Shout out to the boys who came tonight. You know who you are. We were watching the field from almost behind the posts, on the second level, and it shows exactly how much better our defence is. The best way to describe it is committed. What I noticed is that even when an opposition runner has some room to move, not only is our defender holding on for their life, within moments we have backup defenders coming in from both sides to wrap up the ball. Last year they'd kind of hang around, maybe grab a jersey or something, but hold off in case an offload gets popped. Instead, they're now getting in there and making sure the offload doesn't happen. It's a mighty effort because it required a higher level of commitment and no room for even one player to slacken off - and that's where the additional fitness has been priceless.
Ben Hunt has to have the kicking duties taken off him. There were only two kicks I can remember that found the grass. One of which was the stupid field-goal attempt. The rest of his game was serviceable, not as bad as some are making out, the team just need a bit more time to gel and really get the combinations locked down. McCullough, Hoffman & Barba should be able to help out there.
And I'll repeat what I said last week, we're winning these games through our defence. A smaller, less experienced half may look sharper & more creative in attack, but in defence our structure will not work with any weak points. Seriously, without Hoffman defending in the halves, we could have easily leaked another 3 tries or so directly, and possibly more just by being more porous elsewhere in order to compensate for the weak link.
