The Issue has always been GO FORWARD

Inefficient structure in our go forward patterns year after year has been our underlying flaw that puts immense pressure on field position and defense. Its not defense that wins games defense keeps you in games its attack that is more important which incorporates go forward.

What C.Smith does well is get his forwards on a roll on and the structures in place at Melbourne are drilled in so well that it can only result in consistent performances. Manly too often try to be overly creative through the forwards in relation to ball playing or crabbing across the field not enough direct hard straight running with forwards hitting their stomachs and getting fast play the balls.

As the season builds up and consistancy is there then add elements of ball play and runners going against the defensive grain just like the way Manly built up their skill level on show during the back end of 2008. The early part of the season the rate of dropped balls and inconsistancy is high so feed off that and keep it simple not contribute by trying to be overly technical.

Another issue with Manly is our persistent over-use of dominant high impact tackles that either cause too many injuries early on or are ineffective at best. I fully understand this is one of Manly's strengths and was one of the reasons why we won the Grandfinal we had the skill of slowing the play the ball with dominant tackles and effective wrestling on the ground basically getting at a level beyond Melbourne through our high impact dominant tackles. The problem with this intensity is that its high risk and high fatigue and hard to maintain for 24rnds.

I recall a few weeks away from the Semi's last year how we made the Roosters look like kids blowing them away in the first half but had nothing in the tank in the second half----at our best the high impact high intensity dominating field position style is awesome to watch but it needs to be paced a little especially with a shallow bench.(hint G.Rose)
 

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