Firstly, I should disclose that I am mindful of knee-jerk reactions after a loss. If we win Magic Round against the Broncos, I will be eating my words, etc. but...
My concerns are that we might be over-coached. I look at a team like the Dolphins who clearly have a lack of star quality. They signed Flegler and Farnworth to improve their roster, but both have long term injuries, and across the board they have the thinnest roster in the NRL. However, you can count on them competing hard each week. Sometimes games get away from them at the back end, where the lack of talent catches up. They play a very simple game, based on effort (a hallmark of Bennett coached sides). Not a lot of tactical thought goes into their preparation and they attack with very simple structures. It's all about winning the middle and playing percentages.
Which brings me to Manly...
Our game is not about winning the middle and playing percentages; two things that have won football games since 1908. Our game is about caution to the wind, lots of complicated attacking shapes and ball movement (no wonder we look clunky). It's as if Seibold's approach involves 'thinking' our way to victory, instead of 'toughing' our way to victory.
What is most perplexing is that we would adopt such tactics with an abundance of natural footballing ability at the club. It's unnecessary to focus so much on attacking structures and shapes, when you've got so much size and speed on the edges, creativity in the halves, and a fullback with so many weapons. Essentially, the attack will take care of itself through the natural footballing ability, when our team is on top in the ruck.
This type of approach is very Bellamy, Bennett, and dare I say it, Hasler. Attacking structures are simple and repetitive. All the players are asked to do is compete hard. A common trend I have noticed with Manly is we score a couple of really scintillating tries, and then the points dry up. Why? Because we start finessing our way around the field and push the envelope to a point where players get frustrated and errors creep in. It's why Turbo keeps dropping so much ball. He is thinking about the big play all the time. If anything, we'd probably score more points if we could dominate the physical battle and break teams down over the course of a game, with percentage football. The Dolpins did it to the Eels a few weeks back and Penrith did it the other night against Souths. They were missing their biggest attacking weapon but they got in top in the grind and the floodgates opened. They scored some pretty unenterprising tries, but they still count for 4 points; as much as the length of the field pearler. In the end, they'd scored 42 points.
