Morkel
International Captain
Contributor
- Jan 25, 2013
- 25,321
- 29,139
IMO the Roosters have 3 main weak defenders. Maloney was a speedbump playing for the Warriors, and was similarly poor for the Blues. I haven't actually been paying close attention to him defending for the Roosters, but I assume they just hide him well. Does he defend on the same side as Thaiday? If so, there're your answer. But if he's being protected Sam will have to run with a decoy beside him, either Hannant or Parker (whoever is on the right), and run shoulder-to-shoulder and make Maloney's inside defender have to commit to one or the other. The other two weaknesses are the centres. Both SKD and Jennings have been notably bad in the past, both in terms of decision making, but Jennings moreso in technique. Isolating Maloney will go a fair way towards bringing in Jennings and giving room for Copley to mow over him, or Barba to sneak around the outside.
This is all well & good but because the Roosters are so dirty in the middle, it's difficult to get them on the back foot and therefore rare that you'll actually have them fatigued enough to take advantage of these weaknesses. I am sure they know of these defensive weaknesses which is why they opt to give away penalties instead of let these weak links be exposed. So the other ploy will be to play on these penalties. They get away with a lot by concealing their dirtyness (a la Storm in the past), so our wildcard here is Kennedy. Not only can he match them for size, but he will also know all their dirty secrets when it comes to wrestling techniques and concealing illegalities. Work on these and draw the penalties, penalties galore! We'll need all the help we can get. While it would make sense to start Kennedy, and help us in the softening up period, I don't actually think it's a bad idea to bring him on when the Roosters forwards are tiring, as it will give us the best opportunities to test out their defensive liabilities.
This is all well & good but because the Roosters are so dirty in the middle, it's difficult to get them on the back foot and therefore rare that you'll actually have them fatigued enough to take advantage of these weaknesses. I am sure they know of these defensive weaknesses which is why they opt to give away penalties instead of let these weak links be exposed. So the other ploy will be to play on these penalties. They get away with a lot by concealing their dirtyness (a la Storm in the past), so our wildcard here is Kennedy. Not only can he match them for size, but he will also know all their dirty secrets when it comes to wrestling techniques and concealing illegalities. Work on these and draw the penalties, penalties galore! We'll need all the help we can get. While it would make sense to start Kennedy, and help us in the softening up period, I don't actually think it's a bad idea to bring him on when the Roosters forwards are tiring, as it will give us the best opportunities to test out their defensive liabilities.
