Round 21 - Rabbitohs vs Storm
Their rushing out of line anticipating (correctly) who was going to be the recipient of the Melbourne pass and then making crunching tackles stick totally stopped any momentum tonight. They went about their business very well. We lost it at the selection table, no doubt. There are players of ours with very large question marks hanging over their careers. I used to be a fan of Blairs, but he hasn't found any of his pre-injury form. And ffs Bellamy, Hoffman is well and truly cooked and should never play first team here on in.
Kaufusi and Finucane did some solid work but the rest of the pack no showed a game we could least afford them to no show. We played well enough to be up 10 then hardly had any ball the rest of the night. Souths were quality tonight. Hope we use this as a wake up call. The last 9 weeks haven’t been good enough if we want to go b2b. Bellamy is going to have to make some tough decisions moving forward.
-
Insomniac
- Tropical Cyclone
- Posts: 2772
- Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2004 4:43 pm
- Location: Sunshine Coast, QLD
- Contact:
Must have watched a different game to you - yes, the Burgesses had a great game, but our forwards didn't show up at all. They weren't weak, they just weren't there.Inglis#3 wrote:It was more a case of the Burgess boys playing a tremendous game of football than our forwards being weak.
The second half started with basically zero forward input, and didn't really improve for 40 minutes. There's no excuse for that.
And being objective:
I wonder how much our markers got worried about trying to defend FROM marker. Penalised out of it early they seemed to be scared to make any tackles and they seemed to stand so far back from each other. How many times were we left with only 1 marker in position? (What's the rule here, can the marker that IS in position make a tackle even if the other isn't?)
Too many times we had a player left rolling to the side in the ruck, three in the tackle, 1 on the ground and 2 struggling to get in position.
The folly of playing two centres and no winger (although I did think early playing a big defensive centre was a good idea). Oh the irony that they score so many down our right edge. At least Blair did his best Suli imitation by rushing in and always being too late!
Hoffman, enough said. Surely his ticket has now been stamped.
Brandons spark would've been needed the whole game, not towards the end.
I'm thinking now (hindsight - yeah I know) that starting Kenny and getting him to do the grunt work and then bring on Nelson when the opposition is a little worked might be better.
When we go out the back we've got to stop using Slater, he gets it every time and the defence knows it, easy pickings. And I don't think he had a bad game either, I think he can hold his head up.
The errors must have been enormous, probably lucky we weren't totally walloped. It's almost a victory considering how poorly we played to have only lost by 10.
I wonder how much our markers got worried about trying to defend FROM marker. Penalised out of it early they seemed to be scared to make any tackles and they seemed to stand so far back from each other. How many times were we left with only 1 marker in position? (What's the rule here, can the marker that IS in position make a tackle even if the other isn't?)
Too many times we had a player left rolling to the side in the ruck, three in the tackle, 1 on the ground and 2 struggling to get in position.
The folly of playing two centres and no winger (although I did think early playing a big defensive centre was a good idea). Oh the irony that they score so many down our right edge. At least Blair did his best Suli imitation by rushing in and always being too late!
Hoffman, enough said. Surely his ticket has now been stamped.
Brandons spark would've been needed the whole game, not towards the end.
I'm thinking now (hindsight - yeah I know) that starting Kenny and getting him to do the grunt work and then bring on Nelson when the opposition is a little worked might be better.
When we go out the back we've got to stop using Slater, he gets it every time and the defence knows it, easy pickings. And I don't think he had a bad game either, I think he can hold his head up.
The errors must have been enormous, probably lucky we weren't totally walloped. It's almost a victory considering how poorly we played to have only lost by 10.
Terrible 2nd half performance. Our forward pack got raped and embarrassed by the Burgess brothers. They need to be ashamed of that. Hoffman’s time is surely up, he’s just not up to it anymore & he needs to step aside, at least onto the bench. Hopefully that’s the last we’ve seen of Cheyse Blair this year.
Now onto the positives. I like the connection building up between Hughes and Kaufusi. And well I’m just hoping that performance is the kick up the arse we need going into the finals. Oh and with Smith picking up an injury I think it’s safe to say Brandon Smith will be back in the team next week
Now onto the positives. I like the connection building up between Hughes and Kaufusi. And well I’m just hoping that performance is the kick up the arse we need going into the finals. Oh and with Smith picking up an injury I think it’s safe to say Brandon Smith will be back in the team next week
