older heads are constantly talking to the players telling them improvements and future plays.

 

[Kimlo]

To me it looks like Melbourne are fitter then everyone else.

They must have a more grueling pre season then any other team, and a key model of their strategy is having alot of experience in that team to pick apart everyone's game on the fly, the older heads are constantly talking to the players telling them improvements and future plays.

They're not fitter at all. Do you seriously think between 16 teams Melbourne are the best because they have better heart rate numbers?

The reason they look fitter, stronger, faster and any variant of the above is because their structures are fucking excellent. They run in groups, they push up together, they expose weak spots, they tire out the opposition by being tactically far better run. They make the opposition make so many extra efforts.

It's not a fitness thing, it's a brilliantly coached team wrestling the life out of everyone they come up against. The only way to beat them is not to fall into their trap, not be intimidated and go out there with the intention of smashing them off the park.