Round 23 - Cowboys vs Broncos - Post Match Discussion

[Browny]

Hodges did Copley no favors in defense, the amount of times he got turned inside out

 

[Jeba]

Yeh I thought Copley did OK. We were massively short in defense for Fai Fai Loa's try and there wasn't much he could do about it. And anyone in the comp would've struggled to catch that bomb right on half time.

Aside from that a good performance and good to record back-to-back wins against 2 top 8 sides. That will boost confidence going into the finals.

Special mentions to Hoffman, Macca, McGuire, Anderson and Parker who I thought were our best.

 

[Bucking Beads]

I thought Macca was great and looks to have stepped it up over the last few weeks... Hunt wasn't too bad off the bench last night either IMO. Still think 4 forwards on the bench is the way to go going forward though.

 

[ningnangnong]

Hala only had 6-7 mins of game time

What was the go with that? We sure could have used his go forward for that middle period of the second half where the Cowboys were starting to look more menacing.

The only reason I can think of, is that Hook might have issues with his lateral movement in defence, which the Cowboys would've exploited.

 

[Foordy]

i found it funny that the Cowboys apparently didn't want Hoffman (he was on a Cowboys scholarship) because the thought he was too small and not strong enough to be an NRL player. that from a team who pay Matt Bowen good money despite the fact that he is probably the smallest player in the NRL

 

[Browny]

They also had Ty Williams who isn't a man mountain

 

[Coxy]

I thought Hunt was dangerous off the bench

 

[Kentucky Thaiday Chicken]

I will be happy if Copley never plays first grade again, he is useless.

He will make a good centre if he worked on his defense but as a winger he is bloody useless.

 

[rnabokov]

I liked the execution of our plays, the 80 minute resolve to win and various individual performances. I really like Parker's aggression, and always makes metres.

Hoffman doesn't seem yet to have the right timing for the 2nd phase plays

I still don't the repetitive one-out running. I mean, as someone else posted, Gillett playing prop? It seems like all the forwards are playing prop, but worse, none of them are looking to offload. They don't look, they don't seem ready to take the hit and look to pass.

I worry about offloading, or lack of it. I think it was 6 for us against 20 to them. Against top defensive sides we are going to need a lot more variety in our attack.

 

[Dexter]

Not sure what to make of this game looking forward to the finals, probably not much. I thought Copley was ok overall, I still think he will be very good, ala Boyd, when he gets full confidence. McGuire has finally convinced me, he is doing the little things really well and his off the ball defensive work has improved so much.
Good to all but clinch a top 4 spot but we still need to vary our attack a lot more to trouble the top sides

 

[Foordy]

I liked the execution of our plays, the 80 minute resolve to win and various individual performances. I really like Parker's aggression, and always makes metres.

Hoffman doesn't seem yet to have the right timing for the 2nd phase plays

I still don't the repetitive one-out running. I mean, as someone else posted, Gillett playing prop? It seems like all the forwards are playing prop, but worse, none of them are looking to offload. They don't look, they don't seem ready to take the hit and look to pass.

I worry about offloading, or lack of it. I think it was 6 for us against 20 to them. Against top defensive sides we are going to need a lot more variety in our attack.

we have always lacked the ability to offload... infact we are usually down the bottom of the league in terms of offload numbers

 

[schmix]

we have always lacked the ability to offload... infact we are usually down the bottom of the league in terms of offload numbers

This is true and very puzzling. We've had a huge turnover of players in the past 10 years and 3 different coaches, yet we still don't see many offloads. Why is this the one constant aspect of the Broncos' play that doesn't change??

 

[Dexter]

Because our coaches have been WB or tutored by WB. All his teams have been based on D and good basics. Some of our sides have had natural brilliance but not much of that has been in the coaching. That is no knock on Bennett by the way, but he doesn't coach flair thats for certain.

 

[mrslong]

i found it funny that the Cowboys apparently didn't want Hoffman (he was on a Cowboys scholarship) because the thought he was too small and not strong enough to be an NRL player. that from a team who pay Matt Bowen good money despite the fact that he is probably the smallest player in the NRL

I thought it was funny because the Broncos said the same thing about Thurston.

 

[Coxy]

I thought it was funny because the Broncos said the same thing about Thurston.

No! The Broncos said Thurston was too slow. Get it right! :P

 

[mrslong]

Because our coaches have been WB or tutored by WB. All his teams have been based on D and good basics. Some of our sides have had natural brilliance but not much of that has been in the coaching. That is no knock on Bennett by the way, but he doesn't coach flair thats for certain.

Broncos of the 90's were full of flair.

 

[Coxy]

Broncos of the 90's were full of flair.

Because that's the cattle he had. With guys like Langer, Walters brothers, Renouf etc, he didn't have to coach them to be exciting. That's just how they played. And yet you go back and watch how the forwards played in those teams...hit it up, hit it up, hit it up, let Kerrod Walters and Langer take advantage of the momentum. Not many offloads (pity there were no stats of offloads etc back in those days to do a real comparison).

Not THAT different to what we do now. Difference was if the forwards weren't going forward, sometimes Walters and Langer could make something happen out of our own half by going wide instead.

 

[mrslong]

It's funny watching the old games and be amazed at how many times alf would kick early in the count some stupid little grubber kick (that the commentators would absolutely crucify these days) or get caught on the 5th by running the ball.

I think it's an unfortunate way the game is played these days, all the wrestling and discipline about metres and getting to the kick....it's how you win games. The Dragons have clearly gone away from that and that's why they're not winning. They've forgotten to wrestle.

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Back to the Broncos game, at the moment Hoffman seems to be a better player than Harmichael was at the same number of games? Could be the age difference though as K was freakishly young. Anyway, it's great that we aren't missing K at all! And Izzy for that matter.