Are we a lazy side?

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Official NRL commentator of the UK Royal Family
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This is not a straight knock of the side more a question on our hustle?

Do any of you look at our speed of play as I do and wonder why we look slow and lethargic?

I watch the other top sides and they look like enigizer bunnies on speed. Fast legs, lots of players moving, fast to feet and quick play the balls.

Very little of our ( let's get up looking at the ref for a whinge), players seem to be in slow motion sometimes when not directly in the play.

As good as say AFB is he just seems to amble up to the defensive line and backs in for another 5 or 10 meters.of course he goes ok but still looks a little slow.

Look at Tamalolo (sorry for spelling) fast explosive feet hitting the line hard and fast. Many others do the same.

We just look 10% off the pace.

Thoughts
 
I
This is not a straight knock of the side more a question on our hustle?

Do any of you look at our speed of play as I do and wonder why we look slow and lethargic?

I watch the other top sides and they look like enigizer bunnies on speed. Fast legs, lots of players moving, fast to feet and quick play the balls.

Very little of our ( let's get up looking at the ref for a whinge), players seem to be in slow motion sometimes when not directly in the play.

As good as say AFB is he just seems to amble up to the defensive line and backs in for another 5 or 10 meters.of course he goes ok but still looks a little slow.

Look at Tamalolo (sorry for spelling) fast explosive feet hitting the line hard and fast. Many others do the same.

We just look 10% off the pace.

Thoughts
Totally agree with your thoughts, when I watch Manly play which is every week our games seem significantly slower then other matches...Yes AFB seems to amble up rather then hit the line at speed, not sure why when he is actually a fast prop when he wants be.

Go Manly
 
Yep. We don’t run onto the ball, run in numbers or defend with line speed. We are also poor at pressuring kickers and making silly errors. That’s when we are bad. Really need to be more professional and get this effort stuff right every week if we are going to compete with the good teams.
 
There is no doubt that the Rorters, Worms, Drizzle, Riff are all playing a lot faster than Manly at the moment. All these teams are well drilled, have halves who manage the game and make great yards on the back of good dummy half and play the ball.

We hold our own in relation to toughness and resilience but we lack the quality of those sides especially halves and hooker.
 
Watched Hargreaves play against the storm
This is not a straight knock of the side more a question on our hustle?

Do any of you look at our speed of play as I do and wonder why we look slow and lethargic?

I watch the other top sides and they look like enigizer bunnies on speed. Fast legs, lots of players moving, fast to feet and quick play the balls.

Very little of our ( let's get up looking at the ref for a whinge), players seem to be in slow motion sometimes when not directly in the play.

As good as say AFB is he just seems to amble up to the defensive line and backs in for another 5 or 10 meters.of course he goes ok but still looks a little slow.

Look at Tamalolo (sorry for spelling) fast explosive feet hitting the line hard and fast. Many others do the same.

We just look 10% off the pace.

Thoughts
I watched Hargreaves play against the storm and I get what your saying, he played with lots of energy and hit the line hard every hit up..

Yes we lack energy and just don’t play attacking footy at times.
 
I haven't seen Jake hit the line harder than 15yo for about 2 years now.
Yeah, he works his guts out in defence every game but his attack has been pretty poor for a looong time.
Tell me; when was the last time he broke the line?

We are powderpuffs pretty much across our forwards.
There is no intent or mongrel.
The only one who ever hits the line hard is Sirro.

All our champion teams had their forward opponents dreading playing us because they were going to be real sore afterwards.
 
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To be fair Marty moves pretty well with purpose but I really feel we need to get some zip about us.
Too often when our players feel they have been held down they get up spray the ref then slowly play the ball with an apparent hump on.

We won't go to market but who would you like to see to do the Spud Carroll role. 100mph for their designated role as a battering ram?

Campbell-Gillard is a good example this season. He runs fast and hard.
 
We are not lazy, we are in fact stupid.

No idea how to get to the other end of the field without having to storm the ditches. no one who can give the team a strategic breather when they are out on there feet.

No attack leaders
No defence leaders

Leaders know when to uo the ante, or when not too and play conservatively

I think we sustain more injuries due to our bash and barge. Footy is like snakes and ladders , plenty of physical shortcuts for the clever

Our back row need to be better when we have oppostion pinned. And jake needs out of the playmaker role. He has better skills to utilise in both aspects
 
I

Totally agree with your thoughts, when I watch Manly play which is every week our games seem significantly slower then other matches...Yes AFB seems to amble up rather then hit the line at speed, not sure why when he is actually a fast prop when he wants be.

Go Manly
I think it’s more the slow play the ball which is catching afb flat footed hence the ambling. You need ruck speed And to be making metres to have your props running onto the ball. I think it’s a combination of Levi and the refs letting teams lay on us that bit too long. You noticed the difference when cust came on the field last week.
 
Manly 's outside [ Des "s style ] up and in rushing defence often goes unnoticed and the mid field defence has not been too bad this year with the exception of last week . No lack of mobility in the ruck area [in attack or defence in general ] , just need to be put on the front foot more and led better with some improved direction and organizing from our rep half .
 
G'day all, To use an old Jack Gibson line a few more players "a bit quicker between the ears" would be beneficial.That is not a slight on intelligence but ability to read the play.
cheers mike
 
I think we play with real intensity in defence BUT

We don’t play the ball quick enough because there seems to be no urgency to try to hit the ground face down. Roosters are brilliant at fast play the balls in the red zone. As are the storm( see Finucane winning play last night).

The other one is the blindingly obvious. WE LOOK SLOW because WE ARE SLOW folks. The backline is the slowest in the competition by yards. Croker , Parker , Suli , Tafua , Funa .....There is also no one in the pack with any speed at all other than maybe Sirro over a short trip.

The new rules put even more emphasis on speed

If you are slow you will play slow.
I’m actually amazed what Des gets out of these boys. I think they overachieve.
Fresh fast blood is required for sure to go to the next level.
Hoppa to wing or centre and Shuster to 14 would be a start. Just don’t think in the modern game you can get by with a three quarter line of tortoises despite them individually being good footballers.
 
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We are not lazy, we are in fact stupid.

No idea how to get to the other end of the field without having to storm the ditches. no one who can give the team a strategic breather when they are out on there feet.

No attack leaders
No defence leaders

Leaders know when to uo the ante, or when not too and play conservatively

I think we sustain more injuries due to our bash and barge. Footy is like snakes and ladders , plenty of physical shortcuts for the clever

Our back row need to be better when we have oppostion pinned. And jake needs out of the playmaker role. He has better skills to utilise in both aspects
Yea i get the feeling we are in it just to line people up and then smash em.If we don't go the way the game is headed then we will be left behind.The game is now a fast game,that's what the NRL want. A free flowing game.Our injuries are coming from scrambling and playing catch up every weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if we have players in our side that don't even like each other.In attack we look lost and have done for a while. It seems that we have the players to do well but its just not happening in the sense of being consistent. I thought our defence has been rather good up to the cronulla game and defin know our attack is non existent.The problem with today's NRL is that the players are always appealing their rights during a game either to slow the game down or to try to get something out of it especially if they are a side with limited speed.Heads are rolling in the NRL at the moment and will continue to do so from now on.I get the feeling our side is held together by glue sometimes.
 
During games there are periods when Manly gets on a roll and we look unstoppable. Then there are periods when I'm screaming "wake up Manly!!!" - and I think I have been yelling this for about 30 years at various times in games.

I'd characterise the Manly style as patchy, in our good years the attack and defence is amazing, but there is still a tendency to switch off - and it is so frustrating to watch it unfold before my very eyes - when you can see a gap emerging and a try coming but the players aren't aware of it.
 
I think the problem with fans of EVERY nrl side, is opinions are based emotionally on the last game they played - ours vs Sharks....
It was a very FLAT game and against more quality opposition, would have lost by 60, as it was -Manly played Cronulla back into form.
I think if we judged the Roosters game the energy was Massive and played very high tempo, the Raiders match down a cog but had energetic moments combined with guts to get it done.
We do have a dull side atm...as in not much attacking flair outside Tom T(out), Walker(out), Suli (out but back) and Fainu (outed)....DCE is imo, a very good half, but not really a bloke who often turns the game on its head with individual brilliance, but does have flair when the side is going forward with offloads and has the blokes above (missing) by his side.
Apart from that it's a grinding team that rolls down field with big, powerful bodies, but then seems to lack strike without Tom T and to a lessor extent, the Suli/ Walker options.
Personally just happy to get a few wins till back to full strength and we need to get used to grinding footy, because this is what we have.....this can and will still get it done and it was only a lack of energy last Sunday, the difference between winning and losing.
Lazy - last Sunday YES, but in general NO, Des should address this issue for Newcastle, but what concerns me is where the points will come from, unlike last week need to get into the grind and make it a tough ugly game, not an open affair to suit Ponga and Co, plus need a much better kick/chase and aggression across the park...the softness of last Sunday along with lack of energy was most disappointing from that game...
 

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