Tonights game plan

  • We had an issue with background services between march 10th and 15th or there about. This meant the payment services were not linking to automatic upgrades. If you paid for premium membership and are still seeing ads please let me know and the email you used against PayPal and I cam manually verify and upgrade your account.
Of all of the above I agree with most but by far the thing that matters most is in their heads.

Desire

Playing for the man next to you, charging it up when you know you are totally stuffed but just one more time .

The side who wants the win the most WILL WIN !!
 
Yeah. Holding the ball is a given. But I don't fancy our chances if we get into a 'war' with Souffs.
So, I'd be playing to our strengths - our backs. Let's not play the conservative forward bash then bomb away. Let's spin the ball to the backs at every opportunity. Give them the freedom to try things - chip kicks, flick passes etc. - something that we were forced to do in the final 15 minutes against the 'Riff.
If DCE regains his mojo and the passes stick then we will outscore the Vermin.
Surprise them. Short kick-offs to regather. Kicks from the scrum base. Run the Vermin off their feet and stuff up their one and only game plan. Souffs don;t have a Plan B.
 
I'm hoping we hold our own early on - conservative football, ball security, waiting for attacking opportunities to come in their half. The more adventurous stuff should come after laying a platform.

. Souths are the master of the surrender tackle, setting up the quick play the ball, they get a roll on through the middle, walk off the mark, wrestle the marker and generally do everything they can to make the ruck look disorderly - and then wait for the inevitable penalty that comes from the spooked pinky when the legions of souths rednecks screaming for a penalty at every play the ball reaches a critical mass.

It only takes two or three piggy back penalties to influence the whole tenor of a game - . Suddenly we're defending repeat sets on our line and they get the inevitable barge over try. Throw in one or two of our regular spilt balls, and some poor kicks and you get a game played in our quarter.

Souths don't win game with creativity and finesse, they play football by formula and percentages. Their whole game is built around ruck domination. Most of their tries are the inevitable outcome of pure physics rather than skill. This is one of the many reasons why it'd be a shame if they won the comp.

We have to hold them in the centre and not allow them to bully and bluster their way through. If we can do that, our backs might prove the difference. Easier said than done.

There's nothing we can do about the muppets in pink though, except maybe hope that Hayne still feels a pang of guilt and shame for the drubbing he gave us last October.
 
Our game plan should be the complete opposite of the one we've been employing for the last month.
 
.
Here's 10 suggestions off the top of my head:

1. As others have said, "Hold onto the ball" and complete our sets.

2. Play the game down in South's half of the field.

3. Stop them from off-loading the ball in tackles.

4. Watch for Isaak Luke's quick dummy-half runs.

5. Stay square at the play-the-ball.

6. Try not to "Crowd" when Souths get up to play-the-ball. I know that our guys stand on the mark but we also know that Souths always step forward of the mark and we get penalised for "Crowding".

7. Speaking of penalties, don't them any opportunities by giving away any other stupid penalties.

8. If Souths kick the ball down our end for field position, don't just stand there after catching the ball. Run straight forward and get back some of that lost ground. I think that it was Gutho last week who just stood there like a roo in the headlights watching the opposition running towards him before he decided to take a couple of steps forward.

9. Score more points.

10. WIN :)
 
No time to really look into any great detail surrounding tactics but watched the last game at the SCG briefly.

1)Dylan Walker will be targeted again, rushes out really early on second man plays and also hangs back when fatigued. Noticed a few times when the play switches back to his side he is slow to react with hands on hips.
Foran should show and go getting in behind him or hit the short runner to set up the second man play later, or use the second man as a decoy and hit a deeper wider option.

Short sharp direct one out plays from dummy half as boring as they are and not imaginative showed there were good yardage gains to be had behind the markers or just to each side. Bigger forwards not getting out as fast around the ruck and from what I recall in last years Semi Manly did play fast and direct to get back into the game.

Under balls with an inside straight runner lurking through the middle, I would also like DCE and Foran to step back inside early and look off both hips with ball in front not just playing to their outside hips all the time.

Early kicks are a no brainer to keep the game going up and down--- and up tempo, don't look for in-goal long kicks we can't afford 7 tackle sets with their sized pack making it deep into our half.

You will see plenty of hard straight running behind the ruck or one out with the mix of second man plays in our own half to gain yardage, which is normally the case but I think Manly will tone down the spreads a little to allow the grind to kick in.(Usually Manly will go wide early and back themselves but I think they will just tone it down a touch today until the 20th minute)

Not an in depth analysis due to a lack of time....
 
Team P W L PD Pts
3 3 0 48 6
4 3 1 28 6
3 2 1 10 6
4 2 2 39 4
3 2 1 28 4
3 2 1 15 4
3 2 1 14 4
2 1 1 13 4
2 1 1 6 4
3 2 1 -3 4
3 1 2 0 2
3 1 2 -5 2
3 1 2 -15 2
3 1 2 -22 2
3 1 2 -36 2
2 0 2 -56 2
3 0 3 -64 0
Back
Top Bottom