Thaiday goes off-script at hooker

[Super Freak]

WAYNE Bennett may have revoked his kicking licence but Sam Thaiday says he is not about to change his ways after reigniting his season with a move to hooker.

Thaiday shocked the Dragons, and his own coach, when he kicked the ball from dummy-half during Friday’s 24-12 win at Suncorp Stadium which kept the Broncos firmly in the NRL’s top two.

The loss of regular No. 9 Andrew McCullough to a season-ending knee injury was supposed to be Brisbane’s death knell.

But Bennett produced a surprise move in shifting 274-game veteran Thaiday to starting hooker and using Ben Hunt as an interchange weapon.

The Broncos have won their three matches since and are firmly in premiership contention.
Thaiday’s move was purely defensive to begin with but the hard-running forward has gradually added an attacking spark to his game.

The 32-year-old does not want to be known as a purely defensive hooker and said he would chance his arm if the opportunity arose.

“I’ve been practising for the last couple of weeks,” Thaiday said of his kicking. “I’m trying to own my role at the moment. I’m starting at dummy-half. I want to mix things up.

“I saw an opportunity, the fullback was covering a kick to the left so I went for it.”

Bennett was less optimistic about Thaiday’s new-found kicking game.

“I just about jumped out of the coaches box when he kicked the ball,” Bennett said. “It wasn’t in the script.”

Thaiday’s move to dummy-half has brought him back into a starting role he has craved for most of the season. He started the first five matches of the year in the back row before reverting to the bench where he has been for 11 games this season.

Thaiday copped a blow when he was axed from the Queensland Origin team after Game One, effectively ending his 29-game Maroons career, but has received a boost with his new role at the Broncos.

“Throughout my career I’ve mixed things up throughout the forwards,” he said. “I played a lock role and edge back row as well as front row.

“It’s a new challenge. It’s one that I’m really enjoying and will continue to build over the next couple of weeks. I want to own that role.

“That (attack) is something I’ve been trying to work on the last couple of weeks. I want to try and bring those forwards on to the ball and keep an ear open to listen for the calls from the halves when they really want the ball.

“It’s always been a bit of an element of my game but I’ve never had the chance and opportunity to show those skills.

“It’s good in my later life of rugby league to have the chance to do something different and something I’ve always enjoyed doing.”

The Broncos muscled up defensively against the desperate Dragons with Matt Gillett and Josh McGuire leading the way.

Thaiday has given them an extra big body in the middle during the early exchanges before Hunt is injected and Bennett said he was pleased with Brisbane’s defence with two games to go in the regular season.

“If you want to be a quality football team you’ve got to be able to defend,” he said.

“I was pretty proud of our efforts in defence.”

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport...s/news-story/67bbd19a8611e2ff0e621e755803d7a2

 

[ningnangnong]

I'm really liking Sammy T at hooker for those opening 20 minutes - don't think I'd want him there for a whole game though haha.

You can see in those first 20, he's not exclusively the hooker. He is most of the time, but there may be a couple of periods where it's 'whomever gets there first'. I noticed last week against the Sharks, Boyd filled in a lot in the opening exchanges.

But yeah, Thaiday brings something a bit different and I dig it. He's quite agile for such a big fella, and his service has been exemplary. I like his little move where he'll pick up the ball, step left/right, but then pass back to the right/left. Such innovation hahaha.

 

[jarro65]

Loving Thaiday at hooker...it really has been a masterstroke from Wayne.

 

[Huge]

You can just bet McCullough is sitting at home watching the replays and thinking, derrrr why didn't I think of doing that ? McCullough is a great competitor and champion tackler but I think we can all agree he is NOT a 2017 hooker. He might have suited the game years ago but he has never shown any creativity other than when his one dimensional play was exposed by Granville before he left. In fact WB said had he had a say Granville wouldn't have left and that begs the question, would McCullough been around now ?

I know this is about Thaiday but between he and Hunt and the very obvious deficiency now made obvious we've all been thinking, why have we got McCullough for the next 4 years ?

On the subject itself I'm another fan thrilled at the better balance and knowledge that we can be a threat from the moment the ball is tunnelballed into Thaiday's or Hunt's hands. We are so much closer to Melbourne now as they've been onto this with Smith for years. We have been stupid, yes stupid to have persisted without having a threat from hooker, now that we've got it I hope the lesson is learned. This in no way means I don't have great regard for McCullough.

 

[Kimlo]

You can just bet McCullough is sitting at home watching the replays and thinking, derrrr why didn't I think of doing that ? McCullough is a great competitor and champion tackler but I think we can all agree he is NOT a 2017 hooker. He might have suited the game years ago but he has never shown any creativity other than when his one dimensional play was exposed by Granville before he left. In fact WB said had he had a say Granville wouldn't have left and that begs the question, would McCullough been around now ?

I know this is about Thaiday but between he and Hunt and the very obvious deficiency now made obvious we've all been thinking, why have we got McCullough for the next 4 years ?

On the subject itself I'm another fan thrilled at the better balance and knowledge that we can be a threat from the moment the ball is tunnelballed into Thaiday's or Hunt's hands. We are so much closer to Melbourne now as they've been onto this with Smith for years. We have been stupid, yes stupid to have persisted without having a threat from hooker, now that we've got it I hope the lesson is learned. This in no way means I don't have great regard for McCullough.

Well said. I've never been a big Macca fan. He's a solid player, but we can do so much more in that position than what he offers.

 

[Allo]

Macca's an interesting case. Is it that he just doesn't know when to pick his moments for attack? Can he just not do it well? Or was it coached out of him during the Hook years? Has some 'next best QLD hooker after Smith' talk made him go into his shell and not chance anything? Or does he and/or the coaching want him to put defence first second and third?

I love Macca but agree that he does lack in areas when it comes to attack. Namely his dummy-and-go at the line which has worked maybe 4 or 5 times ever out of about 50 and his 'textbook form' when passing from dummy-half where he plants both feet and spirals the **** out of the ball which mainly happens only when there's no momentum in the tackle, because he's still pretty good at running at offside markers (that never get penalised) and making a good 10-15m off quick ptb's. But at the same time Hunt will look for a pass or something whereas Macca gets tackled, and I get that too from a possession standpoint.

Out of those available hookers, who's better than Macca that we could've signed? Probably a more relevant question before his first re-signing in '12, then again in '15, as there were more options. But this year, it's not like we were going to cut a 200-gamer that's been here for life with no one on the market. He was always going to stay. You can keep saying Parcell or whoever as much as you like, but it was never going to happen.

 

[Huge]

What's obvious is that we probably have ten players who could do more in a creative sense, I would be trying heaps of guys in the role. Who knows, offa,tpj anyone of them might be good at it, Thaidays good at it and he's been a prop !

 

[Huge]

Hell, Sims might be ,who knows ? One things obvious, we must learn from this ,we MUST HAVE creativity in the role. Macca will have to improve or play reserves because we musn't go backwards

 

[Aldo]

Having a more attacking, dangerous hooker has taken the heat off our halves, especially Milf.

 

[Sproj]

I've long been critical of Macca's attack as most of you would be aware BUT I thought this year, he actually had started to show more creatively speaking. Sure, still not enough but it is no coincidence he was in the origin camps.

Funnily enough, the only thing he can really do at the moment is pass a footy due to his knee, I hope he spends the next six months passing a ball at a target repeatedly until he is nailing 99 out of every hundred.

Hopefully he is also watching footy of the bad decisions he makes close to try lines by often going the wrong way.

 

[Huge]

I've long been critical of Macca's attack as most of you would be aware BUT I thought this year, he actually had started to show more creatively speaking. Sure, still not enough but it is no coincidence he was in the origin camps.

Funnily enough, the only thing he can really do at the moment is pass a footy due to his knee, I hope he spends the next six months passing a ball at a target repeatedly until he is nailing 99 out of every hundred.

Hopefully he is also watching footy of the bad decisions he makes close to try lines by often going the wrong way.

It's not his passing I worry about so much, I want to see him run more ,draw them in and hit someone on the fly,be more Smith like, chip kick, surprise tactics,more variety.

 

[Battler]

Macca is fine in attack, he was playing very well before his injury. His issue is that he doesn't chuck forward passes every second play the ball like Friend.

 

[Huge]

Macca is fine in attack, he was playing very well before his injury. His issue is that he doesn't chuck forward passes every second play the ball like Friend.

Crap, I'm sorry to say. If everyone's noticed a change and only Maccas been changed out please offer an alternative reason for said change.

 

[winslow_wong]

Thaiday, to my surprise, offers everything Macca does and some. Maybe not the long kicks but everything else is on par if not better. His best play the other night was a couple of beautiful tackles on frizzell. Absolutely cut him in half and stopped him dead in his tracks. Macca couldn't even do that as good a defender as he is.

 

[Lockysillegitimatechild]

Before his injury Macca was among our best players this year. Before he got injured we were the 2nd or 3rd best attacking team.

The fact we are doing so well without him isn't because he isn't a good hooker. The no Macca situation is benefitting from the team picking up the tempo post origin and pre finals. Our attack was just as good in 2015, with Macca as our hooker. The defensive load he does is being spread well. The other factor is the element of surprise we have for teams, as the commentators were saying on channel 9, we don't even know what we are going to do in attack at the moment. This benefit would vanish massively over time if this was a permenant situation.

I'm not a massive fan of Macca, Granville has shown we may have kept the wrong hooker (although I'm not 100% on that because Granville only plays 40 mins), but he is definetly a hooker we could still win a premiership with

 

[Kimlo]

Please, Macca is irrelevant to our side, he's easily replaceable and I hope whatever he was signed on reflects that.

The #9 is such an important position, that by all rights we should be screwed after losing Macca who is our main #9, yet it's made no difference, if anything we've improved. That's say a lot.

 

[Lockysillegitimatechild]

Please, Macca is irrelevant to our side, he's easily replaceable and I hope whatever he was signed on reflects that.

The #9 is such an important position, that by all rights we should be screwed after losing Macca who is our main #9, yet it's made no difference, if anything we've improved. That's say a lot.

Who would you sign then? As I said I'm not a massive fan of Macca by any stretch but he is a serviceable hooker who is consistent. We can win a premiership with him, that doesn't mean he is going to win it for us or that he is a vital cog in a premiership team. We can't have $1 million dollar players all over the park

 

[Kimlo]

We don't need million dollar players, Granville wasn't chasing a million, neither was Parcell but with Macca there we've never given another hooker a go, it's just been a utility player with no interest in being a 9 who fills in for 20 minutes a game.