Round 23, 2012 NRL: Cronulla Sutherland Sharks vs Newcastle Knights @ Hunter Stadium, Monday 13th August @ 07.00pm

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The Real Truth

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Sadly, I see Matt Elliott in Flanagan. A comment a few weeks back when he blamed himself for the performance sent alarm bells ringing in my head. There is too much blame laying and not enough honesty. I am sure the coach prepares the players as best he can, however, a performance like tonight was terrible. To me, it was a team that has played hard all year and are running on empty. You can't expect to play grinding football all year and not have it wear you down over time.
 
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D.D

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one thing that i find always tears us apart, and that we never do. Is that we always like to spread early through all hands to our centres which is well and good. but not every time.
We need to try our hand at getting some earlier ball to our centre first and throwing small inside passes to the likes of Bukuya or whoever in-between opposition centre and edge back rower.
the amount of times i see this play absolutely tear us apart is painful.

btw Bukuya has been quite horrible of late, missed Tupou this match.

Its just predictable on every single spread that it goes Degoise to Robson to Carney to Bukuya(or whoever) then hit it up and try get a predictable pass to the centre. We need to assess each situation better and play to whats in front of us. Throw a couple cut out passes straight to our centre and have Bakuya or Graham deeper running into a straight hole. ****!
 
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I think broadly the problem is creativity. Playing to our strengths in a creative way. We never do short passes amongst the forwards which is a must these days. All night tonite Newcastle rushed up with 3 or 4 forwards to tackle the man with the ball, but not once did I see anyone pass just short of the line to expose the space outside. Fifita can stand in a 3 man tackle and get his arms fee to offload, but there never seems to be a plan to do this, no ones there. Earlier in the year the players praised flanno for giving each man a simple job to do, and then together as a team they do well. I think it might be time that each man's simple job to become a bit more complex.

And if Townsend's sternum injury is sorted, they need to try him with Carney. His kicking game would have been invaluable tonight. I think he is the man to take a lot of kicking duties off Carney (including goal kicking), so we can start to really get to the bottom of Carney. Really start to unleash his attacking potential on this team.
 
DeathMoth

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teflon77 said:
So it was a good use of the bench was it? It was mind boggling. And it's not the first time it's happened this year either.
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well that depends on whether i said it was a good use of the bench, doesn't it.

i believe the resounding point of my post was to highlight that the bench rotation was not the reason we lost. we lost because we played like a bag of cocks. you guys will find anything to whinge about won't you.
 
Opeth

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what happens if we don't make the eight this year with the run home that could easily happen do we stick with flanno after we just re-signed him or do we get another coach if there is any
 
sharks69

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Opeth said:
what happens if we don't make the eight this year with the run home that could easily happen do we stick with flanno after we just re-signed him or do we get another coach if there is any
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Daniel Anderson or Murray
 
85Sharkie

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Newcastle just wanted that game more than us last night. They were more enthusiastic and committed in defence all night, attacked with purpose and confidence and played like their season was on the line.
Its a massive worry that a month away from the finals that we put up that kind of performance against a team outside the 8. While im not ready to give up on our chances to make the finals or do well in the finals we have played like rubbish for the last 6 weeks now. The Warriors game looks like a massive aberration after watching them get flogged by the cowboys.
 
Mr Ryan

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The worst thing for me is not the fact we lost, or the fact that we played ****house. The worse thing is knowing that we still have that sort of performance in us.

It's the run home. We should be firing. We should be winning, and if we do lose, it should be because the other team played really, really well. Not because we didn't turn up.
 
Sparkles

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teflon77 said:
Mmm, but Wilson, he clearly wasn't ready to go because he re injured his sternum.
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Hate to say to I told you all so (not you necessarily Teflon), but this is what's been happening for the past month or more. I underdone players coming back into the squad early. I and the result? I Flat performances.. Gibbs was ordinary.. Graham obviously not well and playing nowhere near top speed. Newcastle simply out muscled us and gave the backs no room. That's what happens when a fresh, fit team takes on a tired, hurt team.
 
vicsharkfan

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The season long race, has turned the final corner straighting for the run home and we appear to be three wide mouth wide open jumping up and down on the spot. I call for a reduction in the length of the regular season after 18 weeks we were going nicely. Need to scrape into the finals so some of the young guys can get a sniff of September action to harden their resolve for next year.
 
Mark^Bastard

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Gibbs was probably our second best forward? Or best if you consider Gallen over playing his hand enough to negate his massive work load.
 
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Omnishark

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The thing that really irks me is Flanno's statement in the press conference that "I'm not too concerned" ... our intensity & execution was very poor last night ... how could we not be up for that game ?

CHOGM said:
I think broadly the problem is creativity. Playing to our strengths in a creative way. We never do short passes amongst the forwards which is a must these days. All night tonite Newcastle rushed up with 3 or 4 forwards to tackle the man with the ball, but not once did I see anyone pass just short of the line to expose the space outside. Fifita can stand in a 3 man tackle and get his arms fee to offload, but there never seems to be a plan to do this, no ones there. Earlier in the year the players praised flanno for giving each man a simple job to do, and then together as a team they do well. I think it might be time that each man's simple job to become a bit more complex.
Click to expand...

Good call ... one out running & predictable plays aren't going to cut it against top 8 teams ... Flanno needs to tinker with our attacking structure through the last 3 games. It's not terminal yet ... but it will be if Flanno thinks he doesn't need to change anything.
 
Mark^Bastard

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I'm not sure why everyone is talking so much about one out running? The biggest things we did wrong in attack were:

- Going sideways before going forward.
- Not completing sets.
- Hardly any effective clearing kicks.
- Very very slow play the balls.

If anything, we should have been laying a better platform with our hit ups. I like forwards running in numbers and yes some tip on plays would have been better last night, but if anything the Sharks tried to spread it too much when they hadn't earned the right.

Neither of our starting props earned more than 50 metres in attack. That probably paints the best picture.
 
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Omnishark

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That's true, there was too much sideways before going forwards. Our platform was crap, our forwards got dominated, Knights won the play the ball, our kicking game was poor.

BUT even if we executed all those things right ... our simple attacking structure is going to get found out in the finals. Flanno needs to tinker now before it's too late - otherwise we're just too easy to defend against.
 
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