Don't forget also our starting forwards are generally playing 55+ minutes a game - our bench is way underutilised, so that's another thing counting towards that stat.
We haven't done well for long-range tries for many years now, we just haven't had the speed to trouble most other teams. Not for a long, long time have I seen a Bronco get the ball in a bit of space and think "they'll never catch him now!" Happens regularly with the speedsters throughout the comp, we just don't have any pace.
Defence falling down is where we've really come unstuck over the last 12 months IMO. We were winning games well at the start of 2012 in part because of our defence. We were monstering the other teams, limiting their metres, hurting them physically and limiting points. We didn't need to score much to win because our defence was solid. I clearly remember commenting to my wife a few times early last year that the defence was the only thing winning our games, and I hoped they'd start working on attack at training soon because it was fairly poor. Once our defence started crumbling, that was it. We still couldn't score many points and the opposition just started outscoring us. There were obviously exceptions, but it seemed (to me) to be the general trend. Forward to this year, and we're in a worse position than ever - defence is even softer (very disappointing) and attack is still struggling big time. Why NEITHER are improving is beyond me...I keep saying it, but what do they do at training??
