Post Match Analysis

[driftout]

A total of 40 missed tackles for the match by Manly continues the recent trend. There was too much arm grabbing suggesting an attitude problem . The defensive line speed was probably the slowest it's been all season.The forwards are not hunting as a pack. The long kicking games of DCE and Foran were absolutely terrible tonight, putting Souths on the front foot every time. Minimal hang time recently with DCE's long kicks just gives more time for the kick returner to eat metres .

DCE is the talisman when he takes the line on , but he went sideways all night. The only time we looked dangerous was when Foran took the ball to the line . In fact , he almost played more halfback tonight than DCE did . I've said it before...when DCE goes forward , Manly goes forward.

 

[Killer03]

Whilst we are getting monstered in the forwards, I also don't think we are getting our sets off to a very good start.

Taufau isn't doing what he did last year where he was a cannonball at the line. And Hiku has really started to go to the line, and then crouch and get knocked backwards. So we always seemed to be on the backfoot.

Souths on the other hand seemed to be aggressive from the first tackle, and really attack our sometimes disjointed defensive line on tackle 1.

 

[driftout]

Taufua has been making the same mistakes under the high ball for 2 seasons now. He should have been taught by an AFL expert by now how to position his body to take a mark because that's most of the battle. If he loses the contest he should at least try to prevent grounding or dislodge the ball but he instead tackles the player low (which is basically useless in this situation). I've lost count of the number of times he has tackled an opposition player low after losing a bomb contest rather than try to hold him up over the line.

 

[castle eagle]

the speed of the play the ball was a huge advantage for the rabbids.
when we tackled them most of the time we had 2 players involved & they got a quick play the ball.
when they tackled us it was done with 3 or 4 defenders which allowed them to control the speed with which we could play the ball. also their wrestling was much better, not often were manly players tackled on their stomach, they had to turn over before getting up.
that only changed in the last 15 - 20 minutes when we were allowed quick play the balls & although souffs had switched off a little, the difference in our our attack was obvious.

 

[Shoe1]

Why was hiku defending compressed right up to skivi? He never marked up on his winger who had enough room to run around him many times. It was not just a matter of pace, hiku didn't slide or learn from the let off when the winger dropped it over the line.

Kieran's side looked ok in attack. Dce's side didn't. Jamie had 3 blokes waiting for him whenever he got a long ball. I hoped to see tred or dce angle back through fringe of the ruck while the souths guys were out waiting for Jamie. For readers of my views that was my game plan I kept under wraps.

 

[wedgetail eagle]

Agree shoe1.The "compressed" Hiku thing annoyed the Fudge out of me all night.
WTF??

 

[c eagle]

A total of 40 missed tackles for the match by Manly continues the recent trend. There was too much arm grabbing suggesting an attitude problem . The defensive line speed was probably the slowest it's been all season.The forwards are not hunting as a pack. The long kicking games of DCE and Foran were absolutely terrible tonight, putting Souths on the front foot every time. Minimal hang time recently with DCE's long kicks just gives more time for the kick returner to eat metres .

DCE is the talisman when he takes the line on , but he went sideways all night. The only time we looked dangerous was when Foran took the ball to the line . In fact , he almost played more halfback tonight than DCE did . I've said it before...when DCE goes forward , Manly goes forward.

So should DCE lay the platform and put the gloss on the back line moves.... Could save us a lot of cap, 6 players gone straight up.

 

[sheridanstand78]

Our ruck control was dreadful, they just rolled through the middle all night, then really exposed us on our right edge.

The biggest symptom of problems was our kick and chase. Souffs first two tries came from Manly not doing their job and allowing line breaks which then led to the trys later in the set, Souths also bombed another one from the same thing.

The last 4 weeks our defence has not measured up and if we are any hope that must improve next week.

 

[Fluffy]

the speed of the play the ball was a huge advantage for the rabbids.
when we tackled them most of the time we had 2 players involved & they got a quick play the ball.
when they tackled us it was done with 3 or 4 defenders which allowed them to control the speed with which we could play the ball. also their wrestling was much better, not often were manly players tackled on their stomach, they had to turn over before getting up.
that only changed in the last 15 - 20 minutes when we were allowed quick play the balls & although souffs had switched off a little, the difference in our our attack was obvious.

We tried but got penalised for a "second effort" then the next time we had the ball they had 2nd and 3rd efforts go unnoticed.

We might need to just go the bulldogs/roosters/storm tactic of slowing the play the ball down, give away a few penalties early but know the ref will put the whistle away/want to even it up

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

Inept really, says it all!!

 

[Wombat Legacy]

A total of 40 missed tackles for the match by Manly continues the recent trend. There was too much arm grabbing suggesting an attitude problem . The defensive line speed was probably the slowest it's been all season.The forwards are not hunting as a pack. The long kicking games of DCE and Foran were absolutely terrible tonight, putting Souths on the front foot every time. Minimal hang time recently with DCE's long kicks just gives more time for the kick returner to eat metres .

DCE is the talisman when he takes the line on , but he went sideways all night. The only time we looked dangerous was when Foran took the ball to the line . In fact , he almost played more halfback tonight than DCE did . I've said it before...when DCE goes forward , Manly goes forward.

That's a pretty good assessment mate! I really think Lui should be starting and I get the feeling BJ is still playing busted. Problems in the forwards aside, our defensive lapses out wide and on the edge of the ruck were horrible-very unManly

 

[driftout]

A total of 40 missed tackles for the match by Manly continues the recent trend. There was too much arm grabbing suggesting an attitude problem . The defensive line speed was probably the slowest it's been all season.The forwards are not hunting as a pack. The long kicking games of DCE and Foran were absolutely terrible tonight, putting Souths on the front foot every time. Minimal hang time recently with DCE's long kicks just gives more time for the kick returner to eat metres .

DCE is the talisman when he takes the line on , but he went sideways all night. The only time we looked dangerous was when Foran took the ball to the line . In fact , he almost played more halfback tonight than DCE did . I've said it before...when DCE goes forward , Manly goes forward.

So should DCE lay the platform and put the gloss on the back line moves.... Could save us a lot of cap, 6 players gone straight up.

DCE didn't seem keen on taking the ball to the line all night. Foran however did and looked dangerous when doing so , even with a limited forward plaform . I'm talking about his mindset with the ball in hand.

 

[Wombat Legacy]

Inept really, says it all!!

Bit harsh there mate. Inept is completely the wrong word. These players have consistently played at extremely high levels most of their careers. So inept they are not.
I say they are not committed as usual, which translates into not playing for each other...for what ever reason that may be.
But I feel your hurt buddy!

 

[Chip and Chase]

I thought we started OK and went with them for the first 10. The defence was willing and solid. Then they scored two "lucky" tries from kicks and that lifted them, they got confidence, momentum and the crowd kicked in big time. Add Hodges' injury to that, he was a passenger the whole time he was out there, tough effort from him but it stuffed us up. We needed to score first and sow the seeds of doubt, play on their inexperience and the pressure of expectation. That didn't happen and they just tore us up.

Our problem of late is we can't wrest momentum back in games, we don't have the power forwards to make an impact in attack or defence. We are solid but not dynamic. We just sat back and watched it all unfold around us and before we know it the score is 40-0. I don't put any stock in the late tries, Souths had clocked off, had they really smelt blood it could have been 60. Momentum is everything these days, if you are not getting it gifted to you with penalties then you need to take matters into your own hands.

 

[lismore_fan]

To any 'other team' supporters, Matai has been regarded as a dirty player. Why? Because he does damaging legal tackles?

His tackle last night on Walker when he held one leg, showed clearly that he did not twist, turn or illegally try to injure his ankle, knee or leg. Simply a holding tackle.

Of course, he was booed from the toothless Rabbid supporters, when Reynolds went down injured (probably feigning injury).

Pleasing to see that none of the Manly tackles were dirty or illegal. Even No-English ducked his head to make it appear that Choc & Killer were performing a spear tackle.(That guy (Inglis) can't be real bright to inflict pain upon himself just to get a penalty)

Manly is NOT a dirty team, even under duress.
The only positive that I could take from last night's game!

 

[joeboy]

I agree with that.

The biggest blight last night and four the past few weeks is players screaming at the referees face in numbers. The nrl need to stamp that out, and our players should know better.

 

[driftout]

The last 20 minutes was basically touch football compared with the previous 60 . It's drawing a long bow to take anything out of it, but as a coach you have to search for anything positive. Toovey's demeanour at the presser said it all. Confusion reigned around the ruck in attack when Hodges left. Even Snake threw a pass to nobody when he played dummy half for a set.

Souths had a safety net underneath them in the form of a second chance if they lost...I still think that they'll tighten up when it's sudden death . Manly keep making Lote Tuquiri look like Billy Boston. Credit to him as he played well but I still think he's a major weak link.

 

[simon64]

I'm not a coach. This is my uneducated opinion.

Our 8 and 10 are getting to the defence and then getting pushed back. What sort of platform does that lay ? Unfortunately, BJ and Starlo are good but in comparison to their counterparts in other top 8 teams, they're just a bit under the standard. How much are we missing Kite ?
Even Rose has left a pretty big hole (no pun intended).

Is Luaki any chance of playing NRL ? We need a big bopper to step up.
What about Jake T (I know he's injured). Can he make the jump in
2015 ?

We actually had pretty good ball security last night which was a relief. A pretty big positive. It was our inability to make 60 and 70 metres in a set that gave us pretty bad field position. And our kicking game was average at best just to compound the issue.

DCE and Foz struggled behind a beaten pack. DCE more so than Foz as he tends to play "tougher". Sid might need to do a bit more of this when the game unfolds like it did last night. He got us out of a pretty big hole at Brookie against the Dogs when we were getting done up front.

The part out of our hands; injuries. We covered the loss of Gift, but when you threw in Ferris and MB, we just struggled. And now Hodges. We've lost our first 3 choices for dummy half. You wouldn't read about it. Compare this to previous years and we did pretty well injury wise.

Anyway, as I said, I'm no coach. Just the uneducated observations of an armchair critic, albeit a passionate one.

We may win next week but I don't think we'll be overcoming these issues this year. Bring on 2015.

 

[Las Vegas Blvd]

That game against the dogs DCE was on fire

 

[driftout]

The performance reeked of a poor attitude. I'll pick out 2 moments in particular in the 2nd half. One was Jorge's failure to show the necessary urgency to stop Reynolds' try from a grubber early in the 2nd half. He needed to dive and try to get his outstretched hand to the ball first but took the easier (and slower) option of trying to kick it dead. The other was Watmough's effort in trying to stop Walker when he scored from a set play near the posts to make it 32 -nil. He had a chance to put a shot on Walker but didn't show his usual commitment.