2023 NRL Round 1 Cronulla Sutherland Sharks vs. South Sydney Rabbitohs @ Points Bet Stadium Saturday 4 March @ 7:35pm

[snowman]

League is kind of complicated.

In this Souths game in particular, the Souths play-the-balls were slow as hell. The problem was that if you have 3 Sharks wrestling the guy down and the 3rd guy just dawdles back into the line, Cook just picks the ball up scoots 10 metres and passes to a forward who then makes another 10 metres.

Alternatively, Wade put a really nice tackle on Moale, cuts him in half. However because he tackled the legs, there is only 1 marker and we don't cover the gap properly in the middle, so Cook just scoots 20 metres.

Now in these two examples a bloke named Brailey was bludging and Cook owns him every time we play against them.

Its the reason one plays for nsw and the other should play nsw cup

 

[Gards]

We always have a real tussle up against South even thinking back more than a decade the games seem to play out similar in that we sort of go tit for tat with them for a while or just keep close to them on the scoreboard with both teams missing some opportunities before they break away in a second half (I relise we have beat them)

Souths played a stronger and more effective game over the 80 mins but boy it was amateur from the officials on the night - feels like after the weekend schedule was done NRL was left with some dregs left over and said ah just send these refs to the Sharks game, no one will notice and whenever in doubt just give the advantage to Souths

Yea the ref in the middle was kinda dodge but he has alot on his plate to keep an eye on and manage while running around all night
the touchie though on forward passes and legs into touch just wtf man

Team perhaps not as fit as pre-season gave me the impression

Sharks crowd looked good jammed into the 12k capacity

I hope the next few games are more early 2022 sharks season form/style than post mid season sharks season form/style.... cause all that ugly defense, errors and lack of middle punch from end of 2022 has hung around like a bad smell

 

[HaroldBishop]

Yea the ref in the middle was kinda dodge but he has alot on his plate to keep an eye on and manage while running around all night
the touchie though on forward passes and legs into touch just wtf man

I reckon we get penalised on that one if the touchie put his flag up.

 

[BurgoShark]

What I saw in this game was the same thing I have been used to seeing in many a Sharks game.

We take a hit up and get bashed by three guys and get pushed backwards or sideways. We are lucky to make 30-40 metres in our sets.

When the opponents take a hit up, there is always someone else to pass it to for second phase play, or they carry our forwards for a few metres. They make at least 60 if not 70 metres each set.

Our side always seems to get to their 5th tackle very quickly while with other teams it seems to take ages.

I don't know what the solution is or what the other teams are doing better. Is it simply desire?

Sometimes it looks really bad doesn't it. I'm hopeful I am better at remembering the best of their sets and the worst of ours and the difference overall isn't as much as it sometimes seems.

In saying that though if you keep giving up ball in good field position they are gunna run hard at you and if you're getting tackled inside your 20 expect to face increased line speed.

You are not selectively remembering stuff. You are just perceiving it incorrectly.

It’s true that Souths were ending their sets farther down field that the Sharks. The key difference here was that the Sharks were giving up piggy back penalties, 7 tackle sets, and not ending their sets well.

Souths weren’t making 70m per 6-tackle set. They were making 50-55m. They were just starting their sets farther from their own try line, or getting an extra play to make another 10m.

Last bit from @bort is correct. If you keep giving the opposition an invitation to your 20, at some point they will force you to work it out of your end in to the teeth of swarming defence.

 

[HaroldBishop]

You are not selectively remembering stuff. You are just perceiving it incorrectly.

It’s true that Souths were ending their sets farther down field that the Sharks. The key difference here was that the Sharks were giving up piggy back penalties, 7 tackle sets, and not ending their sets well.

Souths weren’t making 70m per 6-tackle set. They were making 50-55m. They were just starting their sets farther from their own try line, or getting an extra play to make another 10m.

Last bit from @bort is correct. If you keep giving the opposition an invitation to your 20, at some point they will force you to work it out of your end in to the teeth of swarming defence.

That wasn't the case every time mate.

Like @Chad said, watch their very first set again. Was terrible.

 

[Sir Chadley]

You are not selectively remembering stuff. You are just perceiving it incorrectly.

It’s true that Souths were ending their sets farther down field that the Sharks. The key difference here was that the Sharks were giving up piggy back penalties, 7 tackle sets, and not ending their sets well.

Souths weren’t making 70m per 6-tackle set. They were making 50-55m. They were just starting their sets farther from their own try line, or getting an extra play to make another 10m.

Last bit from @bort is correct. If you keep giving the opposition an invitation to your 20, at some point they will force you to work it out of your end in to the teeth of swarming defence.

I wasn't just talking about the Souths game @BurgoShark. It seems to happen to us far too often. The 70m bit was probably a poor guess on my part but what I was saying was that it always seems opposition sides make more metres than us and and seem to find it easier to do so.

And if we do get a situation where we have a side pinned in their 20, we give away a silly penalty or the ref just happens to find one.

 

[Sparkles]

I sense a chart coming...

The 'eye test' and the statistical analysis are funny things to compare. They never seem to align. And interesting how coaches seem to use them differently. Like Stuart seems to be an eyeball'er. Bellamy and Bennett moreso, too. Ciraldo's probably a stats man, as if Seibold I'd say. Would be an interesting chat around which coach is more of which, and how that's gone for them.

 

[Sparkles]

Just thinking about that forwards battle, I think it turned out to be a pretty canny move by Souths to start Chee-Kam. The reshuffle of the bench probably helped offset our stronger bench, and they lost absolutely nothing

 

[Sir Chadley]

The lack of metres by us and the metre eating by other teams is something I hoped Fitz would fix. Even last year, admittedly against the top sides, it still seemed to happen.

 

[snowman]

The lack of metres by us and the metre eating by other teams is something I hoped Fitz would fix. Even last year, admittedly against the top sides, it still seemed to happen.

nah lad, everything is fine with our forward pack, souths didnt monster us at all

 

[Rob]

We weren’t as bad as most are making out.
We had some silly errors, bad calls, poor reads against a top 4 team, 10 in the bin, played without our best player and organiser.
It’s Rd 1 ffs

 

[CHOGM]

Watching this game again these are my takeaways.

It was anyone’s game for 50 minutes.

Our forwards competed well enough for us to win the game. Forward packs don’t need to dominate, just not be dominated and we weren’t.

They won by running through Moylan and Talakai. Sifa was at 6’s and 7’s covering Moylan in D. If you take that porous edge out of the game it’s anybody’s.

We had four possible tries where scrambling D or badly called forward passes got in the way.

In a nutshell we are fine. Rust and bad luck cost us the game.

 

[CHOGM]

nah lad, everything is fine with our forward pack, souths didnt monster us at all

They didn’t. It’s personal with you for some reason because we never buy the forwards you prefer. Vaughn, Klemmer etc.

It looks like they monstered us because we have a different defensive style and the bunnies focus on holding up the player with numbers. We don’t get numbers in the tackle, we never have. I don’t know why but we don’t. The bunnies have 3 minimum every time and slow the play the ball down as much as they can. Should we defend differently? Maybe. That’s not the point.

It was 50/50 for 50 minutes, then they found a porous edge and won the game there.

 

[BurgoShark]

They didn’t. It’s personal with you for some reason because we never buy the forwards you prefer. Vaughn, Klemmer etc.

It looks like they monstered us because we have a different defensive style and the bunnies focus on holding up the player with numbers. We don’t get numbers in the tackle, we never have. I don’t know why but we don’t. The bunnies have 3 minimum every time and slow the play the ball down as much as they can. Should we defend differently? Maybe. That’s not the point.

It was 50/50 for 50 minutes, then they found a porous edge and won the game there.

This and a 0% completion rate from half time to the 55 minute mark.

If you consider a completion a set where you kick and the opponent is tackled on play 1, they completed one set in the first 30 minutes of the second half. The only other times they got to their kick it was knocked on for tackle zero or they gave up a penalty on the play.

 

[CHOGM]

What I saw in this game was the same thing I have been used to seeing in many a Sharks game.

We take a hit up and get bashed by three guys and get pushed backwards or sideways. We are lucky to make 30-40 metres in our sets.

When the opponents take a hit up, there is always someone else to pass it to for second phase play, or they carry our forwards for a few metres. They make at least 60 if not 70 metres each set.

Our side always seems to get to their 5th tackle very quickly while with other teams it seems to take ages.

I don't know what the solution is or what the other teams are doing better. Is it simply desire?

What I saw in this game was the same thing I have been used to seeing in many a Sharks game.

We take a hit up and get bashed by three guys and get pushed backwards or sideways. We are lucky to make 30-40 metres in our sets.

When the opponents take a hit up, there is always someone else to pass it to for second phase play, or they carry our forwards for a few metres. They make at least 60 if not 70 metres each set.

Our side always seems to get to their 5th tackle very quickly while with other teams it seems to take ages.

I don't know what the solution is or what the other teams are doing better. Is it simply desire?

The bunnies made 10.8 metres per run, we made 10.2. Sharks post contact metres per run was 3.48, bunnies 3.36. We play very different footy to them in attack and D.

I know stats aren’t everything but missed tackles and completions was bigger issue than metres. We completed at 64% and missed 52 tackles to their 23.

Add that to Moylan/ Talakai edge issue and we lose the game.

 

[bort]

They didn’t. It’s personal with you for some reason because we never buy the forwards you prefer. Vaughn, Klemmer etc.

It looks like they monstered us because we have a different defensive style and the bunnies focus on holding up the player with numbers. We don’t get numbers in the tackle, we never have. I don’t know why but we don’t. The bunnies have 3 minimum every time and slow the play the ball down as much as they can. Should we defend differently? Maybe. That’s not the point.

It was 50/50 for 50 minutes, then they found a porous edge and won the game there.

yet average PTB speed was 3.12 by us and 3.85 by them. We were the only team last round who had the better average PTB speed but lost.
That supports that it was not so much what we were doing when we held the ball that was the problem.

The two teams that won with a worse completion than their opposition it was worse by 1% and 2%
Otherwise the teams that won had better completion by 9, 12, 10, 11, 10 & 4 % and I know we looked at a chart recently that said as long as you complete 60% you should still be able to win but there is a strong correlation for this round that you wanna be pretty much equal or better to your opposition most of the time.

We had the worst completion of the rounds, with bulldogs who got flogged only 1% better.

 

[CHOGM]

This and a 0% completion rate from half time to the 55 minute mark.

Totally. Poor completions which contribute to all the missed tackles killed us.

If Ilias doesn’t get lucky punching the ball out from Ronnie and Trindalls pass is not badly misjudged forward we win. And we do so playing badly.

We will beat Parra this week. No question.

 

[CHOGM]

yet average PTB speed was 3.12 by us and 3.85 by them. We were the only team last round who had the better average PTB speed but lost.
That supports that it was not so much what we were doing when we held the ball that was the problem.

The two teams that won with a worse completion than their opposition it was worse by 1% and 2%
Otherwise the teams that won had better completion by 9, 12, 10, 11, 10 & 4 % and I know we looked at a chart recently that said as long as you complete 60% you should still be able to win but there is a strong correlation for this round that you wanna be pretty much equal or better to your opposition most of the time.

We had the worst completion of the rounds, with bulldogs who got flogged only 1% better.

Totally, the ptb stat is nuts. Is that possible with a forward pack getting killed? Completions and Moylan IMO having a Barry Crocker hurt us.

 

[BurgoShark]

Otherwise the teams that won had better completion by 9, 12, 10, 11, 10 & 4 % and I know we looked at a chart recently that said as long as you complete 60% you should still be able to win but there is a strong correlation for this round that you wanna be pretty much equal or better to your opposition most of the time.

We had the worst completion of the rounds, with bulldogs who got flogged only 1% better.

The Bulldogs actually completed better than Manly.

Manly got 5 more penalties than the Bulldogs and scored 2 tries from intercepts. Those are recorded as completed sets and add 14% to their completion rate.

This is the thing. If completion rates were recorded based on how many times you had the ball and ended your possession in a positive way, it might be meaningful. The way it is recorded now tells you absolutely nothing. DCE scoring 2 intercept tries and the bunker fisting the Bulldogs doesn't mean that Manly are great at completing their sets.

 

[CHOGM]

Watching the game still and the bunnies constantly trying to hold up the attacker ,drag them back or drag them over the sideline is so notable. Is this new for them this season? It seems the most effective sharks players were those smaller, lower running guys-Sifa, Cam, Jack-and I wonder if this is because they couldn’t be held up by the D so they managed to push through the stand up D. The bunnies hardly bend a knee in defense.