Our style of play

[Jacko2712]

I think it’s fair to say that 2021 has seen manly play an attacking brand of football which has set games alight and has been a joy to watch. At the same time this style of footy has brought costly errors which have been detrimental in our finals campaign. I am curious as to what your thoughts are in regards to changing or tweaking our style of play for next year. At the moment it just doesn’t feel like we can get into and win an arm wrestle.

I personally think all we need is a tweak to our play and a lot of that comes from our big man laying a platform and allowing croker and our halves to kick early and allow us to muscle up. We did this early tonight and it looked promising but unfortunately we couldn’t maintain it.

This season has supplied some great games and some even better attacking plays and I am excited to see what we can do next year!

 

[TokyoEagle]

Spot on Jackoo. Lacking mongrel in the pack and we start going wide too early which makes us cannon fodder for the good defensive units.

 

[sheridanstand78]

When it comes off its breathtaking to watch and the moments of attacking play were spectacular to watch.

What is needed is some balance. Under duress of finals we were too much rocks and diamonds and giving up the ball too easily.

We need to learn to handle setbacks in big games, We had two tonight, trailing 6-0 and 12-0 where we had tries not scored and they scored both times in the next set.

What is important too is that our best and worst performances are a lot closer. Its a young team and hopefully it learns fast.

 

[George Rose's Butcher]

Looks like we went away from our normal game plan until the 2nd half. Turbo barely sighted in 1st half no runs from dummy half or first receiver like he does 1000 times a game. Only in the 2nd we started to play like normal, spreading the ball in our half but too little too late! Losing keppie was awful for us and we never recovered from that moment he lost the ball. Same as storm game, dce shocking game.

 

[Remy]

Add a strike hooker, bring some mongrel into our forward pack to perform in big games, instill how important it is to value the ball and be patient. And we will have a more professional and finals-ready team for 2022.

 

[HK_Eagle]

Add a strike hooker, bring some mongrel into our forward pack to perform in big games, instill how important it is to value the ball and be patient. And we will have a more professional and finals-ready team for 2022.

It's been an issue all season (even longer). Why has Des not been able to instil this yet? Its disconcerting when a team continues to repeat the same mistakes and not show improvement in that area. I can only assume it may not be the focus of what Des is doing with the team.

 

[Mataiforever]

We don’t have a premier front rower to take the other team on.

Until we sign someone who can do that, we are left with two options:
1 Hope Keppie becomes that niggle, dirty gee up front rower we need, or
2 Fail to adapt

We cant play expansive footy in finals without another gun in the middle to help jake and that showed these finals

 

[Snake]

It’s a bizarre tactic because we clearly are not going to struggle to score points with the natural attacking ability within the squad. It’s not like we need to take risks to score points because we have no other way of breaking down the opposition...so why throw round so much?! Strange tactic.

 

[Tomay]

Just need to stop trying to push the miracle pass and play off half breaks especially. Will come with experience.

Then the defence needs to step up, especially around the ruck.

 

[Rocky]

It’s a bizarre tactic because we clearly are not going to struggle to score points with the natural attacking ability within the squad. It’s not like we need to take risks to score points because we have no other way of breaking down the opposition...so why throw round so much?! Strange tactic.

It is bizarre. I think some of it stems from the Roy Masters article published the other day. TLDR was that analytically a team is better off to take the risks and set completion is secondary eg Bulldogs had best completions in the comp.

The problem is when it comes to beating the best teams this doesn't work. We all hoped Des would have learnt this from the two recent Storm games. But obviously the game plan wasn't tweaked.. as much as the lip service was given to cutting errors and controlling the ball.

Des thinks we should be throwing the ball around and chancing our arms. Bennett and Bellamy realise that field possession and pressure creates the necessary points to win games without the risks that Manly take.

Clearly the likes of the Storm and Melbourne just practice this stuff endlessly and Manly obviously don't to the same degree. And this is the reason why we are finished for the year.

 

[Chip and Chase]

A couple of things are obvious to me.

We can beat the weaker teams quite comfortably but struggle against the better sides.
We are a good front running team and play on confidence. But we need to find a way to turn momentum and get back into games when things aren't going our way, at the moment we tend to descend into a spiral of poor composure and lower and lower percentage plays.
We need a back up plan to "get the ball to Tommy". The well coached sides shut him down and we look lost for attacking options from there. He has had a phenomenal season and more or less single handedly carried us to where we ended up. But he needs support, he can't do it all on his own.

I think the way I would sum it up is that we are flashy but we lack that bit of mongrel needed when things get tough.

 

[QLDSeaeagle]

We need a back up plan to "get the ball to Tommy".

I watched Saab positioning for attack, multiple times, but Harpo preferred to take on the defence. We were screaming at him to give it to Saab, to no avail. With twenty to go, they were barely bothering to spread wide to cover Saab. Opportunities lost. As an aside, my Daughter commented that Jason Saab is "a beautiful human being"

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

We are a good front running team and play on confidence. But we need to find a way to turn momentum and get back into games when things aren't going our way, at the moment we tend to descend into a spiral of poor composure and lower and lower percentage plays.

You make a good point about struggling against the better teams.
However in terms of being confident front-runners I think Manly has shown a bit more than that. They were behind yet came back to win vs Warriors R5, Tigers R7, Warriors R9, Cows R14, Titans R15, Dragons R18, Tigers R19, Raiders R23, Bulldogs R24 and Cows R25. Even came from behind to take the lead vs Storm R21 but then got run down again.

It's true we lack in getting in the grind with those better teams and being prepared to be patient and building pressure before busting out with the razzle dazzle. In the Storm semi it was the risky pass from DCE, against Souths it was the high risk off-load from Keppie. Last night we could have fought back but further errors killed our chances, especially that one when we'd only just got the ball back and Saab was put into touch.
I'm a DCE fan but as captain he does bear a decent share of responsibility for the team's indiscipline.

 

[Chip and Chase]

You make a good point about struggling against the better teams.
However in terms of being confident front-runners I think Manly has shown a bit more than that. They were behind yet came back to win vs Warriors R5, Tigers R7, Warriors R9, Cows R14, Titans R15, Dragons R18, Tigers R19, Raiders R23, Bulldogs R24 and Cows R25. Even came from behind to take the lead vs Storm R21 but then got run down again.

It's true we lack in getting in the grind with those better teams and being prepared to be patient and building pressure before busting out with the razzle dazzle. In the Storm semi it was the risky pass from DCE, against Souths it was the high risk off-load from Keppie. Last night we could have fought back but further errors killed our chances, especially that one when we'd only just got the ball back and Saab was put into touch.
I'm a DCE fan but as captain he does bear a decent share of responsibility for the team's indiscipline.

Most of those sides are what I would call flaky. The Storm game in R21 was a good fighting effort. Raiders win was dour but not a quality game by any stretch (Tommy missed that one didn't he ?). Those other games were touch footy, and proves my point that if our flashy chance your arm, get it to Tommy to make a break style of footy is allowed to happen we look like world beaters and play off the break. If it doesn't we come up with bad decisions becaue we get flustered. No plan B.

I just think we are a rung down on the quality ladder from being a genuine premiership threat.

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

Yep no question about that given what happened last night.
It's just one rung though so that's a positive. We need the players better drilled in Plans B and C and probably need to bolster one or two spots. Fainu can't help us next year barring some surprise development. If the rumours about Bullemore and woods are correct that could help. And we (everybody) needs to get to grips with this pandemic because Manly largely depends on developing talent and without reserve grade and the junior grades we are really pushing it uphill.

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

Yep no question about that given what happened last night.
It's just one rung though so that's a positive. We need the players better drilled in Plans B and C and probably need to bolster one or two spots. Fainu can't help us next year barring some surprise development. If the rumours about Bullemore and woods are correct that could help. And we (everybody) needs to get to grips with this pandemic because Manly largely depends on developing talent and without reserve grade and the junior grades we are really pushing it uphill.

There’s a few leaving so I’d expect we’ll pick up a few through the acquisition process ( pretty hard to do it any other way currently ).

Forwards are an area we could improve on.

Marty , try’s hard but I think he’s past his damaging best, he’s no longer feared by his opposing players.

Josh A , does a fair job , but no superstar.

Guaca , about our best

Schuster, looked tired last night but looks the goods.

Jake, never stops , is a ball player as well.

Croker , has developed , but certainly isn’t one of the top 9’s in the game.

Paseka , sorry I’m not impressed , huge unit , but more like a big teddy bear.

Sipley , I’m not really a fan.

Davey , a complete unknown and not even sure he’s signed for 2022.

Sirronen , gone , assume replaced with Bullemor, that’s an improvement.

Did I forget anyone ??

It was clear last night that Cook & Rat Boy were streets ahead of our offering. Nicholls tore holes in us all night , and big Burgess when he came on did the same. Their other forwards were dynamic , asked questions with every run and tackled like demons.

Our classy backline can’t do anything if the forwards don’t dominate.

We don’t dominate against the top sides , and therin lies our problems.

 

[Woodsie]

For 113 years Rugby League games have been won by dominating the middle ... the mungo forwards belt the opposition into submission so the good sort backs can star and get all the girls ...

Ennis the penis was 100% correct ... our style was flat track bully stuff against lessor opposition ... Benny's Bunnies schooled us on what finals footy has always been about ..

 

[Deleted member 26876]

We don’t have a premier front rower to take the other team on.

Until we sign someone who can do that, we are left with two options:
1 Hope Keppie becomes that niggle, dirty gee up front rower we need, or
2 Fail to adapt

We cant play expansive footy in finals without another gun in the middle to help jake and that showed these finals

Absolutely. 100000%

Taupau used to be that but his career peaked at the wrong time in 2017. He’s slowly become less influential and now we totally lack a balance of composure and confrontation in our forward stocks.

Bullemor and Davey could prove a major difference in 2022, as could Paseka who has been steadily improving, although we need someone to partner Keppie/Jake in leading this pack.