Ok Harper - last chance

Des didn't raise Covid during the interview he responded to a suggestion raised in the question and I admire him for protecting our player. That was well done. However Des's pre game decisions reflect poor judgment. Selecting Harper ahead of Koula and playing the first half with a compressed defence absolutely exposing our outside backs was the formula that led to our demise. Koula proved he was up to the job in the second half and made a mockery of the selection of Harper before him. Stubbornness can really cloud good judgment.
 
Insanity. The Sharks knew, everyone knew that Harper would struggle against Talakai. What does Des do? Throw him straight back in after very solid defensive performances by Koula. The blame lies squarely with Des.

Harper's reputation last year was significantly enhanced by a Manly team going forward on the back of Turbo's incredible season. EVERY time he came up against a a Top 4 team or physical centre he got owned. There are no surprises year - just that Des hasn't figured it out yet.

I have posted previously that he was a virtual unknown in the juniors and he was playing ressies for a very ordinary Dog's team. C'mon Des wake up FFS.
 
I know you cant pick you're team depending on opponents ( and Des would never do it ) BUT I'm starting to thing Saab is a luxury player who you'd want to start against lesser teams or when the weather is bright and sunny and you can ping the ball around and use his speed. BUT when it's a top team and a physical game OR a wet and cold night he doesn't want to know mostly and you need to leave him out.

This is probably harsh.

Saab just may be like a fast bowler you only pick for the WACA Test match or when there's a lot of grass on the wicket. Or a pinch hitter in baseball. Horses for courses. Pity NRL doesnt work like that.
 
Eagle of London said:
And as I said in another post what if Koula gets trampled by Talaki and let's in 6 in that first half. No one will ever know the what if moment but what we do know is Harper needs a rest.
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Alright I'm going to play a bit of devils advocate here. There was so much space around Talakai from there forwards punching into our line and getting fast play the balls that I defy anybody (except Jake) to stop him every time. We needed a couple of our big boys on the field to dominate the ruck. Then it becomes a different story with the compressed defence.
I like Koula and I think he makes good decisions but can cover when he doesn't with speed of which Harper can't. I just don't think it was all on Harper missing tackles last night.
 
One thing I noticed last night.

OK sure, the damage was done in the first half. But after Koula came on and hit Talakai in a driving tackle ... the big boy really didn't want a bar of our rookie. It was all good with Harper having a shocker and not being able to tackle him, but Koula put the brakes on him fast and Talakai was hardly seen in the 2nd half.
 
Forster eagle said:
Alright I'm going to play a bit of devils advocate here. There was so much space around Talakai from there forwards punching into our line and getting fast play the balls that I defy anybody (except Jake) to stop him every time. We needed a couple of our big boys on the field to dominate the ruck. Then it becomes a different story with the compressed defence.
I like Koula and I think he makes good decisions but can cover when he doesn't with speed of which Harper can't. I just don't think it was all on Harper missing tackles last night.
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Harper was bad but I actually agree... they were stripping our defence so quickly that it often ended up being 3 on 2 with 15m of space to play in...
There were bigger issues than just poor Harper (who had a very bad night)...
 
What??
You said you have posted previously that he was a virtual unknown in the juniors.
How more known can a junior be than to be selected to play in the Junior Kiwi v Junior Kangaros Test match?
I already commented on his defence in the Manly Defence thread. This comment was about why would you say he was a virtual unknown in juniors when he clearly wasn't!
 
More upsetting than the lack of effort and commitment in defense was he didn’t even try and make amends by taking tough hit ups out of our end, it’s one of the first things you learn.

The only effort I saw himnake was sprinting up on. A player and taking the wrong man which lead to another line break, I’m convinced he did it just do he wouldn’t have to tackle talakai

I feel sorry that his confidence is shot, but he just ain’t that good even with his
Confidence and does not
Even deserve the perseverance
 
I’m not one to “harp” on about things, but I think it is a long bow to blame the others around Harper for his failures in defence. Harper couldn’t tackle him, and even chose to go to Kennedy one time completely avoiding talaki (harper’s own opposite number).

The 4th or 5th try (I forget which), that was a 60 metre effort, Harper fell off talaki at around the half way line, so this wasn’t just poor goal line defence.

On another try Harper was passive walking in defence while Dce and Saab were running and active.

Koula showed great technique, low with shoulders, Toovey style. Nailed him.
 
Ex
Shoe1 said:
I’m not one to “harp” on about things, but I think it is a long bow to blame the others around Harper for his failures in defence. Harper couldn’t tackle him, and even chose to go to Kennedy one time completely avoiding talaki (harper’s own opposite number).

The 4th or 5th try (I forget which), that was a 60 metre effort, Harper fell off talaki at around the half way line, so this wasn’t just poor goal line defence.

On another try Harper was passive walking in defence while Dce and Saab were running and active.

Koula showed great technique, low with shoulders, Toovey style. Nailed him.
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Exactly, Harper not once put his body on the line in any of them attempted tackles. He is ankle grabber.. that needs to play nsw cup
 
Last night:


Morgan Harper (41 minutes played)
Tackles Made: 5
Missed Tackles: 3
Ineffective Tackles: 3
Tackle Efficiency: 45.45%


Daly Cherry-Evans (80 minutes played)
Tackles Made: 19
Missed Tackles: 5
Ineffective Tackles: 3
Tackle Efficiency: 70.37%


Stats of course don't tell the whole story, and highlighting two right-side players can be flawed - but it does tell a tale.


Tackle efficiency is a reasonable metric. Everyone else in the Manly team last night tackled at 80% tackle efficiency or above - with the exception of Reuben Garrick at 50%. Garrick must have been sick of seeing 4 to 5 Cronulla players coming at him through our (lack-of) defense line.


So - a poor night out from Harper, with probably some degree culpability from DCE. Even the maligned (reading today's posts) Saab tackled at 80% efficiency, the same as Parker; and not far off Foran (83.33%), Walker (81.25%), Paseka (85.71%), and Lawton (85.29%).


The biggest insight for me was Nico Hynes' post-match interview - he admitted that they had researched it and targeted Manly's left-side defence (O'lakau'atu, Cherry-Evans, Harper, Saab) as the area where we've conceded most of our points this year.


So - put your biggest running attacking weapon (Talakai) straight up against our weakest defensive area, and let the points flow. Not rocket science coaching from Fitzgibbon, but good enough to shred our defense for 40 minutes till we worked out how to counter it.


I've seen a ton of posts on how our centres are not up to it in attack. Ok - I get it; I honestly don't think that we have the $$ across the park to make every position a top-tier weapon in attack. Few teams do.


I do have an expectation that each player can aspire to a tackle efficiency of at least 80% in a game. Is it team defensive tactics or poor personal defense attributes - or a bit of both?


Koula improves our right-side defense - against the same Cronulla attack, his tackle efficiency was 87.5%. Maybe having Koula on our right hand side will improve DCE's defense - if you trust the players around you, perhaps your defensive reads (and execution) will be better.
 
Dce can be a good defender, but mostly he just arm grabs or slows down the defender always requiring those either side of him to finish off the tackle
 
Saab wasn’t terrible in defence last night. He at least committed himself to a player. I applauded him tackling talaki without the ball late in the game because it saved a try. It showed he was prepared to make a proactive decision in defence. The 2 points was blech, no big deal, better than giving up another 6.
 
There’s no way anyone can defend Harper’s game last night. Regardless of what went on around him, it was one of the poorest individual performances I’ve seen in a Manly jumper. It was so bad, you almost feel like the right thing for Morgan to do is hand his license in and say ‘I’m not cut out for this and it’s unfair to do this to the club and our supporters.’ He was so far out of depth I felt sorry for him.
 
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