Make or Break

[mickqld]

Not calling for Dessie’s head. I’m talking about taking a different approach to the game and reinventing the shape of our squad to move away from slow centres and big chunky forwards. We’re too cumbersome for this fast game in 2022.

Well definitely Koula has to be in the centre and I'd think Tuipolutu eventually too. Bullemore, Tuitavake and Kelma Tuilagi next year is heading in the right direction for mobile forwards.

 

[madmax]

I think we’re not far off even with players currently in the squad. Injuries haven’t helped but that should not be an excuse. I feel Saab has been starved of the ball with Harper’s loss of confidence & seems to be targeted when he does. Yes he should bring back the ball harder but he’s not getting any protection from players inside him. He’s taking bombs & getting hit before he has a chance to run. On the other hand I get frustrated when he does have space he goes straight to the middle rather than use his speed & run to the outside. He’d make so much more ground….Special K with his speed gives Saab more space so he should start at Centre every game. Saab seems to be confused & is not getting the ball from Harper as much as he did last season. Maybe both he & Harper need a stunt in reserves. I’d like to see how the following would go……
Tom
Tuipulotu
Special K
Parker
Garrick
Schuster
Foran
Marty
DCE
Aloiai
Davey
Olakau’atu
Jake
Res:
Walker
Paseka
Sipley
Bullemore

 

[Snake]

Ordinarily I'd agree to most of your comments, but gota say we were down plenty of forwards and no Tom and Shoe of course. Not to mention Walks, Davey and Paseka all going off at various stages of the game. Would like to see us play at full strength for me to give an opinion though.

32-0 at half time though?

 

[Snake]

ok I get all that, but all the damage was done to us going down the Harper Saab right side channel by one Sharks player. Not through the forwards or through dinky kicks into the in-goal. All's I'm saying is, there isn't to much to fix, Kalua will no doubt hold his place for Friday, and not before time. Not sure why we're getting so down on the team tbh.

If you listen to Des, he says there are things that need to happen in the middle to combat the issues that manifest on the edges. No doubt, Harper was terribly exposed but it’s hard to deny that our middles consistently lose the ruck against the quality packs.

 

[Snake]

Watching Penrith, it seems their line speed is at an unparalleled level. It’s awesome. I’m sure some will argue they’re offside, but if they’re able to continually be offside for 80 minutes and rarely get pinged, they’ve got it down to a fine art.

I think their line speed is their single greatest asset.

 

[Jerry1]

"...I don't think we will win the comp while we are paying DCE $1.2mil a season - it affects the team composition too much and we can't field a balanced enough side to make up for his obvious shortcomings as a playmaker/leader. We've lacked leadership, composure and belief for a while now, since Killer, et al left essentially. The culture of the place has changed in my opinion"

Absolutely friggin nailed it mate.

Unfortunately extending him to until at least 2025 was another mistake

We have the halves to win the comp & the fullback, wingers are good enough - we just don't have the forwards, hooker & one center.

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

We are a slightly above average team with a couple of marquee players coached by a once great coach who's tactics and methods are not suited to today's game

I think of all the comments I’ve read this one pretty much nails it perfectly !!

Well done Pete!!

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

They seem fitter than any team in the comp.

Line speed, ruck speed. 3 in almost every tackle driving the ball player backwards.

People don’t realise, but this panthers squad have been winning for the best part of a decade in the younger grades. This is the team (with the exclusion of Woodies fav Barrett’s coaching attempt) who have built a culture on winning. They are used to demolishing teams.

People think they are arrogant - but they’ve literally been winning for years and years and are only just getting THAT squad and culture in the nrl.

They are the next Storm.

They are very very good BUT I’m not sure they’re the Storm, I see this side being picked apart and they’ll come back into the pack in a year or two.

 

[Snake]

They are very very good BUT I’m not sure they’re the Storm, I see this side being picked apart and they’ll come back into the pack in a year or two.

I’d like to hope so but I think while ever Nathan Cleary is steering the ship, they’ll be damn competitive. The kicking game alone will win a lot of games.

 

[Wombat64]

Personally, for me, I feel like next week’s game against South’s is gonna make or break our season. I know it’s only rd.8 but it’s time for Manly to decide what sort of team they want to be. Since Hasler’s return, we’ve been inconsistent; particularly in defence. We regularly win a string of games against lesser opposition, but consistently falter against decent sides. There always seems to be factors that compel us fans to ‘keep the faith’, whether it’s a crippling injury toll or the selection mistake or an injury during a game.

Last years dream run was largely against cannon-fodder and even the big wins came with close first half contests before Tom exploded. Maybe we’ve overestimated the abilities of this team for 2022.

Basically, I think it’s time for Manly to put all excuses aside and start showing desperation to win at all costs against all comers or start planning a new approach with some big roster changes because we are a middle of the road team at the moment. To concede 32 points against any opposition in one half of football is extremely alarming, regardless of a second half comeback.

If we lose to South’s, we’ll start to lose contact with the top4 and it’ll be making up the numbers again like the last few years.

1,000%. We've shown nothing to give us confidence and the way the Tigers are playing we'd be lucky to beat them the week after. We're bottom 8 at best.

 

[The Who]

The match with Souffs will tell us very little because the team we have will be missing 5-6 players in our top 17, and Souffs will also be understrength. We will only be able to judge our team's ability when we have such players back as Turbo, The Shoe, Al, Tent, Davey and Walker. Each of those first three players, in particular, are vital cogs in our hopes for finals success.

 

[XV-1]

Watching Penrith, it seems their line speed is at an unparalleled level. It’s awesome. I’m sure some will argue they’re offside, but if they’re able to continually be offside for 80 minutes and rarely get pinged, they’ve got it down to a fine art.

I think their line speed is their single greatest asset.

It's not just their line speed. It's doing it every tackle of the game, all in a straight line. Every tackle has a 2nd player and many times a 3rd, trying their best to flip the player on their back to get a dominant tackle and additional time to roll off.
Is Des and the defensive coach training this into the players day in day out? From the defensive line we run every week - NO.

This is what my Des is being outcoached threads are about. Getting the most out of our Manly team.

 

[Snake]

The match with Souffs will tell us very little because the team we have will be missing 5-6 players in our top 17, and Souffs will also be understrength. We will only be able to judge our team's ability when we have such players back as Turbo, The Shoe, Al, Tent, Davey and Walker. Each of those first three players, in particular, are vital cogs in our hopes for finals success.

I understand where you’re going with this line of thinking but I actually think it’s flawed. I mean that respectfully, but I just think good teams that are going to compete hard for premierships, WIN and they WIN A LOT! Teams that are pretenders lose games regularly as soon as everything is not peachy perfect. I know as a Manly fan, I pay close attention to our ‘outs’ each week, but if we paid the same attention to the ‘outs’ of the opposition teams each week, I think we’d realise how frequently we overlook them and/or their significance.

And therein lies the problem with making excuses for losing all the time. There simply shouldn’t be any to start with. Waiting for a full compliment of players and everything to click is not the reality of week in week out NRL. You win with a squad and you win regardless of referees, injuries, etc.

 

[Eagle 1]

I understand where you’re going with this line of thinking but I actually think it’s flawed. I mean that respectfully, but I just think good teams that are going to compete hard for premierships, WIN and they WIN A LOT! Teams that are pretenders lose games regularly as soon as everything is not peachy perfect. I know as a Manly fan, I pay close attention to our ‘outs’ each week, but if we paid the same attention to the ‘outs’ of the opposition teams each week, I think we’d realise how frequently we overlook them and/or their significance.

And therein lies the problem with making excuses for losing all the time. There simply shouldn’t be any to start with. Waiting for a full compliment of players and everything to click is not the reality of week in week out NRL. You win with a squad and you win regardless of referees, injuries, etc.

Pretty sure Penrith and Melb haven't suffered any major injuries to their star players. Penrith only had Cleary out for a few weeks at the start and Melb one fwd at a time out of their side, and are both now injury free.

 

[TokyoEagle]

We may just be an average team as the results are showing. As fans we always want to think that we can win but sometimes the reality is much harder to swallow.

Similar to Scorpio, I think we are not too far away from having a team that can challenge but there are definitely adjustments that need to be made to compete with the big dawgs. Defensive structure, centres, hooker, selection policy & forward rotation, to name a few. Of course, there is a lot of cross over with each of these, but are all definitely areas we need to address before we are going to be challenging the likes of Penrith and the Storm.

 

[TokyoEagle]

I’d like to hope so but I think while ever Nathan Cleary is steering the ship, they’ll be damn competitive. The kicking game alone will win a lot of games.

You put Cleary in this Manly team and his game management and kicking creates time, space, and opportunity for the team as a whole. Despite playing and kicking well recently, our halves are just not applying the same pressure that Penrith or the Storm apply to teams through their 'team play'. League nowadays is about possession, field position, and pressure. In those areas we cannot compete at present.

 

[Pete W]

Pretty sure Penrith and Melb haven't suffered any major injuries to their star players. Penrith only had Cleary out for a few weeks at the start and Melb one fwd at a time out of their side, and are both now injury free.

Bollocks. Panthers were missing Cleary, To'o, And Leota for weeks (lost Burton, capewell) and even JFH for a couple. They're undefeated.
Storm missing Munster, Smith for the first couple, NAS, and played without both Bromwichs due to covid. Grant also missed games. They're 5 and 1.
@Snake is 100% correct. Our injuries and misfortunes are in actual fact no worse than anyone else

 

[Pete W]

You put Cleary in this Manly team and his game management and kicking creates time, space, and opportunity for the team as a whole. Despite playing and kicking well recently, our halves are just not applying the same pressure that Penrith or the Storm apply to teams through their 'team play'. League nowadays is about possession, field position, and pressure. In those areas we cannot compete at present.

Lol only the bottom teams say things like "if you put Cleary etc in our team, then everyone would see how good we are..." lol. What a moot point, it almost sounds childish

 

[Ryan]

Snake's concerns are real .. at full strength we are clearly a top 4 - 6 side .. and will dominate most teams ..

The issue to be answered is ... in the games against the top 4 teams, will it be our roster found wanting ... or our coaching ??

Or will we prevail.

I don't know .. but I am not a fan of not contesting the middle.

Mate, you're treading a thin line here...thou shall not question Desmond Hasler...you know how it goes here. Haha. The numbnuts will be riding though in their posse imminently!

His team selections are nothing short of imbecilic. It's pretty rare after a game you'd hear a coach say, in hindsight, Harper may have been underdone. That shows how out of touch with the modern game he is. He needs to be ALL over fitness of his players.

Why have THREE utilities in the team (Koula, Walker, Lawton). Of those, Koula, probably our best centre rides the pine, while Lawton, possibly our best available hooker.players backrow, interchanging with Walker, possibly.our second best centre playing lock, accommodating Croker, a half playing first string hooker for the second straight year.

And people ask why it's been YEARS since we've beaten one solitary top 4 team !

 

[Pete W]

We have the halves to win the comp & the fullback, wingers are good enough - we just don't have the forwards, hooker & one center.

More a comment on leadership and culture than DCE'S actual playing abilities