Harper, Schuster & Olakau'atu

[robbiea]

Drop 3 players in sudden death ,who have played great all year . !

 

[The Who]

If any club is going to take a punt on Scott, and Elliot, it will be Illawarra who can't even spell the word kulcha!

 

[nightster]

Jake... seriously... love him but mate... get off the tackled player.. stop holding on.. second efforts on a tackled player and for what... penalty after penalty.. we lose any momentum or pressure.. FFS

yet Melbourne can do it with impunity ... and now the Rorters too

 

[Ryan]

Drop 3 players in sudden death ,who have played great all year . !

Not sure anyone is suggesting that mate?

 

[The Who]

Drop 3 players in sudden death ,who have played great all year . !

No. I, and some others, are suggesting we "rest" Harpo because he hasn't been up to standard in recent weeks. I like Harpo, but we are wasting a potential blockbuster by not giving Suli a try.
Froggy comes in for SirLoin who wasn't part of the original 17 anyway.
So, just one player rested/dropped.
My suggestion is that we need to get Guaca and The Shoe back to their attacking best, so we should play one, or both, from the bench. Keppi and The Lawman can play second row initially and do a lot of tackling. We then introduce our two young X-Factors into the match to cut the tiring defence to pieces.
Guaca and The Shoe have been stunted by all the defence they are having to do, and it has caught up with them recently.
We need to play to our strengths, which is attack.

 

[robbiea]

Not sure anyone is suggesting that mate?

My mistake .

 

[Technical Coach]

Mate, I think a lot (and I'm not making excuses here) of that had to do with the ref allowing The Storm to hold down the attacker in tackles one and two (particularly), and over policing us in the same area when we were defending? I HONESTLY felt that.

That will always set your forwards on the back foot. I noticed almost 90% of our tackles the Storm players would get up , point at players and scream at the ref. If that was Walker, he'd be punished for it.

That said, our play-the-ball speed didn't allow for momentum. Our energy has been really down the past month (regardless of result) against The Dogs, The Cows. I kind of wished we played tougher teams heading into the finals.

There is a distinct lack of....I call it intensity, energy, whatever. We are just two paces behind Melbourne in absolutely everything. I don't THINK it's fitness. We do look very bandaged up. Are we playing particularly injured?

Love to see the bench rotation a bit more. How many minutes did Keppie, Siro, Paseka get anyways? No wonder we looked lethargic. Olakau'atu looked his best coming off the bench for us. Harper hasn't been the same in a month, and poor old Schuster almost looks disinterested , or upset at the world at times. They need a shot of Hoppa's Mums carva or Des calves blood, to at least start looking interested again.

For almost 15yrs now fans keep complaining that refs allow more latitude to Melb in slowing down the play the ball like it is some conspiracy theory, Melb control and manage the tackle with composed technique and to me that is a form of dominace(in my eyes) and should be rewarded.

If no other team is capable of replicating their slowing down techniques in 15yrs(and i'm not referring to the more in your face illegal tactics of the past) then it is obvious 15 other teams are not learning fast enough and keeping on top of what works.

You play some footy(plenty of off the ball movement and support runners pushing up), you move them around, you play with finals intensity, a little up tempo aggression at the right moments to swing momentum, playing with smarts, well thought out tactics beyond just focussing on possession/error stats and a team as talented as Manly can really trouble Melb.

Playing within yourself and trying to just stay in the grind will just play into Melb's suffocating ways, on tv it comes across like the opposition is just having a flat day but it is more frustration from lacking impact, penetration and eventually throwing up the white flag.

One out predictable forward runs even at good pace and intensity is not good enough, support runners making half assed runs supporting the lead runner is not good enough, spreading the ball early as your only form of variation to move Melb around is not good enough, everything has to be done with purpose and well thought out detail.

If Manly think some hard running big forwards is what defines finals intensity well they have a lot to learn, if Manly think early lateral spreads based off zero middle platform advantage or penetration is our way of offering "variation" and moving Melb around then enjoy the unforced and forced errors racking up. If Manly think defending within ourselves in a disciplined manner is going to "keep us in the grind" good luck with that.

I laughed when Andrew Johns asked Reynolds "did Bennett have the team focus on defence during the week" that is the most brain dead analysis from Johns i have seen.(and i rate his views on the game highly but not in this instance) Reynolds replied with a wry smile and said the total opposite, that playing footy and moving Penrith around was the focus during the week.

 

[Ryan]

For almost 15yrs now fans keep complaining that refs allow more latitude to Melb in slowing down the play the ball like it is some conspiracy theory, Melb control and manage the tackle with composed technique and to me that is a form of dominace(in my eyes) and should be rewarded.

If no other team is capable of replicating their slowing down techniques in 15yrs(and i'm not referring to the more in your face illegal tactics of the past) then it is obvious 15 other teams are not learning fast enough and keeping on top of what works.

You play some footy(plenty of off the ball movement and support runners pushing up), you move them around, you play with finals intensity, a little up tempo aggression at the right moments to swing momentum, playing with smarts, well thought out tactics beyond just focussing on possession/error stats and a team as talented as Manly can really trouble Melb.

Playing within yourself and trying to just stay in the grind will just play into Melb's suffocating ways, on tv it comes across like the opposition is just having a flat day but it is more frustration from lacking impact, penetration and eventually throwing up the white flag.

One out predictable forward runs even at good pace and intensity is not good enough, support runners making half assed runs supporting the lead runner is not good enough, spreading the ball early as your only form of variation to move Melb around is not good enough, everything has to be done with purpose and well thought out detail.

If Manly think some hard running big forwards is what defines finals intensity well they have a lot to learn, if Manly think early lateral spreads based off zero middle platform advantage or penetration is our way of offering "variation" and moving Melb around then enjoy the unforced and forced errors racking up. If Manly think defending within ourselves in a disciplined manner is going to "keep us in the grind" good luck with that.

I laughed when Andrew Johns asked Reynolds "did Bennett have the team focus on defence during the week" that is the most brain dead analysis from Johns i have seen.(and i rate his views on the game highly but not in this instance) Reynolds replied with a wry smile and said the total opposite, that playing footy and moving Penrith around was the focus during the week.

None of this can occur, with our deplorably slow play-the-balls. We can't get on a roll. We can't gain momentum. We can spread the ball with time. A LOT of that stems from tackles one and two.

Our play the ball speed is disgusting. Look at a very under strength Chooks. They win by getting on a roll.

To me, that smacks of laziness, nonchalance, selfishness, fitness, lack of those 1%'ers. Again, we had too many passengers this past game. Reminded me of end of last year, start of this year, where our players seemed disinterested to get into the trenches and fight for their lives.

8 teams have played in the finals series. One was embarrassed by their performance (looked like men versus boys). I won't say who that was, I'll leave it up to people to decide. themselves.

 

[KNUCKLES]

This. Why the farrrk is DCE passing to a flat-footed Ola? Why is Ola not trained and drilled to be running from deep on hard straight lines??? That's his strength. Like NAS, Fafita, et al, nobody is going to stop him in that scenario close to the line, and will suck in multiple defenders to open up opportunities for others too.

Alot of the time I noticed when DCE had ball in hand, he was cutting in and out in a zig zag like fashion. Which can make it hard for a holerunner to pick the hole and time their run. I'm not putting all the ownice on DCE, but I'd like to see him straighten up at times. Sometimes simple is more effective. He has put Smole under pressure a few times in situations like these

 

[Tragic Eagle]

Harper played his worst game of the year tonight - hilarious how the "Dez got lucky with injuries brigade" are now calling for Suli. Flip - flop- flip - pause to munch on a sausage roll.

Form is not a constant and locking in to historical opinions as to form in the past makes no sense. We are all Manly supporters I just don't understand the need for divisive posts.

 

[Tragic Eagle]

When your half starts dummying and cuttings back inside too frequently big units stop running at holes to conserve energy. I cringe when DCE starts doing that he just needs to play the line and not overthink it.

 

[Kevinward777]

Drop 3 players in sudden death ,who have played great all year . !

Clap, clap, clap indeed.

 

[lsz]

I really think many on here are under estimating the impact of a couple of factors to Shu and Gauc

1. This is their first full year in first grade. Last year was a disjointed year meaning this is their first full year in two years. Thye are young kids getting used to first grade
2. It is pretty clear, especially for Shu, that teams are running a heap more traffic his way

If you look at the stats here Josh Schuster
When he does 25 or less tackles he is far more likely to do a line break assist / line break

 

[The Who]

I really think many on here are under estimating the impact of a couple of factors to Shu and Gauc

1. This is their first full year in first grade. Last year was a disjointed year meaning this is their first full year in two years. Thye are young kids getting used to first grade
2. It is pretty clear, especially for Shu, that teams are running a heap more traffic his way

If you look at the stats here Josh Schuster
When he does 25 or less tackles he is far more likely to do a line break assist / line break

You are correct, and we acknowledge it. Both players are doing too much defensive work. That's why some of us are suggesting one or both start from the bench so the coach can pick when the team needs their attacking flair.

 

[Sheikheagle]

Could be a good option to run both guac and Schu off the bench to be replaced by keppie and Lawton. Let the sting go out of the game however I may be wrong but don’t both normally play the 80. So that would potentially be two extra interchanges.

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

You are correct, and we acknowledge it.

So we're using the royal we now I see. Fair enough, Your Majesty 🙂

 

[Tragic Eagle]

Backrowers are supposed to work hard defensively. However, when you make mistakes and play without the football the pack gets gassed having to do a lot of extra work in defence. We have to get rid of all of the turnovers and everything else will fall into place.

 

[BOZO]

Drop 3 players in sudden death ,who have played great all year . !

Perspective time ..

Performance is all about current form and not past form

How some players played all year was not a factor when we failed against the storm

We have players in our squad waiting for their opportunity and we should give them go . What is the point of having them in our squad if we do not give them a go .

Accepting mediocre performances and not making changes creates complacency


Loyalty should be given to all our players in our squad and not just the starting 13
If we do not have faith in the others to do the job we may as well piss them off


We currently on current form have two dormant centres

Moses the Monster needs to have shot because the other two are not even scaring the oppositions players Mothers

 

[Rocky]

Does anybody now how many interchanges we typically use? Given we don't seem to use 2 of our bench players until the last 5 minutes of the game, then it cant be that many. In response to @Sheikheagle post

 

[Sheikheagle]

Does anybody now how many interchanges we typically use? Given we don't seem to use 2 of our bench players until the last 5 minutes of the game, then it cant be that many. In response to @Sheikheagle post

Good question