Just watched the game's recording and it's incredible how much your perspective changes when the emotion and adrenaline doesn't cloud your vision.
- Wallace didn't set the world on fire and needs to up his game, but besides that last minute grubber, he didn't do much wrong, definitely not enough to get hammered like this. In fact, our forwards made most meters out of Wallace passes! [eusa_eh He does need to get more involved in both sides of the field, and not get stuck to the left side of our attack.
- Hunt, Thaiday and Macca were serial offenders, responsible for 90% of our lost balls in attack. Hunt had a shocker with 3 lost attack opportunities in the Cows 20, and both his and Macca’s speed are our biggest worry IMO.
- Anderson and McGuire were ganged up on and smashed a few times, and that stays in your retina, but they did otherwise gain very good meters.
- Yow Yeh, Gagai and Reed had fine games, except that one rah rah ball from Gagai, which led directly to a try against us. All three had decisive interventions in defense, Gagai and Reed pushing the opposite wingers over the side line and Yow Yeh’s fantastic belter on Tonga. Beale offered very little, and was caught in la la land on the Tupou try.
- The main reason we failed so often in attack wasn't so much being dominated in our go forward, as we actually made some good meters and kept the Cows in their 20 a few times with good d. Our ball control was bad and we often stood way too flat and ran really poor lines. This allowed the Cows defense to rush the ball carrier and disturb ball movement too easily. Most of our offloads, espcially Tronc’s were wasted due to this.
- Locky's speed looks indeed to have improved. He almost caught Bani in his runaway try and easily caught Graham when he escaped down the line. He also looks much more threatening when running at the line, but was betrayed by the poor lines ran by our fringe players.
- All second rowers made themselves guilty of the above sin, with Parker’s rush out of the line costing us the Tamou try, while Gillett’s white line fever prevented us from getting a draw on the board with 20 minutes to go…
- Hoffman’s defense was absolutely fantastic, but he made himself guilty of those poor line runs too.
All in all, ball control did us in, much more than anything else. We really weren’t dominated in d or attack, but basically defeated ourselves with some poor decisions and dropped ball in the Cows half.
Positive of all this, is that improving ball security will make a huge difference. icon_thumbs_u
