POST GAME Round 4 - Storm vs Broncos

[Bennets love child]

I don't think the team we have is as bad as everyone makes it out to be, we had Melbourne behind and under pressure for 25minutes.. our main problem and I think everybody knows it is we need better decision making on the 5th tackle. This has been the case since 2015 and definitely cost us the grand final that year, our priority must be to purchase a qaulity game controlling half, Ben hunt wasn't and no one representing the broncos at 7 has been since, especially the current options, deardon could be but I'd say it's 3 years away. milford needs it and the team needs it, for the love of god
please buy reynolds!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BroncsFan]

....and its been that way for quite some time. I'm sure it must be frustrating the **** out of him. Its exactly that too....nothing he does works anymore. He can't seem to find the space he needs. He's running and playing on zero confidence. The only thing he is still doing well is kicking.

One thing that has annoyed me with Kevvie was his reactive move of Milf back to the left because Fifita ran through him a couple times.

He spent all preseason with Milf on the right, all our weapons are on the right and Milf had 3 try assists in the first game playing on the right, but Fifita goes through him a couple times and decides to blow up all the work

Fifita runs through fucking everyone yet he's decided to flip Milf to the other side as if Milf will be coming up against a Fifita every week and they're always playing left second row.

Milf can’t defend to begin with so put him somewhere that at least helps him in attack and I think Milf on the right is better than him on the left where the inside defence can wrap up his ball carrying arm easier

 

[Hoof Hearted]

Just trying to look for positives going forward. I guess we didn’t see a massive blowout in the final score even tho they had 20 % more ball. How good was it to see Coates win the race to score. However the most disappointing thing for me was the missed one on one tackles which led to tries. Coates was one guilty of this and yet physically he has no excuse. Kevvie had to try dearden in the run on team and he did well to sneak a pass to Coates for a run away try. Keep him there now. Please Kevvie bring Kennedy back to show the others how to tackle. Heads up guys.

 

[Sproj]

Just trying to look for positives going forward. I guess we didn’t see a massive blowout in the final score even tho they had 20 % more ball. How good was it to see Coates win the race to score. However the most disappointing thing for me was the missed one on one tackles which led to tries. Coates was one guilty of this and yet physically he has no excuse. Kevvie had to try dearden in the run on team and he did well to sneak a pass to Coates for a run away try. Keep him there now. Please Kevvie bring Kennedy back to show the others how to tackle. Heads up guys.

The worry though is Coates won't be with us moving forward.

 

[Hoof Hearted]

The worry though is Coates won't be with us moving forward.

So that’s one less missed tackles heh

 

[vertigo]

Just trying to look for positives going forward. I guess we didn’t see a massive blowout in the final score even tho they had 20 % more ball.

We lost 40-6

I suppose it is better than getting 58 put on us twice last year by the roosters.

 

[LittleDavey]

Can someone please tell me how the **** Walker deliberately coming into a tackled player's head with his forearm, is the same time out of the game than an accidental almost-crusher which Carrigan pulled out of because he realised? I just watched it again and deadset, it's a nothing tackle.

I'm just about done with this fucking game, honestly.

 

[heartly87]

Moose would be half the price and do basically the same job

I’m perplexed by calls to play Croft. He is NOT first grade standard, has a weak kicking game, weak mind, is a turnstile in defence and waste of space on the bench. At least Milford and Dearden show more promise.

Nobody is arguing that Milford is underperforming. At this rate, he’s zero chance of a contract renewal and we just have to wait until it expires. Leaving him out only makes sense if we had other readily viable options in our top 30 squad. It’s not as if the heat isn’t already squarely on Milford and he sure knows it so I question the logic of dropping him for a game or two.

What angered me most on the night is our lack of resilience and fitness (mental and physical) after only 25 minutes. The offloads is what sparked the Papenhuyzen avalanche and we just consistently failed to contain the ball. Our attacking problems pale in comparison to our defensive woes.

I slept on it now and reality is we expected to be outclassed by the Storm, and can only hope for more toughness and improvement against Souths and Panthers.

The reason being if Milfords time is up you may as well test the waters now by sitting him out and letting his "injuries" heal. Croft still has time on his contract and they have already said they want Dearden. We need to see a month of footy without Milf to see if things can look better or if they get worse. We have lost a lot of players over the years that have copped heat for poor form, but Milf has always had an excuse, he is alone, Boyd does nothing, Knick is not a half, Macca's balls are to slow, Hunt is a runner not an organizer, Bird is a centre and it can go on and on. But maybe Milf just can't deliver what the team needs but having him out there makes him the guy the passes go to, even if Kev says somebody else is the organiser. Milf is always just setting up for a kick, he does not have footy smarts. I honestly think Milf does not have a tactical thought in his head out there and when he does try everything shuts down, it cancels out his explosive style because he is thinking about what he has to do ect. A real playmaker is acting out a play he knew would be coming like 2 plays before the elite playmaker may even be playing something out he fixed to occur a set or two ago.

Keeping somebody out there because they can kick is not good enough, maybe we should see what Dearden and Croft can do when they are expected to do it each set.

 

[Morkel]

Two things that I think made a big difference last night:

1) Wrap the fucking ball up. Most of the tries and momentum came off the back of offloads from players we know offload frequently. A bit of homework on how those particular players hold the ball would be great, but really, how hard is it to just wrap the ball up in every tackle regardless?

2) When we are being pinned on our own line, for ***** sake, why are all of our runners 5-10 metres away from the PTB and standing flat-footed? One-out running from your end can be effective if you follow the Roosters' playbook - the ball-carrier gets a run-up and is lined up to be no more than 1-2 metres from the ruck. Far enough away to not get tackled by a marker, but close enough for the pass to be almost instant and flat. For best results, have two runners! One either side or two next to each other to keep the defence guessing. And the next PTB has to be lighning, again, like the Roosters, not using your foot and throwing yourself at the markers helps the next runner. How many fucking times did we see a slow, loping pass 8 metres across and 5 metres back while the Storm defence was already hurtling towards us? This isn't on Turpin by the way, it was often one of the backs who went in to dummy half and threw the same passes to the same runners out wide - so it's clearly a positioning / training thing as to where the runners position themselves.

Also, on the "the Storm are always doing the one percenters, like following through in case there is a break made", that is really fucking easy when you actually have the confidence that your team can make a break in the first place. Our support players in all likelihood have zero faith that we can get any attacking football going so have given up making the effort for an extremely unlikely "what if". It's not an excuse, criticising our effort is valid, because it's dog shit, but when you're Ryan CardboardHouse and BigDumbNelson is running at one of your opposition's exposed halves, it's not that hard to believe something may be on, so it'd be second nature to be up there in support. I'm kind of just saying that, in the rut we're in, it's fucking hard to dig your way out of it, everything is 10x harder.

 

[Bakamary]

The reason being if Milfords time is up you may as well test the waters now by sitting him out and letting his "injuries" heal. Croft still has time on his contract and they have already said they want Dearden. We need to see a month of footy without Milf to see if things can look better or if they get worse. We have lost a lot of players over the years that have copped heat for poor form, but Milf has always had an excuse, he is alone, Boyd does nothing, Knick is not a half, Macca's balls are to slow, Hunt is a runner not an organizer, Bird is a centre and it can go on and on. But maybe Milf just can't deliver what the team needs but having him out there makes him the guy the passes go to, even if Kev says somebody else is the organiser. Milf is always just setting up for a kick, he does not have footy smarts. I honestly think Milf does not have a tactical thought in his head out there and when he does try everything shuts down, it cancels out his explosive style because he is thinking about what he has to do ect. A real playmaker is acting out a play he knew would be coming like 2 plays before the elite playmaker may even be playing something out he fixed to occur a set or two ago.

Keeping somebody out there because they can kick is not good enough, maybe we should see what Dearden and Croft can do when they are expected to do it each set.

I take your point that experimentation and development for the future are crucial. It seems that Kevvie, being a new coach in this cut throat business, is desperate for success in the short term and doesn’t believe Milford’s time is up (yet) this early in the season.

I personally feel that we’ve seen enough of Croft at both the Storm and Broncos to suggest that he isn’t the way forward either. He’s an organising half (perhaps with more smarts than Milford) but hasn’t thrived at all under pressure.

Either way, all is not lost and there is still time to work out the best combinations. This year, we already look more competitive. I just hope we don’t fade badly again.

 

[PNG Broncos fan88]

Your man Carrigan aint far off either ....IMO. His butter finger hands and his general mistake rate is really starting to shit me.

Obvious as hell...but the usual suspect will blame everyone else for Cardigan's shortcomings.
He should have reduced mins...the coach isn't managing him well...he should never be lock...the hooker/halves shouldn't pass to him on the 4th...blah blah blah...oh he should have a break (upcoming suspension is good)...blah blah blah
edit: whatever...passenger at lock

 

[Mustafur]

Obvious as hell...but the usual suspect will blame everyone else for Cardigan's shortcomings.
He should have reduced mins...the coach isn't managing him well...he should never be lock...the hooker/halves shouldn't pass to him on the 4th...blah blah blah...oh he should have a break (upcoming suspension is good)...blah blah blah
edit: whatever...passenger at lock

Agree, TPJ and Asiata are our only real Locks, Carrigan is a prop everyday of the week, but TBH TPJ has been playing lock the whole time, watch him he is the one doing the floating forward position, Kevvie has seen it, he is playing games on that one.

 

[Nerd]

In defence I noticed this year and last year is that the first player in nearly always goes high instead of going around the legs. This leaves the ball carrier on his feet to either drag the defenders a few more metres forward, open for an offload or at the worst a quick play the ball. Watch the teams in the top 4 and nearly every time the first tackler goes in low not high. Going low first stops the player in his tracks, makes them have to get up off the ground which not only tires them out but prevents a quick play the ball and off loading while falling is always much harder. I imagine the players are being coached to go high first in an attempt to prevent an offload but let's face it, it's not working.

 

[TimWhatley]

I think our go-forward is still the the biggest problem. Storm made almost 1000 more running metres than us and it's actually kind of impressive that we only lost by 34 points. For comparison, cowboys lost by 38 points and only had 200 less running metres than the sharks.

I don't fully understand why we can't make metres but I reckon if you replaced half our pack with a bunch of average, low cost props we'd be in a better position.

 

[Sproj]

In defence I noticed this year and last year is that the first player in nearly always goes high instead of going around the legs. This leaves the ball carrier on his feet to either drag the defenders a few more metres forward, open for an offload or at the worst a quick play the ball. Watch the teams in the top 4 and nearly every time the first tackler goes in low not high. Going low first stops the player in his tracks, makes them have to get up off the ground which not only tires them out but prevents a quick play the ball and off loading while falling is always much harder. I imagine the players are being coached to go high first in an attempt to prevent an offload but let's face it, it's not working.

Yes exactly and going high, they also somehow rarely wrap the ball up. It is woeful technique. Who is the defense coach? This should be the first thing they work in in training every week, go low and wrap the ball up, everything else is secondary.

 

[NSW stables]

Early in the game i liked how we were looking to move the ball wider but we have to get the middle forwards out of it (unless it is asiata). Their passes back to the halves are so telegraphed, slow and poor that our halves have to stop and catch the ball at their knees, above their head or behind them. There is absolutely no reason that we couldnt have a half as first receiver and passing to the other half in that situation.

 

[theshed]

Not sure how he can be classed like TPJ. There is a bloke who probably has 3 quality games a year. He's been far more consistent despite having to play long stints when he shouldnt have to. Haas falls into the same bracket ( and quite a lot of these younger players tbh ), they are playing way too much footy with no experienced players to help guide them on the field, and no real options to take them out of the firing line for a while. He didnt drop the ball at all last night and he badly missed one tackle. Other forwards did exactly the same kid of things. Apart from that he was ok, not great, just ok. He seems the new scapegoat for some.

Quite sad really that people cant accept younger players need to develop and they will have dips in form. Player development and the poor management of all these younger players is exactly why we are struggling. We have a fair few on here who are always calling for the next big thing to be thrown in because of the hype. It rarely ever works. I was one of the ones saying it was going to be a recipe for disaster when we went down this route and it gives me no satisfaction to be proven correct. You would think having Lockyer on board he would have been able to advise these clowns that going with so much youth was never going to work. He is as dumb off the field as he was smart on the field. Hopefully Donaghy will take control and sort out everything.

Maybe Lockyer being so good and from such a young age makes it hard for him to identify reliable players that need time to develop. It’s like how a lot of the time really gifted athletes aren’t good coaches because you ask someone like Michael Jordan how be a better basketballer and he says “have you tried dunking on opponents from the free throw line”.

 

[Wolfie]

Maybe Lockyer being so good and from such a young age makes it hard for him to identify reliable players that need time to develop. It’s like how a lot of the time really gifted athletes aren’t good coaches because you ask someone like Michael Jordan how be a better basketballer and he says “have you tried dunking on opponents from the free throw line”.

I think it just surprises me how he couldn't have pulled up somebody and said something many kids won't work. I get he might not be a good coach, but that's just common sense.