Manase Fainu

[HoldenV8]

We need two hookers.

You forgot the pizza and a six pack

 

[Paw93]

Have to agree with Turbo here. Api is one of the best dummy halves in the game. He is the best at finding holes in the opposition defence. We'd be stupid to let him walk for a 1 game first grader, albeit a very good one.

I've noticed that he starts the game solid then drops off with his passing towards the end of the first half. He has a fairly high work rate so can see why that would be happening but this just means we either tell him to cut down his tackling workload or get a backup hooker on the bench and Fainu would be the perfect option next year.

I say let the kid develop and see how things are 2 years down the track before we talk of dropping a Fijian international.

 

[midsteyne]

If his mother used to drink down at the Canopus room in the old Manly Pacific I would say there is a better than even chance I am ....

What a magic place,loved the Can.

 

[Oracle]

Id be holding off on giving API his new deal to see how this young bloke goes for the remainder of the season. He steps up, I’d let API go and use the coin to upgrade this young bloke AND use some much needed cash to strengthen other areas..

Your either left field or got your meds mixed up Hozza..
had Api played Saterday he very likely would have stopped that try by Dallin Watene-Zelezniak

 

[nightster]

If his mother used to drink down at the Canopus room in the old Manly Pacific I would say there is a better than even chance I am ....

I was a frequenter of the 'Canopiss' many good ....and some bad times there

 

[Highflier]

I think we need 2 hookers anyway.We have seen how bad we go without a recognized one and how much better we went last Saturday with a proper hooker.(even though the game was riddled with errors our attack seemed to be far quicker and more direct a result of fast clean dummy half service,maybe the errors were due to the fact that the timeing was a bit out due to the fact that they were not used to the speed of the service ?/ )
Also next year if the interchange is dropped then I think it would make it even more important to have cover in that area and with the fact that both API and Manu can cover in the halves as well and sets up the bench to pretty well catered for when you add the likes of Tangles, Paeseka , Sipley, Winterstein(who went well I thought when he came on),plus Sirro and Jetski .It may even be an idea to bring API on in the last 20 or so totest out a few tired forwards as he may be a bit nippier than Manu (not sure about that )
Anyway it was good to see Manu given a go and he went very well indeed

 

[Oracle]

One thing I thought was telling and its something I've been saying for the past couple of weeks.

After Walks went off and Hodko moved to the halves with Fainu back on at dummy half.....we looked a lot more settled and got quite a bit more quality ball.

Its amazing what a difference a dummy half with good passing makes to a team.

And its why I'd like to see Hodko start at 5/8 next game regardless if Walks is fit to play. Put Walks at centre with either Parker or Suli on the wing, depending if Jorge is also fit.

A couple of points you may not have considered, where playing the Storm where Hodko would simply be road kill. (Before Sat 4 straight losses at 5/8)
Those heaping praise on Fainu must surely have seen his pass to the right was very poor.
But on that point he is not alone Api is lousy as well .
Against the top teams it is obvious to me that our spine has a confidence problem (technique issue) passing to the right.
There's length and speed in our passes going left, but little awkward passes going right (as Saturday showed)
Walkz in point of fact threw a fast left to right cut out pass that should have been a Suli try in the right hand corner.
Our success is always to attack left.?....under pressure always left even though opportunities present on the right .....surely TB could fix that.
As everyone rightly points out Walkz is our best centre, but see's little opportunities playing right centre.......just a reminder Dce plays right half.
We simply lack the polish to attack both left and right seamlessly.
The problem I see is TB

 

[HoldenV8]

A couple of points you may not have considered, where playing the Storm where Hodko would simply be road kill. (Before Sat 4 straight losses at 5/8)
Those heaping praise on Fainu must surely have seen his pass to the right was very poor.
But on that point he is not alone Api is lousy as well .
Against the top teams it is obvious to me that our spine has a confidence problem (technique issue) passing to the right.
There's length and speed in our passes going left, but little awkward passes going right (as Saturday showed)
Walkz in point of fact threw a fast left to right cut out pass that should have been a Suli try in the right hand corner.
Our success is always to attack left.?....under pressure always left even though opportunities present on the right .....surely TB could fix that.
As everyone rightly points out Walkz is our best centre, but see's little opportunities playing right centre.......just a reminder Dce plays right half.
We simply lack the polish to attack both left and right seamlessly.
The problem I see is TB

Hodko's first game back at Manly was against the Storm in Melbourne. A game we just happened to win.

You're right, Fainu does need to work on his passing to the right, the whole team does. Take the St Merge game as an example. Tom Wright showed how dangerous he could be on the right, but even after that around roughly 80% of our attack went left even though it was becoming predictable and predictably it got shut down every time.

In the early rounds, DCE was playing on the right and Croker on the left and most of our attack did go right because that's where Cherry was, but Walks wasn't there for the most part was he. But after Croker's injury, DCE was swapped to the left and since then that is where most of our attacking play has gone.

I agree the problem is TB. If you go back and look at tapes of his playing days, he played mostly.....on the left.

 

[Rosko]

A couple of points you may not have considered, where playing the Storm where Hodko would simply be road kill. (Before Sat 4 straight losses at 5/8)
Those heaping praise on Fainu must surely have seen his pass to the right was very poor.
But on that point he is not alone Api is lousy as well .
Against the top teams it is obvious to me that our spine has a confidence problem (technique issue) passing to the right.
There's length and speed in our passes going left, but little awkward passes going right (as Saturday showed)
Walkz in point of fact threw a fast left to right cut out pass that should have been a Suli try in the right hand corner.
Our success is always to attack left.?....under pressure always left even though opportunities present on the right .....surely TB could fix that.
As everyone rightly points out Walkz is our best centre, but see's little opportunities playing right centre.......just a reminder Dce plays right half.
We simply lack the polish to attack both left and right seamlessly.
The problem I see is TB

Don’t disagree at all re this year, but last year right side was our main attacking weapon. With Walker at centre and DCE playing with some confidence, not like a shot duck (LOL Queensland).