Manly love to play an up tempo game and that comes with a higher risk and we got exposed in two of the finals.
What must be learned is to have a more balanced approach. Earn the right to be flamboyant by going set for set and gaining field position and being lethal on the counter attack.
The two finals we lost really highlighted that as we conceded many tries direct from our turnovers. It is something that a young team can learn and we need to be smarter and selective when attacking.
I think a few other options rather than Tommy will give our side a lot more variety as right now the top sides know they can shut us down by not giving Tom and DCE space. They are our two biggest weapons and in 2022 look to Schuster to take on more responsibility and give us a strong option to improve our attack.
I think we are kind of saying the same thing.
We have more firepower than any team and can score from everywhere on the park and high risk can equal high reward.
However if we make those risks more calculated we will have far better results.
Conversely to your point the number of errors is an important stat. A high number of errors would seemingly be bad but a team with 8 errors made on the attack at the other end of the field is probably at a huge advantage to a team who makes 4 errors bringing it out of their own end.
Like all things higher risk equals higher reward but the risk/return profile changes based on field position. Playing risky footy inside their 20 has a lower element of risk compared to throwing an offload bringing it off our own line.
When we are in our end it’s far more productive to play percentage footy, kick to corners and build defensive pressure instead of trying to overplay our hand.
The closer we get to their try line the lower the cost of an error so it would seem to me that if we win the field position battle then unleash our attacking weapons in areas where errors have lower average cost is a no brainer.
One final comment on possession it also makes sense that in a game that say for example Manly have 40% of possession but win the battle of field position to 60% of tackles in their own half the possession stat would be balanced.
Say the opposition have 24 sets to our 16 but of those sets only 10 are in our half, Manly would also have 10 in their half which would amount to roughly equal time under high defensive pressure.
Focus on dominating field position then unleash fire power in good ball. Errors don’t matter in isolation, what matters is where you make your errors.
