The Storm dominated our forwards and stopped any momentum up the middle. By wrapping up our forwards with their highly drilled technique, they consistently controlled the ruck and were able to set their defensive line and markers every time. What that did was to take out Turbo’s spontaneous runs up the middle one off the ruck, digging in behind the defence (or even breaking right through). This is one of the key aspects to Turbo’s game that generates incredible momentum for the whole team and which also gives him greater creative attacking opportunities off the back of it later in the set. Against weaker teams he is still able to find space and opportunity even when his forwards are not necessarily dominating. However, against a team like the Storm he cannot create those flamboyant attacking plays when the momentum through the middle is lacking and he is dealing with well-organised set defensive lines with time and composure.
To say that our other backs fail to step up when Turbo is shut down is just not an insightful nor accurate picture of what is going on in a game like that Storm one. I mean… seriously? So, we’ll ignore the fact that the greatest attacking player is not able to create anything but then expect a hard working role player in the same back line to somehow do what Turbo can’t? 😂 It’s the Storm’s strategy and execution of it that creates that result, greatly helped by our poor discipline and lack of ball control.
