Gotcha wrote:
Half back and second row are our biggest weaknesses. Sure we are short at prop, but those other positions offer us absolutely nothing, and it is where other teams have an edge.
Agree with this. People are often quick to point at the props when we lose but from watching the games we aren’t getting penned in our own half. We are making plenty of ground. I’m not saying we can’t strengthen at prop, we’re a bit short especially if we have an injury or 2. But the bigger areas of concern are as you say the halves and second row.
On numerous occasions this season our forwards and outside backs have got us into a decent position on the last tackle only for a god-awful kick to totally relieve any pressure we might have been able to apply. I could accept a Myler/Lolohea combination, or at least I understand the reasoning of having Myler to do the bog standard basics of a half just moving us around and use Lolohea as more of a running or passing threat. But that doesn’t work if the kicks and last tackle plays are going to be so awful.
I can remember criticism of our second row in the past saying the likes of Ablett, JJB and Delaney added very little to the attack, and I’d agree with that, however by god they tackled anything that moved in defence and helped tighten up the middle and cover out on the wings for McGuire/Burrow etc. Our current second rows offer nothing in attack and nowhere near the same defensive rigidity or quality. I suppose if we got another quality prop we could move Merrin from loose to the second row which might help.
For me the priority is the halves. They’re killing us at the moment in my opinion. I’d have more sympathy if the only issues were just struggling to put plays together with each other or the outside backs as they’re still learning to play together. But the terrible kicking worries me, because it’s not a one-off and it’s not only when they’re under pressure from the defence.
Statistics: Posted by Him — Sun Mar 17, 2019 11:39 pm — Replies 3421 — Views 673310
