Our bad run started last year when we lost Ballin to a season ending injury against the Panthers. His loss was compounded by the fact that his best replacement in Buhrer was also lost to a season ending in the same match. Those two injuries single-handedly wiped our chances for the premiership last season, much like Snake’s season ending injuries did in the 09 and 10 seasons. For as long as I’ve followed league, I’ve always heard coaches crapping on about needing a good run with injuries around finals time and having luck on your side if you want the best chance at winning a title. We didn’t have that last year and nearly toppled the Dogs who went on to make the grand final. If the referees had the balls to penalise Reynolds for clearly being offside near his tryline in the dying stages, all Lyon had to do was kick a penalty goal to take us to another grand final qualifier.
Now we’ll turn to this season. I’ll start with the forwards. The player who gives us the most go forward (Lawrence) has barely been sighted. We’ve also seen **** all of his starting partner in Starling. These two took us to equal first last year and it would have been ****ing great to have them starting again this year with Turbo and Sao coming off the bench. Also, our best forward in Buhrer is gone for the season again.
8. Lawrence
9. Ballin
10. Starling
11. Buhrer
12. Horo
13. Lui
14. Turbo
15. Sao
16. Symonds
17. Leary
I would be ****ing stoked if it was possible to field the above forward pack in the latter half of this season. With Buhrer gone, sadly we can’t. But this forward pack, or something close to it, would give us far more chances at winning matches than we have been afforded this season.
Now for the backline which has been our crown jewel for years. Even before kickoff began this season, people were still rating our backline as arguably the best in the league. 6 of our starting 7 are genuine match winners and each of these 6 players has spent time on the sideline this season. Snake, Lyon, Matai, Taufua, Foran & Cherry-Evans. When these 6 are playing, our opposition are always ****ting bricks. Notice what has happened within the last month when our backline has resembled anything close to being at full strength. 2 high quality wins from 4 matches. The 2 losses were against teams currently in the top 8, both losses came in the dying stages and 1 was against the team that you’d have to say is the favourite for this year’s premiership. The last month of football has also seen our defence improve significantly. We have now played 5 games this season against teams currently in the top 8 and have conceded an average of 2 tries per game from these 5 matches. That’s clearly punching above our weight against the giants when you look at our position on the ladder. There are currently 7 teams in the competition with worse defence than us this season and you’d have to think that our defence would be even better still if we could ****ing score points. To score more points, we need Lawrence and Starling back so that we have a better chance at winning the arm wrestle. We also have to hope that at least Snake, Lyon, Foran and DCE can remain relatively injury free for the remainder of the season.
The reasons in order for our position on the ladder are as follows.
- Injuries
- Daylight
- Boardroom Drama
- Contract Negotiations
- The Coach
I also have to take a massive swipe at those who are discrediting Tooves’ ability as coach. The guy has been a vital cog in the Manly juggernaut since 2004. He signed on shortly after retiring as a player and was here as a coach before we started our current run of 10 consecutive finals series. He is already a 2 time premiership winning coach, albeit as an assistant. When **** hit the fan in 2011, he stepped up for us in our time of need and has since coached us to 3 consecutive top 4 finishes for the 1st time since the 90’s. Add to that, he was rorted out of a grand final victory in 2013 and came closer than Hasler did to winning an elusive Minor Premiership. He has only ever faltered after enduring a horrendous injury toll to many key players, which has brought his overall winning % from the low 60’s to the high 50’s. No coach can overcome the injury toll he has faced. The players are still putting in for him, otherwise our defence would more reflect our position on the ladder. I can accept if people want change and if that’s the case, then fair enough. But to claim that he can’t coach or that he is past it is a ****ing insult. For the record, I could accept Bellamy or Hasler being our head coach. In the case of Hasler though, I would only welcome him back after Tooves’ contract expires.
I feel that this lean run is making a lot of us lose perspective. We need to harden up in times of a crisis and not look for a scapegoat. That’s the Manly way.