Technical Coach
Bencher
Not taking anything away from our nice right side plays but Hornby, Nightingale and Cooper have major defensive structure issues and it was well exploited by Manly.
Outside defenders sitting back on the first and second tackle is unacceptable in the modern game. Very rarely do halves kick for outside backs that early so there is less risk in moving forward.(it does happen occasionally though)
Many times Cooper was not coming up and in far enough or coming out of the line to snuff out the second man play---he was sitting back and sliding.
Hornby and Nightingale were sitting back even deeper in a staggered fashion just asking for trouble---sliding and going backwards eventually will force an outside defender to defend inside shoulder creating a 2 on 1 even when they have the numbers.( your moving backwards so your forced to eventually cave in as the attack is getting within 10m of the try line and momentum through the tackle might be enough to score)
What was more encouraging and i've touched on this before is seeing DCE staying more central in the red zone---ball playing just left or right of each post with flat decoy runners holding the more central defenders at bay. We still have a fair way to go with our attack--- we are still predominantly scoring tries at the extreme edges. I want to see more variation and hard straight line up the middle tries or closer to the posts.
Usually when Manly play the Dragons we have had success in the past attacking behind the markers or splitting them both in the red zone or in general play working up the field. The Dragons did try and limit Ballins ball playing time in the red zone to prevent him drifting and dummying as often as he does---his lack of sharpness does not help either especially on a heavy wet pitch.
We do have issues with our go forward but considering we had players out such as Williams x2 Matai and King it's to be expected. In the not too distant future even at present it may become too big of an issue to ignore we need to start injecting some youthful explosive mobile go forward but i'm sure the brains trust at Manly is aware of this.
Outside defenders sitting back on the first and second tackle is unacceptable in the modern game. Very rarely do halves kick for outside backs that early so there is less risk in moving forward.(it does happen occasionally though)
Many times Cooper was not coming up and in far enough or coming out of the line to snuff out the second man play---he was sitting back and sliding.
Hornby and Nightingale were sitting back even deeper in a staggered fashion just asking for trouble---sliding and going backwards eventually will force an outside defender to defend inside shoulder creating a 2 on 1 even when they have the numbers.( your moving backwards so your forced to eventually cave in as the attack is getting within 10m of the try line and momentum through the tackle might be enough to score)
What was more encouraging and i've touched on this before is seeing DCE staying more central in the red zone---ball playing just left or right of each post with flat decoy runners holding the more central defenders at bay. We still have a fair way to go with our attack--- we are still predominantly scoring tries at the extreme edges. I want to see more variation and hard straight line up the middle tries or closer to the posts.
Usually when Manly play the Dragons we have had success in the past attacking behind the markers or splitting them both in the red zone or in general play working up the field. The Dragons did try and limit Ballins ball playing time in the red zone to prevent him drifting and dummying as often as he does---his lack of sharpness does not help either especially on a heavy wet pitch.
We do have issues with our go forward but considering we had players out such as Williams x2 Matai and King it's to be expected. In the not too distant future even at present it may become too big of an issue to ignore we need to start injecting some youthful explosive mobile go forward but i'm sure the brains trust at Manly is aware of this.
