Still some glaring deficiencies.......

[Crushercleal]

1. General play kicking - was woeful to say the least. Everytime Ox kicked one down the throat of their back three, they started their set in superior field position to us. A better team would have capitalised on this.
2. Speed of the play-the-ball - pathetically slow. I know they were lying on us, but some of our guys weren't making the effort to get to their feet and paly the ball quickly. We are a 50% better team when we do this well.
3. Attacking set plays close to the try line - non-existent. I know I go on about this every week, but WHY DO WE HAVE NO SET MOVES!!! Frustrating.
4. Watmough and Burns - yes Choc made some important runs, and could have scored, but he appears to be a shell of his former self. His handling is bad, and he throws passes when it is not on. Also, his runs are just too one-out these days - the opposition knows what he does and can just gang tackle him. I don't think he looks focused at all. Burns really needs to take pressure off Ox by making some (effective) kicks. Also, he has to know when to pass and when to run. I think he ran one-out too often.

 

[Fluffy]

our general kicking was poor yesterday - we could ahve done with monas in that department who was leading the league last year in kicking it to open spaces. Orford kicked it to a player on the full 5 times in a row in the second half, luckily on the 6th attempt peterson dropped it and we got our field goal

 

[willstyles]

Choc's handling is terrible, and we know he will drop the pill twice a game, but he did have a 130 odd metres next to his name at the end of the game and is a brute in defence. Wouldn't say he is a shell of his former self by any stretch of the imagination.

As for the quickness of the playtheball, it was noticably slower in the second half (and especially from the 60th minute) because both teams were absolutely f*cked. Run off their feet. I felt that Manly were superior fitness-wise, but we were playing with 16 men until the last ten minutes (use Willow better or f*ck him off Dessie!).

 

[PEPSI]

without trying to make an excuse for the kickers, although i am lol

the SCG with its strange angles and distant grandstands can be very difficualt for kickers to get there bearings.

its also much harder than a normal footy field so the ball tends to run longer and go dead quite easily.

 

[sue ridgepipe]

dead right pepsi.anyone who watched 80s football knows that ,particularly the hardness of the field.smuth is a very good kicker and he struggled as well.we won a game of the highest standard which was played at a feverish intensity.

we were hopeless at the end of last year.in terms of options and potential we are light years ahead.do you blokes remember what that same side did to us last year.28 nil at halftime -the largest ever halftime score in living memory in a semi.we were like browns cows in that game.most good judges i know last year knew we were pretenders after our good start -those same blokes aren't saying that now.and that is because we have a genuine halves combination-not a hooker and a second rower.
ye of little faith.some of you blokes are a little hard to please me thinks.

 

[Canteen Worker]

I am hoping that we develop increased cohesion in attack, especially in opposition quarters. It seems we don't construct sets but play it by ear. Too many wasted tackles and one out hit ups for me. It is improving and both Burns and Bell have given us options out wider. I do think we will get even better. However in the end forwards win matches and our boys have stepped up this year so far.

 

[ManlyBacker]

I agree CW - there were definite periods where we had absolutely no cohesion. Maybe that is why Burns ended up running it so much. I have to question our lack of set plays or perhaps the failure to execute them. The Raiders had a great lead and looked dangerous on Saturday night against the Broncs because of a sweeping deep attack and that was the same technique they used to shred us in round 1. I just don't see that from us. Some of Orford's kicks were a straight revisit of the Saints game 🙁 All the same and despite my griping we did ground out a solid tough win and it is hard to complain when you get the points, but it would be nice to see a bit more spark or creativity from some of the plays.

 

[Guest]

We rely too much on indiovidual brilliance of orford, Bell etc to score our tries and not enough on team work.

It seems the same story as last year in that our attack is ordnary at times and we don't have any decoy runners or players in motion. Too much passing out the backline without running proper angles.

 

[Canteen Worker]

It got me thinking that the best Manly sides over the years have always relied on ad-lib attacks and a good understanding with each other. Hopefully this will come. Burns is dangerous as an individual runner as is Orford and we are starting to see greater width in our centres. Our wingers are also starting to get more ball.

To compare us to last year is probably not good. Orford gives some direction, Bell is a huge improvement on the 2005 Tezza and our wingers can tackle.

 

[Fluffy]

not to mention our starting props making metres certainly helps the halfback out

 

[sue ridgepipe]

most of the tries bell has scored have come from close range against stretched defences that have been drawn in to protect the line because of our aggressive forward charges.kite,kennedy and co charging at the line requires multiple defenders as we saw many times on sunday with watmough being held up 3 times.the result is a defence vulnerable to the long pass or kick across field.we are playing to our strengths.horses for courses in other words.
as combinations develop we should see more creativity.i think des is using our surging backrow and improving front row as the basis for our attack in the opposition 25 and until combinations develop over time i wont argue with the tactic.

we are in the top 5 or 6 teams in terms of points scored without the help of any huge blowout scoreslike the knights or cowboys..i wouldnt panic.it will come.