Looking shaky....

[Barks]

After watching the Tigers and now Sharks game, Manly's attacking skills have deserted them. The amount of poor field position, whether by dropped ball, lack of yards in attack of poor downfield kicks has eagles on the back foot for a large part of the game.

What is worth praising is the guts they still show in defence despite the constant pressure and fatigue, but they have nothing in attack. Dunners provides confusion whenever he comes on, Orford has been out of sorts since injury and watmough paticularly is missing a number of tackles that amount to tries against Manly. I wouldn't swap Burns for anyone with his defence and enthusiasm, but he hardly sets the backline alight or provides opportunites for them - it's just run himself or pass it and let the centres make their own good fortune. Better off at number 9 when manly find a better 5/8.

If manly keep this sort of game up, it could be tight to win just 4 matches out of the remaining 10 games (add bye) just to reach 28 points. I'll just still be going to every brookie game hoping we don't see a repeat of the 2nd half of last year.

 

[Utility Player]

Good point Bark's but you need to consider the fact Bell did not play in the last 2 games. His combination with Ox as well as his own attacking flair is hard to replace. When you swap around backline players,Hick's Matai in Tigers game & then Beaver Matai against the Sharks it would have to effect backline cohession a a fair bit. A thing I have noticed is how much less Stewart seems to be running off BK this year compared to last year.

 

[The Wheel]

Not having Bell there takes a lot from our attacking options IMO. If Des persists with playing Beaver in the backline it will be a repeat of 2005.

 

[Barks]

fair call about Bell, the sooner he get's back, the better. Stewart is another player you wouldn't swap for anyone atm, but he relies heavily on his speed. Simply, if the hole isn't big enough, he never get's thru cause he won't take on a defender, he just submits. His fullback positional play is awesome, but he's a bit one dimensional in attack.

I'd like to see him start creating his own gaps.

 

[Cameron]

fair call about Bell, the sooner he get's back, the better. Stewart is another player you wouldn't swap for anyone atm, but he relies heavily on his speed. Simply, if the hole isn't big enough, he never get's thru cause he won't take on a defender, he just submits. His fullback positional play is awesome, but he's a bit one dimensional in attack.

I'd like to see him start creating his own gaps.

wat we saw from stewy against Penrith and to a lesser extent tigers was he was starting to create opportunitys for other players, we didnt see much of that the other night but then again we didnt have much quailty ball either.

 

[Matabele]

Who has stolen Barks' nic?