Round 5 - Rabbitohs vs Broncos

[mstreet]

I disagree.

He has had every opportunity, multiple coaches, halves partners, excuses, and positional changes and 5 years to show us something.
He has a fat bank account, which he was happy to take, and shown nothing for it.
Milford is lazy, there is no doubt about it, he is down on confidence sure, but it is rare i see him actually put in a full 80 minute performance, in fact, i cant remember the last game of his i watched where he didn't go missing for half the game.

The time for excuses is well past for Milford, he was a gamble by the Broncos based on his potential, and that gamble did not pay off.

Wtf? Which dominant half, hooker has Milford enjoyed? Let alone a dominant pack. We put so much money into the forwards after fans, commentators criticized us for our best forward being pop gun McGuire. 5'11 and 101kg. Our imbalance, rostering issues, ineptitude with our spine feels intergenerational. Griffin back to Bennett. Seifuck to Walters. Milford has Not had what he needed to be his best version. He is Not worth a cool million. No-one would say shit if he was on crofts money. Give him the tools.

 

[broncsgoat]

Yep wanted Dearden first so must be something about him.

He's older.

 

[Kimlo]

Wtf? Which dominant half, hooker has Milford enjoyed? Let alone a dominant pack. We put so much money into the forwards after fans, commentators criticized us for our best forward being pop gun McGuire. 5'11 and 101kg. Our imbalance, rostering issues, ineptitude with our spine feels intergenerational. Griffin back to Bennett. Seifuck to Walters. Milford has Not had what he needed to be his best version. He is Not worth a cool million. No-one would say shit if he was on crofts money. Give him the tools.

I would have the same criticisms if he was on 300k, it's just magnified at 1M because he's denying us a good player with that salary.

He still can't game manage and still makes dumb decision after dumb. Even at 300k what would he offer? He has no running game at all, he rarely makes a right choice, he can't put the defence in two minds, he can't organise the forwards to run a line.

I'd be delighted if we didn't offer him a contract at all. Reynolds for 750k would be perfect. He's exactly what we need, Staggs at fullback. Dearden could spend a a couple of years not having the pressure to carry the team from 5/8.

And sign a dummy half, Turpin is nothing more than a 25 minute impact player.

 

[broncsgoat]

I would have the same criticisms if he was on 300k, it's just magnified at 1M because he's denying us a good player with that salary.

He still can't game manage and still makes dumb decision after dumb. Even at 300k what would he offer? He has no running game at all, he rarely makes a right choice, he can't put the defence in two minds, he can't organise the forwards to run a line.

I'd be delighted if we didn't offer him a contract at all. Reynolds for 750k would be perfect. He's exactly what we need, Staggs at fullback. Dearden could spend a a couple of years not having the pressure to carry the team from 5/8.

And sign a dummy half, Turpin is nothing more than a 25 minute impact player.

Why doesnt milf get that lol.

 

[heartly87]

I can't understand why people continue to defend Milf with what he is currently dishing out. His poor form isn't anything new and for a million bucks you would expect him to be the guy leading the mentality of the team. He is the big one at the club and his performance should be top tier every week and essentially every minute. He should be playing others into form and maybe people don't follow him or chase his kicks because they don't have any idea what he is doing or what set they are running.

I expect the same out of all the senior players and none are stepping up. Blaming the younger blokes is a cop out. Attitude reflects leadership every single time. Is Milf supporting players every time, is Milf chasing kicks every time, is he getting involved in everything. These are things that JT was doing time and time again. I know Milf is not JT but if you play the same role you look at the best and try and do everything they did, in an attempt to be as close to that as you can. Current Milf is not anything close to first grade level. Yes there is dog shit being served up all round him. But the evidence is in the threads dating back to 2016- 17 he has been hot and cold. Slowly getting colder and colder.
Plenty of us myself included making excuses and saying he will come good, it's somebody else's fault. Well now there are few left around to sway the eyes away from Milfs clear short comings as a player.
I wish he would come good and we would see that electric player we all know and love but I feel it just will not happen here and we don't have years to sit around hoping. We need action.

 

[Kimlo]

Why doesnt milf get that lol.

For the reasons I mentioned. No running game anymore, low IQ footballer. He might turn his career around elsewhere but he's done as a Bronco

 

[lynx000]

For the reasons I mentioned. No running game anymore, low IQ footballer. He might turn his career around elsewhere but he's done as a Bronco

The whole side is done at the moment mentally. I watched them carefully as they ran out. The whole vibe was negative, they went out there expecting to lose and lose badly. No great surprise, it happened.

 

[Midean]

Wtf? Which dominant half, hooker has Milford enjoyed? Let alone a dominant pack. We put so much money into the forwards after fans, commentators criticized us for our best forward being pop gun McGuire. 5'11 and 101kg. Our imbalance, rostering issues, ineptitude with our spine feels intergenerational. Griffin back to Bennett. Seifuck to Walters. Milford has Not had what he needed to be his best version. He is Not worth a cool million. No-one would say shit if he was on crofts money. Give him the tools.

So tell me then, what other player in the game, being paid a million a season, needs all these very specific requirements to be met to perform to the lowest NRL standard?
I wouldn't give Milford shit if he put in the effort, but he doesn't, half the time, he just go's missing.
If he busted his guts out season after season, even in a side that gets the spoon, i would not hesitate to say he is worth his money, but half the time, he doesn't even try.
There is a reason every reputable name in the NRL is calling him out.
Its not because he is in a poor team, or that the Broncos won the spoon, its because he lacks effort in the most basic areas.
A good example is JT when the Cowboys where struggling. It didnt matter where they were on the table, or how poor the rest of the team was performing, JT busted his guts every game and you could see it, and when they lost, it hurt him, but each week, he still busted his guts out and gave 100%.
I've yet to see Milford do that post 2015.

 

[Allo]

I would have the same criticisms if he was on 300k, it's just magnified at 1M because he's denying us a good player with that salary.

He still can't game manage and still makes dumb decision after dumb. Even at 300k what would he offer? He has no running game at all, he rarely makes a right choice, he can't put the defence in two minds, he can't organise the forwards to run a line.

I'd be delighted if we didn't offer him a contract at all. Reynolds for 750k would be perfect. He's exactly what we need, Staggs at fullback. Dearden could spend a a couple of years not having the pressure to carry the team from 5/8.

And sign a dummy half, Turpin is nothing more than a 25 minute impact player.

I was with you right until the last sentence

 

[Alec]

Yep wanted Dearden first so must be something about him.

The Roosters try to sign pretty much every young half on the market. Even if they got Dearden first, they'd probably still go for Walker as well.

 

[Kimlo]

The whole side is done at the moment mentally. I watched them carefully as they ran out. The whole vibe was negative, they went out there expecting to lose and lose badly. No great surprise, it happened.

It's going to be even uglier this week.
Hopefully some relief after that.

 

[Slippin Jimmy]

The Roosters try to sign pretty much every young half on the market. Even if they got Dearden first, they'd probably still go for Walker as well.

Yeah they hedge their bets pretty well. They tried Flanagan for a year, but cut him when it became apparent there were better options coming through.

 

[Jason Simmons]

It's going to be even uglier this week.
Hopefully some relief after that.

Maybe. If you believe Glenn, there might actually be some changes coming this week...

God knows why now, after all the pumpings they’ve had, but that’s what he said...

The tough conversations are starting this week and under-performers, himself included should go back to QCup...

 

[BroncsFan]

I actually think he's been running his mouth as much as the football lately, poor Turps cops it all the time. Even with that example I described you could see him give his team mates a spray as he succumbed to the tackle.

Both you and Gordie are a 100% spot on.

If I could take a free shot at the stumps, I'd go a different direction with Milford and tell him to stop being so selfless. He is their best attacking weapon, so carry the ball 20-30 times and let the team play off the back of it. Get him around the ruck and just turn him into the five-eighth version of Taumalolo. Only pass it when it's absolutely on because right now nobody else is bringing you into the game.

Which is how he was playing in round 1 he was taking the ball and players were moving around him. I think he was playing similarly in 2017 (like a first receiver halfback) & maybe the first half of 2016.

To me his play in 2016 had him on path to a Dally M, but then he was overlooked for origin, dropped his head and then done his shoulder. In 2015 he was a kid that had ownership of the left edge and was bubbling around a free flowing offload game from the rest of his team... in a similar way that Luai has ownership of his left edge, although he isn't as active going back through the middle like Milf from 2015.

Milf doesnt need to be Pearce and touching it on get out sets for nothing inside balls and doing the 5th tackle kicking, but he needs to take ownership of the ball inside the opposition 20m.

At the moment he seems to be in this mold where he thinks he has to setup the men around him and he just ends up dumping it off to someone for a hit up, forcing a crash ball to Glenn (who cant break a tackle anyway) or taking a nothing hitup.

I want him back on the right side of the field and I want Croft/Dearden to be playing open side of the ruck instead of playing blindsides .... it was embarrassing seeing Dearden sitting on a 15m blindside whilst the ball went open to Asiata and then Milf with 40-60m of field to his left.... what the **** is anyone meant to do in that kind of position??

It was a distant memory of round 1 where we spread it from inside our own 50m through Turps/DH, Croft, Asiata, Isaako and then Milf playing as a second fullback on the far left edge (opposite side of the field given he was playing right side) before Herbie put Mead away on a linebreak.

It was brilliant play and had me excited for what Kevvie was bringing and how he intended to use the halves and Asiata.

I still feel we have been underdone the last 2 weeks primarily due to roaming nomads (first 3 weeks we were mostly competitive bar 10min periods)... but Kevvie fucked a lot of things by reactively switching Milf to the other side of the field and then bringing Dearden in only to lessen his role to a bit part poor man's Averillo confined to an edge

 

[BroncsFan]

Which is how he was playing in round 1 he was taking the ball and players were moving around him. I think he was playing similarly in 2017 (like a first receiver halfback) & maybe the first half of 2016.

To me his play in 2016 had him on path to a Dally M, but then he was overlooked for origin, dropped his head and then done his shoulder. In 2015 he was a kid that had ownership of the left edge and was bubbling around a free flowing offload game from the rest of his team... in a similar way that Luai has ownership of his left edge, although he isn't as active going back through the middle like Milf from 2015.

Milf doesnt need to be Pearce and touching it on get out sets for nothing inside balls and doing the 5th tackle kicking, but he needs to take ownership of the ball inside the opposition 20m.

At the moment he seems to be in this mold where he thinks he has to setup the men around him and he just ends up dumping it off to someone for a hit up, forcing a crash ball to Glenn (who cant break a tackle anyway) or taking a nothing hitup.

I want him back on the right side of the field and I want Croft/Dearden to be playing open side of the ruck instead of playing blindsides .... it was embarrassing seeing Dearden sitting on a 15m blindside whilst the ball went open to Asiata and then Milf with 40-60m of field to his left.... what the **** is anyone meant to do in that kind of position??

It was a distant memory of round 1 where we spread it from inside our own 50m through Turps/DH, Croft, Asiata, Isaako and then Milf playing as a second fullback on the far left edge (opposite side of the field given he was playing right side) before Herbie put Mead away on a linebreak.

It was brilliant play and had me excited for what Kevvie was bringing and how he intended to use the halves and Asiata.

I still feel we have been underdone the last 2 weeks primarily due to roaming nomads (first 3 weeks we were mostly competitive bar 10min periods)... but Kevvie fucked a lot of things by reactively switching Milf to the other side of the field and then bringing Dearden in only to lessen his role to a bit part poor man's Averillo confined to an edge

Just going back to my above post I wanted to check some footage to see if there were actually differences between Round 1 and the game against Souths

Round 1
Asiata gets it with Croft and Milf outside him (Milf was the right-side half in that game... Isaako takes up a position on the blindside so still the dreaded split halves)... Asiata digs into the line, Croft digs into the line and we have Carrigan and Glenn running decoys. A 3v2 is created by the time it gets to Milf who gets Herbie into a 2v1 and puts Mead away down the sideline. Milf showing up in the fullback spot has the skills to move the ball along quickly

Round 5
Dearden sitting on a 15m blindside (likely under instruction as he was there most of the game), Turps takes a dart down a pretty skinny blindside (5 players in 15m of space) and gets tackled by the markers (so wasn't really on anyway). Dearden goes into DH and passes to Asiata who immediately passes onto Milf. So Milf gets the ball 30m or so in from touch with Glenn, Isaako, Kennar and Mead outside him and they're up against 5 defenders (so no advantage created for the attack). The bottom right image is just before Milf passes the ball and in the next frame a slight overlap is created as Reynolds takes the decoy, but Graham is up in Isaako's face and tackles him anyway.

The difference between round 1 and 5 appears to be the lack of a second decoy that Carrigan is creating in round 1. Flegler is playing Carrigan's role against souths and is on Asiata's inside shoulder and therefore doing absolutely nothing on the play (no decoy for the pass to Asiata and no decoy for the pass to Milf). Also against the eels Asiata and Croft dig into the line a bit causing the defensive line to check on their run compared to souths where Asiata and Milf pass it along immediately allowing the defence to shuffle along and keep the same numbers.


Watching the play against souths again what I find interesting is that ARey has committed early and come out of the line, so Milf basically has a 1v1 on Sua that he could dummy and take on (bottom right image), but instead Milf dumps it out the back 3-5m from the defensive line and doesn't really force the defence to make a decision. That's the kind of situations Kevvie wants created for Milf and the eyes up play that he talks about ... see the defender come out of the line early and take the gap that's on offer, or at least straighten up and dig into the line a bit to see what decision the defence will make and exploit from there.

In the next frame of the above Kennar actually ends up with a 2v1 as Mansour doesn't come up with Graham... so basically any other option likely ends up being successful (run at Sua, cutout to Kennar, long cutout to Mead (anticipating Mansour coming up on Kennar), but it would seem that Milf premeditated the pass to Isaako and dumped it off without really considering what the defensive line was doing or forcing them to make a decision.


And just to make this post a bit longer... going all the way back to the start I would've liked to see Dearden on the open side from the start of the passage (top left image). It would've pushed Flegler and Asiata further across the defensive line making Flegler a useful decoy or Dearden could've used them both as decoys and sucked in some of the defenders to give Milf a better overlap on the defensive line. Having Dearden play on the open side also gives him some freedom and opportunity to do some work and see if he can put some pressure on the defence, instead of having a cramped 20m of field to work with and forcing passes to Riki off slow play the balls.

 

[Jedhead]

Just going back to my above post I wanted to check some footage to see if there were actually differences between Round 1 and the game against Souths

Round 1
Asiata gets it with Croft and Milf outside him (Milf was the right-side half in that game... Isaako takes up a position on the blindside so still the dreaded split halves)... Asiata digs into the line, Croft digs into the line and we have Carrigan and Glenn running decoys. A 3v2 is created by the time it gets to Milf who gets Herbie into a 2v1 and puts Mead away down the sideline. Milf showing up in the fullback spot has the skills to move the ball along quickly
View attachment 12295

Round 5
Dearden sitting on a 15m blindside (likely under instruction as he was there most of the game), Turps takes a dart down a pretty skinny blindside (5 players in 15m of space) and gets tackled by the markers (so wasn't really on anyway). Dearden goes into DH and passes to Asiata who immediately passes onto Milf. So Milf gets the ball 30m or so in from touch with Glenn, Isaako, Kennar and Mead outside him and they're up against 5 defenders (so no advantage created for the attack). The bottom right image is just before Milf passes the ball and in the next frame a slight overlap is created as Reynolds takes the decoy, but Graham is up in Isaako's face and tackles him anyway.
View attachment 12298

The difference between round 1 and 5 appears to be the lack of a second decoy that Carrigan is creating in round 1. Flegler is playing Carrigan's role against souths and is on Asiata's inside shoulder and therefore doing absolutely nothing on the play (no decoy for the pass to Asiata and no decoy for the pass to Milf). Also against the eels Asiata and Croft dig into the line a bit causing the defensive line to check on their run compared to souths where Asiata and Milf pass it along immediately allowing the defence to shuffle along and keep the same numbers.


Watching the play against souths again what I find interesting is that ARey has committed early and come out of the line, so Milf basically has a 1v1 on Sua that he could dummy and take on (bottom right image), but instead Milf dumps it out the back 3-5m from the defensive line and doesn't really force the defence to make a decision. That's the kind of situations Kevvie wants created for Milf and the eyes up play that he talks about ... see the defender come out of the line early and take the gap that's on offer, or at least straighten up and dig into the line a bit to see what decision the defence will make and exploit from there.

In the next frame of the above Kennar actually ends up with a 2v1 as Mansour doesn't come up with Graham... so basically any other option likely ends up being successful (run at Sua, cutout to Kennar, long cutout to Mead (anticipating Mansour coming up on Kennar), but it would seem that Milf premeditated the pass to Isaako and dumped it off without really considering what the defensive line was doing or forcing them to make a decision.


And just to make this post a bit longer... going all the way back to the start I would've liked to see Dearden on the open side from the start of the passage (top left image). It would've pushed Flegler and Asiata further across the defensive line making Flegler a useful decoy or Dearden could've used them both as decoys and sucked in some of the defenders to give Milf a better overlap on the defensive line. Having Dearden play on the open side also gives him some freedom and opportunity to do some work and see if he can put some pressure on the defence, instead of having a cramped 20m of field to work with and forcing passes to Riki off slow play the balls.

Pies get the **** off our forum!

 

[Morkel]

Here's an example of the bullshit the refs are handing us, and why our line seems passive and fatigued.

Souths player tacked on the line, at worst half a metre past it. The tight shot doesn't show you the defensive line.

When it goes out to the wide shot, our defence is so far back you can't even see them in view yet.

As the play continues, you can see how far the ref has our defensive line. This isn't an isolated case, it happens throughout matches and you will see certain teams being given far more leeway. It's been a peeve of mine for years, it offers a MASSIVE advantage/disadvantage, and yet it's never mentioned. And then, of course, the supposed 10 metre line that's going to be shown on the telecast just never emerges, and there is not ONE mention by anyone as to why, it just does my fucking head in.

 

[rnabokov]

Here's an example of the bullshit the refs are handing us, and why our line seems passive and fatigued.

View attachment 12344

Souths player tacked on the line, at worst half a metre past it. The tight shot doesn't show you the defensive line.

View attachment 12345

When it goes out to the wide shot, our defence is so far back you can't even see them in view yet.

View attachment 12346

As the play continues, you can see how far the ref has our defensive line. This isn't an isolated case, it happens throughout matches and you will see certain teams being given far more leeway. It's been a peeve of mine for years, it offers a MASSIVE advantage/disadvantage, and yet it's never mentioned. And then, of course, the supposed 10 metre line that's going to be shown on the telecast just never emerges, and there is not ONE mention by anyone as to why, it just does my fucking head in.

I really believe our defence is passive because well, it is. All the good teams rush the attack, to suffocate it, stop momentum and build serious pressure. If a team stands back and simply waits, as we do, then it leaves itself open to these sorts of reffing bullshit you describe.

The turn around shown by the Dragons when they did the Eels was almost 100% due to them rushing the Eels attack, cutting down time and space and maybe as a result, the refs then focus on the PTB more than the 10 metres. We are not going anywhere standing back. How long have we used this strategy? Since 2015. Old habits die hard and Walters is finding out just how much.