Forwards

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Yep ,we need 2 young aggressive hard hitting ,hard running forwards .
Does the young Fainu tick one of these boxes ?
Does Keppie mature that way ? (I think he could )
 
very hard for the forwards to shine when you keep turning over the ball. Some of it was unlucky.... DCE sliding in to touch... some of it was stupidity... DCE sliding into touch... with that little ball get away from the touch line - arghhhh but yes we had no ball. We really rolled our sleeves up at one stage in the first half and were smashing the Rabbits but as soon as we got the ball - an error. The boys were gassed. I also think Aloiai might have had an injury to that knee because he seemed to be hobbling.But yes when you are gassed and I think Souths had 65% of ball in that first half it is very very difficult to shine in attack or defence anywhere on the park but especially the forwards. I felt early other than when we weren't caught coming out of our own end which was often - we did roll the ball down the field pretty well and made yards. Anyone flogging Jake's effort and him being over priced needs to give themselves a million uppercuts. You seriously are kidding - no ball and a million tackles - what do you jibberers think he should have done better. What else could he have done? And now give yourselves a few more uppercuts lol. I was at the game sadly... something I never ever do BUT I was offered free tickets which meant my 9 and 7 year old rabid Manly fan Grandsons got the chance of a lifetime to go to Suncorp so I accepted. First of many bad decisions on the night lol but yes watching it live you miss just about everything that happened and why and so I will need to watch a replay but gee we kept getting caught short out wide - not sure if DCE was misreading on the right but Suli certainly misread on the left. Plus lady luck was not on our side in that first half with the South Sydney kicks from tries with the ball bouncing just perfectly, our disallowed tries, DCE sliding into touch... gee that slide has lots to answer for lol, the Keppie pass that doesn't stick... but yes luck was not with us in that first half. We need some fine tuning - no doubt. We need Haumole coming off the long run but I think our forwards are fine with a 47/48/49/50% of ball. It is out wide in the centres I think we need re-inforcements and Harper to take a step up next year. Parker is what he is... always rock solid - never rocks but never diamonds.
 
“Was never going to back up” on Keppie - you should be ashamed as a fan. The bloke got KO’d 5 minutes in... how could you have predicted that?

As a fan its your responsibility to pay your dues to players who are good/bad, mainly the former, not blast someone who got KOd and could do nothing about it

We have a good middle, but no “great” premier front rower.

I’ve said it all year on hear and been blasted for it, but Marty doesnt step up and is not the premier front rower to win us the comp.

In reality we have 4 weaknesses, 2 of which will be solved next season (in no order):

1. Inexperience
- our forwards especially will be so much better from this year so i think that almost solves itself on the wide scale.

2. No great centre (weakness moving forward)
- all great teams have a point of attack outside of the spine; i.e Olam 2020-2021, Manu 2019 etc. Parker and Harper are good but one in the same - they should compete for the same spot and we should just back Suli (if he stays) to become that threat, he has it in him clearly.

3. No gun hooker
- Croker has been good but is not gun. Fainu is that gun

4. No premier front rower (NEEDS TO BE SOLVED)
- Marty isnt that. Aloiai probably isnt either but would be a very good second-best prop. We need someone who steps up, like say Tapine, or just bank on a young gun like Utoikamanu from Tigs.

If we solve (2) and (4) i think we can win the comp next year
He knocked himself out. It wasn’t bad luck. He got his head in the wrong position. I’m not the least bit ashamed to say he is hot and cold. I’ve never seen him play two good games in a row in nearly 50 fg games.
 
very hard for the forwards to shine when you keep turning over the ball. Some of it was unlucky.... DCE sliding in to touch... some of it was stupidity... DCE sliding into touch... with that little ball get away from the touch line - arghhhh but yes we had no ball. We really rolled our sleeves up at one stage in the first half and were smashing the Rabbits but as soon as we got the ball - an error. The boys were gassed. I also think Aloiai might have had an injury to that knee because he seemed to be hobbling.But yes when you are gassed and I think Souths had 65% of ball in that first half it is very very difficult to shine in attack or defence anywhere on the park but especially the forwards. I felt early other than when we weren't caught coming out of our own end which was often - we did roll the ball down the field pretty well and made yards. Anyone flogging Jake's effort and him being over priced needs to give themselves a million uppercuts. You seriously are kidding - no ball and a million tackles - what do you jibberers think he should have done better. What else could he have done? And now give yourselves a few more uppercuts lol. I was at the game sadly... something I never ever do BUT I was offered free tickets which meant my 9 and 7 year old rabid Manly fan Grandsons got the chance of a lifetime to go to Suncorp so I accepted. First of many bad decisions on the night lol but yes watching it live you miss just about everything that happened and why and so I will need to watch a replay but gee we kept getting caught short out wide - not sure if DCE was misreading on the right but Suli certainly misread on the left. Plus lady luck was not on our side in that first half with the South Sydney kicks from tries with the ball bouncing just perfectly, our disallowed tries, DCE sliding into touch... gee that slide has lots to answer for lol, the Keppie pass that doesn't stick... but yes luck was not with us in that first half. We need some fine tuning - no doubt. We need Haumole coming off the long run but I think our forwards are fine with a 47/48/49/50% of ball. It is out wide in the centres I think we need re-inforcements and Harper to take a step up next year. Parker is what he is... always rock solid - never rocks but never diamonds.
You’re right about Jake tackling himself to a standstill. He was probably our best last night. Low % football seems to be this side’s biggest problem. Fix that up and we can be a force.
 
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Big games need big names to stand up, The vibes off DCE in the softening up period were not good, he was rushed and looked out of sorts. We made some poor choices early and the errors mounted and that was our night. When the engine rooms are really going for it and you have him take a low percentage run and get pushed in to touch early in the count , Saab did the same it just unravels everything. Dessies reaction at that time said it all. Our opening set Croker takes a nice low risk kick in to the corner followed by a great chase by our boys after we held the pill for five plays , not a complicated blueprint FFS. I hate criticizing DCE as he is a quality player but he can suffer from off with the head and on with pumpkin moments when we are in the middle of the am wrestle. That said great year and bloody well done to all those good boys.
 
overall our forwards were outplayed but the rate of possession would have crippled any pack. our pack is built for running , not tackling. big rangey, offloading types that are more at home popping an artie beetson pass than scrapping it out for long periods. they are just all the wrong body shapes for our style of play. frog and jakey the obvious exceptions both in output and body shape

laterally we are challenged a bit also because of it. observation not criticism

the team has to get its identity and play to it. if we are going to willy nilly our way through games with a hit and stick philosophy then we need to buy rugged defenders with big motors that go all day to support the added workload required to support low percentage plays . give up some of the ball skills and long strides and get finucane and josh jackson

in both the storm and souffs game the manly forwards gave away advantage early for a number of reasons but despite scoreboard pressure fought back to allow the team to build opportunity to refuel the lungs, score and maybe even change the games outcomes but in both games it was the backs the squandered the opportunity before the forwards got to pull 1 sock up

while tries are flashy on highlight reels they tend to talk more about opportunities in big games and we are far to flamboyant with our opportunities to be anything other than eye candy

it seems to me it would be easier to tweak the game plan and add a little patience to the armoury and earn a bit more respect from the forwards

this is not a new issue all of last year the chance of finishing a half of footy with % somewhere in the thirties was almost a certainty even though AFB and marty were the best one two punch in the game.
 
We could certainly do with a Cheese / Murray clone. I agree we lack a bit of punch, but it’s also defensive steel.

Slightly off topic, but he is part of our pack and we haven’t got much from him lately, the major thing I am hoping for over the off-season is that Schu loses 10kg. I fear that he may be one of those guys that never reaches his full potential because of his weight.
he is a pretty good defender but needs to do some real hard hitting up .... again we need to lay a platform so the outside backs can attack
 
You’re right about Jake tackling himself to a standstill. He was probably our best last night. Low % football seems to be this side’s biggest problem. Fix that up and we can be a force.
agreed totally and while we were very well beaten - those couple of non tries in the first half are tries - again a different ball game. But we are not resilient when things go against us.
 
With that lack of possession rate, the forwards were completely gassed. Losing Keppie after 5 minutes was tragic. I thought Marty really busted a gut to make a difference. But in the end, it all came back to lack of possession. Melbourne or Penrith will flog the vermin in the GF.
Yeah I think taupau is on the decline now. Nothing said it more to me than last night then when taupau steamed on to the ball from a kick off and got man handled one on one by Campbell Graham. Taupau got up with this look on his face which was very telling in my opinion.
 
Big games need big names to stand up, The vibes off DCE in the softening up period were not good, he was rushed and looked out of sorts. We made some poor choices early and the errors mounted and that was our night. When the engine rooms are really going for it and you have him take a low percentage run and get pushed in to touch early in the count , Saab did the same it just unravels everything. Dessies reaction at that time said it all. Our opening set Croker takes a nice low risk kick in to the corner followed by a great chase by our boys after we held the pill for five plays , not a complicated blueprint FFS. I hate criticizing DCE as he is a quality player but he can suffer from off with the head and on with pumpkin moments when we are in the middle of the am wrestle. That said great year and bloody well done to all those good boys.
Good summation. The blue print from Croker early should have been the process consistently throughout the evening but was tossed aside after the first 5 mins.
 
I’m referring to the Tigers two attempts at farewelling Tommy R...they got flogged both times at Leichhardt and Campbelltown, whilst we won at BankWest and Brookie.
Pretty fitting though. In terms of ability, achievement and status. It's like comparing the gleaming Fulton Ferrari to the Raudonikis gear-shift crunching smash-em-up derby Datsun 200B with flies buzzing around the dead cat in the boot.
 
All this talk about completion rates and poor centres and edge defence etc, is all symptomatic of one bigger problem. We don’t win the middle. We barely have all year. We’ve got enough attacking weapons to beat ordinary sides but even those teams we flogged (e.g. Sharks and Tigers) seemed to be able to get good field position off us on a regular basis.

Our completions are poor because we go sideways and panic because we can’t get momentum in the middle. We then kick from our side of half way constantly and give the opposition a chance to apply pressure from 40-30m out consistently and the bounce of ball eventually leads to pressure and points...as it did tonight.

The tide will not turn at Manly until something is done about our pack.
Aloiai - hot and cold ticking time bomb
Taupau - hot and cold and getting slower and older
Keppie - was never gonna back up after last week because he hasn’t done it once in his career...consistently good one week, consistently missing the next...lacks leg speed.
Paseka - not too bad I guess.
Jake t - great defender, no threat with the ball, too slow in a game that’s sped up.
Sipley - too slow and cumbersome

No bruising forward leader to show the rest the way. As much as I think AFB was a thug, he is the missing ingredient. Also, Cook was good at getting his forwards over the ad line...Croker not so good. Maybe all this talk of Fainu being essential is not far off the mark.

We need to do something about this pack to improve on this season.
Your assessment is a tad harsh Snake, we made 15 errors last night not to mention the 6 agains that went against us also. Any pack is going to crumble under these circumstances. If we had this amount of ball I'm sure we'd be running riot as well.
 
Your assessment is a tad harsh Snake, we made 15 errors last night not to mention the 6 agains that went against us also. Any pack is going to crumble under these circumstances. If we had this amount of ball I'm sure we'd be running riot as well.
Yeah if you read my other thread 'Deeper Analysis' I retract my statement about the forwards. It's just a general vibe I get watching but when you dig a little deeper its symptomatic of the sideways low % footy we play.
 
Yeah if you read my other thread 'Deeper Analysis' I retract my statement about the forwards. It's just a general vibe I get watching but when you dig a little deeper its symptomatic of the sideways low % footy we play.
So you're saying we play low % footy, is that against the top 3. The games that we have won easily I would say that we would of played high % footy, barring some of the closer wins of course.
 

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