2019 Season Post Mortem

[shire1976]

I thought I'd be devastated by last night's loss but I'm not. Firstly because it was so predictable but secondly finishing 7th and losing that game is a fair reflection of the way the team played the whole season. They couldn't win more than 2 in a row, they played well in the Canberra game despite the loss and the Tigers game so based on the trend they were never going to play well last night.

What's disappointing is the draw opened up for them. On talent and on paper that side could've easily made the GF this year, Manly, Souths and Canberra in Canberra is very winnable, we beat Souths this year and out scored the Raiders on tries twice, there's a GF without having to play the Roosters or Storm on the way to a GF, massive opportunity blown. But it's not won paper and that side could never win 3 straight anyway. Disappointing but a reflection of the season.

Next year can be better if they can get their head around playing a Kogarah. Better hooker in Brailey jr and hopefully a more stable spine and a coach who spends a whole off season with them.

 

[vicsharkfan]

We required a post mortem after those 5 in a row loses to bottom battlers, that’s where and when Our season died.
Hope some that were never going to watch the sharks next year is chad is our number 7 are true to their word...

 

[Tank]

I think we were lazy
Lazy and slow D
Lazy options with kicks
Lazy discipline
Lazy attitude
*Williams is a worry. Hands like Pomeroy and geez he misses some poor tackles
* Dugan at FB busts his ring and he does try but hasnt got that passing game of top line FBs
* Johnson is faaaar to hit n miss. Seems to lack control at crucial times. Might be due to overcompensating as he is working with Chad
* Our ball handling is puss
*Moylan can go to Tigers whenever he likes
*Ha ha Knights. Brailey all yours
Anyway been long year
As always looking forward to next years 6 months of elevated blood pressure
Enjoy summer all
Beers sometime over summer would be good if you lot are catching up let me know
Cheers
Tank

 

[kotwben]

Hope Morris isn't planning on a vacation any time soon. Lots of work to do. First step? Less hamstring injuries. Second? Find out who did Canberra's defensive pre-season training.

 

[Born&bred]

Too many players got away with woeful performances. Needed to drop a few of them.

 

[Tatus]

I wish we persisted with Flanno and Townsend while we were winning games. Messing with a winning side was a dope move in hindsight.

 

[sharks2010]

Year of ups and downs, far more downs unfortunately

After the cowboys game early in the year I thought we were headed for a big year, then it all just came crashing down

Injuirers killed us plus inconsistencies throughout the playing group. We unleashed some great young talent but they struggled with the week in week out grind of nrl footy, hopefully they'll be better for the run from this year and step up next year

We scored the 3rd most tries all year so that's great but our defense was horrible, conceding the most tries in the middle of the field is just not acceptable and is something that needs to be addressed before next year starts

Hopefully with a better run of injuries and attitude adjustment we can have a good year next year

There's definitely a very good footy side there, but at present it's buried below a massive pile of crap that Morris has to work out how to dig out

Hopefully what happened this year makes the squad hungrier next year

 

[Sparkles]

A very weird year. Musical chairs all season with the starting squad certainly didn't help. Our forwards bite turned gummy. And still through all of that we almost had a top 4 finish.

Next year is a fresh start. Hopefully we see the injuries are dealt with, the mongrel comes back, combinations formed and cohesion in the spine (finally!). I'll judge them and the coach more critically with an offseason under their belts. The talent is there... though the freshness, youth and raw talent I'm seeing across the league makes me wonder if our marquee guys can still reach that level. We'll see!

 

[Bundy Shark]

Copy & paste from post mortem in seasons 2017 & 2018.
2019, we got our threepeat.



- poor discipline, giving away meaningless penalties & field position, all of which, we generally don’t have the strength & mental capacity to overcome

- poor completions

- poor starts to games

- dropping games we shouldn’t, we do this more than just about any team that fancies themselves as a ‘top 4’ team, yes, Storm & Roosters do drop the odd game here or there, we do it consistently throughout the season, season & after season

- mentally weak, I feared we would treat the Manly squad on paper with lack of respect, only my opinion based off the past, perceived ego’s of our players in these types of lead up to games & the performance after the game is done & dusted.

Mick Ennis, while has been not with the club for a while even questioned whether we were looking at the team that Manly named & had taken our eye off the ball thinking we had it won.


New stuff,

- we blooded some really good players with unlimited potential in Ronnie, BHU, Xerri, William, Billy & Brit.

- terrible season with injuries, some just plain bad luck, some, most? Due to poor injury management, poor off season training program or not the right program for individual players?

 

[Mr Ryan]

How many games did Moylan and Johnson play together?

 

[Patrick]

Rambling stray thoughts:

I felt like we were better early in the year with all the injuries. My theory is that all those younger blokes who played under Morris in the junior comp had respect for him, which translated into some pride and good wins (think vs Storm round 8). When the injured senior players came back, things fell apart because they don't respect the coach - probably because most of them played alongside him a few years back and see him as an equal, rather than their superior.

We'd be better with just one of Moylan or Johnson - not both. Can't have two flippant players like that in a team. Watch the game against Canberra (the first of our losing streak) - they don't communicate, and that was their first game together in yonks, and also when the malaise began.

Sadly some old guard premiership players are done and need to move on - Fifita, Prior, Bakuya, Feki, Townsend - all had shocking seasons.

Wade Graham is amazing and we don't deserve such a quality player - our best, even with only half a season of game time.

Josh Morris surprised me - played with plenty of heart.

We missed Valentine and Lewis more than we thought we would.

Letting Flanju go is going to hurt so much when he wins premierships and origin series in the future.

REALLY excited about Nikora, Xerri, Uele, Mulitano. There's some bright future there.

Moving forward into 2020:
Our big men need to step up, and maybe with that our halves might improve.
Need to pick and stick with a fullback.
Backline should be electric next year but we'll need our forwards to lay a better platform.
Not convinced with Morris at coach but he'll be better with a full off season to himself.
Goal kicking.

 

[bort]

- poor discipline, giving away meaningless penalties & field position, all of which, we generally don’t have the strength & mental capacity to overcome

- poor completions

- poor starts to games

- dropping games we shouldn’t, we do this more than just about any team that fancies themselves as a ‘top 4’ team, yes, Storm & Roosters do drop the odd game here or there, we do it consistently throughout the season, season & after season

- mentally weak, I feared we would treat the Manly squad on paper with lack of respect, only my opinion based off the past, perceived ego’s of our players in these types of lead up to games & the performance after the game is done & dusted.

Mick Ennis, while has been not with the club for a while even questioned whether we were looking at the team that Manly named & had taken our eye off the ball thinking we had it won.

We definitely underestimated Manly like we did half a dozen sides this year. We have the same error/penalty prone and arrogant players we had in 2017 and 2018 to cause the issues then.
Losing players like Ennis and Lewis who keep this **** in check only makes it more obvious. How much the (new) coach is to blame is hard to judge IMO - not like we hear or read his team talks. Certainly didn't start with Morris though.
Speaking of Morris' - I think Josh is very much in the mold of Ennis and Lewis and our backline needs him for next year to point the arrogance of Xerri, Ronaldo & Ramien in the right direction... even Moylan. Dugan can be in either camp depending where his head is at. These players need their confidence to be telling them things like 'I know I can beat my man if I play at 100%' not **** like 'he's only playing due to injury this will be easy' or 'they don't talk about him for origin he's not on my level'.

Fifita, Woods, Prior, I think even Gallen sometimes are all guilty too.

You don't just win because you think you're better, you have the earn it & prove it.

We missed Valentine and Lewis more than we thought we would.

Letting Flanju go is going to hurt so much when he wins premierships and origin series in the future.

Moylan (when fit) but even Dugan at FB covered for Val sufficiently. The work rate and attitude of Lewy by far the biggest miss from 2018 to 2019.

Flanju to play origin is an outrageously bold call. If he wins any premierships in the near future it is for the same reason Chad did - he is the cheap half that allows them to afford Latrell, Tedesco, Keary etc who do all the real work.

We on here used to argue that Flanju's roof was probably Chad or marginally better than Chad but he played a handful of solid games now he's playing Origins and people carrying on like it's a Bulldogs/JT situation.
Roosters want him not because he is the best but because he is the best they can afford. He probably will have a good season at halfback next year because the team he is in is ****ing stacked but we are not losing an elite NRL player.

 

[snowman]

its a season that hurts probably more than anything we have witnessed before and we have witnessed some absolute ****

i guess the reason it hurts is because of the expectations we put on ourselves in the preseason without taking a step back and looking at what we were pushing uphill before a ball was kicked

i dont think we understood the loss of lewis - that one hurts - nikora will be great, but lewy is a generational person let alone player

valentine holmes walked out on the final year of his contract - our best player, our leading try scorer, the guy who bailed us out, the most exciting player we have had for probably the nrl era - gone

we replaced him with an adlib player who caused a reshuffle of positions - but not only that, missed a lot of what we were doing

i think the club made a bad call on his intergration to the team

shaun signed december 1 and didnt start training until the new year - this was an error - he should have had time with the club rather than heading back to NZ

what it did though, was moved the guy who set up 20 tries back to a position that frankly, he doesnt want to play and isnt very good at

i know he had to pack his life up but we shut down for 2 and a half weeks over christmas - he also left his wife in NZ which i imagine wasnt the best

Flanno was stood down 21st of Jan and Bomber was announced on the 1st of feb giving him 7 weeks to wipe out flannos plan and implement his own

after humiliating newcastle in the trials we turned up to round 1 just expecting to win and that summed up our season

injuries were cruel, suspensions were trash, discipline killed us and handling and that comes down to 1 thing

attitude

it seemed to leave when flanno walked out the door

at least in previous seasons if someone dropped the ball we would kill people to get it back

not this year

this to me was highlighted in 1 player - aaron woods - his 2018 and 2019 couldnt be further apart - in 2018 we were riding him hard and wanting more of him - 2019 he was a lazy fat **** again

the highlights of the season for me were probably the emergence of xerri, nikora, uele and ronaldo - and also dugan and morris giving us probably their best seasons in 7 years

one thing is for sure though, the first thing that needs to change before any game plan, defensive intensity or structure is our attitude

the performances against the dogs and broncos and warriors will continue to happen if we continue to not give a ****

is john morris the man to coach us? i dont know - he has been left with a team that would kill their mother for flanno but seem to not bother for anyone else

he is bringing up his juniors slowly, kids he has found, nurtured, mentored and developed so lets see how they go, but he needs to whip the attitude in line before he stamps more of his game plan and ideas onto this team

this season hurt, it sucked more than anything, the fans are hurt and i honestly dont think the players really give a ****

 

[ben]

its a season that hurts probably more than anything we have witnessed before and we have witnessed some absolute ****

i guess the reason it hurts is because of the expectations we put on ourselves in the preseason without taking a step back and looking at what we were pushing uphill before a ball was kicked

i dont think we understood the loss of lewis - that one hurts - nikora will be great, but lewy is a generational person let alone player

valentine holmes walked out on the final year of his contract - our best player, our leading try scorer, the guy who bailed us out, the most exciting player we have had for probably the nrl era - gone

we replaced him with an adlib player who caused a reshuffle of positions - but not only that, missed a lot of what we were doing

i think the club made a bad call on his intergration to the team

shaun signed december 1 and didnt start training until the new year - this was an error - he should have had time with the club rather than heading back to NZ

what it did though, was moved the guy who set up 20 tries back to a position that frankly, he doesnt want to play and isnt very good at

i know he had to pack his life up but we shut down for 2 and a half weeks over christmas - he also left his wife in NZ which i imagine wasnt the best

Flanno was stood down 21st of Jan and Bomber was announced on the 1st of feb giving him 7 weeks to wipe out flannos plan and implement his own

after humiliating newcastle in the trials we turned up to round 1 just expecting to win and that summed up our season

injuries were cruel, suspensions were trash, discipline killed us and handling and that comes down to 1 thing

attitude

it seemed to leave when flanno walked out the door

at least in previous seasons if someone dropped the ball we would kill people to get it back

not this year

this to me was highlighted in 1 player - aaron woods - his 2018 and 2019 couldnt be further apart - in 2018 we were riding him hard and wanting more of him - 2019 he was a lazy fat **** again

the highlights of the season for me were probably the emergence of xerri, nikora, uele and ronaldo - and also dugan and morris giving us probably their best seasons in 7 years

one thing is for sure though, the first thing that needs to change before any game plan, defensive intensity or structure is our attitude

the performances against the dogs and broncos and warriors will continue to happen if we continue to not give a ****

is john morris the man to coach us? i dont know - he has been left with a team that would kill their mother for flanno but seem to not bother for anyone else

he is bringing up his juniors slowly, kids he has found, nurtured, mentored and developed so lets see how they go, but he needs to whip the attitude in line before he stamps more of his game plan and ideas onto this team

this season hurt, it sucked more than anything, the fans are hurt and i honestly dont think the players really give a ****

Gallen leaving helps this

 

[Milkshark]

its a season that hurts probably more than anything we have witnessed before and we have witnessed some absolute ****

i guess the reason it hurts is because of the expectations we put on ourselves in the preseason without taking a step back and looking at what we were pushing uphill before a ball was kicked

i dont think we understood the loss of lewis - that one hurts - nikora will be great, but lewy is a generational person let alone player

valentine holmes walked out on the final year of his contract - our best player, our leading try scorer, the guy who bailed us out, the most exciting player we have had for probably the nrl era - gone

we replaced him with an adlib player who caused a reshuffle of positions - but not only that, missed a lot of what we were doing

i think the club made a bad call on his intergration to the team

shaun signed december 1 and didnt start training until the new year - this was an error - he should have had time with the club rather than heading back to NZ

what it did though, was moved the guy who set up 20 tries back to a position that frankly, he doesnt want to play and isnt very good at

i know he had to pack his life up but we shut down for 2 and a half weeks over christmas - he also left his wife in NZ which i imagine wasnt the best

Flanno was stood down 21st of Jan and Bomber was announced on the 1st of feb giving him 7 weeks to wipe out flannos plan and implement his own

after humiliating newcastle in the trials we turned up to round 1 just expecting to win and that summed up our season

injuries were cruel, suspensions were trash, discipline killed us and handling and that comes down to 1 thing

attitude

it seemed to leave when flanno walked out the door

at least in previous seasons if someone dropped the ball we would kill people to get it back

not this year

this to me was highlighted in 1 player - aaron woods - his 2018 and 2019 couldnt be further apart - in 2018 we were riding him hard and wanting more of him - 2019 he was a lazy fat **** again

the highlights of the season for me were probably the emergence of xerri, nikora, uele and ronaldo - and also dugan and morris giving us probably their best seasons in 7 years

one thing is for sure though, the first thing that needs to change before any game plan, defensive intensity or structure is our attitude

the performances against the dogs and broncos and warriors will continue to happen if we continue to not give a ****

is john morris the man to coach us? i dont know - he has been left with a team that would kill their mother for flanno but seem to not bother for anyone else

he is bringing up his juniors slowly, kids he has found, nurtured, mentored and developed so lets see how they go, but he needs to whip the attitude in line before he stamps more of his game plan and ideas onto this team

this season hurt, it sucked more than anything, the fans are hurt and i honestly dont think the players really give a ****

I read it, and the for about 80% of it I was thinking that wouldnt have happened under Flano.

Anyway, hopefully Morris toughens up for the next season and moves a few players on.

 

[snowman]

I read it, and the for about 80% of it I was thinking that wouldnt have happened under Flano.

Anyway, hopefully Morris toughens up for the next season and moves a few players on.

whilst none of that happens under flanno, what happened under flanno has caused us to be in this position

time to move on from him as well

 

[snowman]

Gallen leaving helps this

how? how does a guy who was our best forward at 38 leaving, help this?

 

[ben]

Nothing to do with his play but the power he has over the team which is what your talking about.

 

[SharkShocked]

Check out that ball from Reed Mahoney to Moses in yesterdays game and then think of what J Brailey gives us.

Let alone our halves. Makes me sad.

 

[snowman]

Check out that ball from Reed Mahoney to Moses in yesterdays game and then think of what J Brailey gives us.

Let alone our halves. Makes me sad.

Dont compare those 2 mate, it is forbidden on this forum