the problem is mate we have no one in motion when he gets it. Too many times he got it tonight and there was just nothing on like everyone just waits for him to do something
I wish I could rep this twice, it's the same with Maloney. Everyone is expecting 2015 Maloney suddenly appear for us, but what hasn't been considered is who he had outside him last year and more importantly HOW they played. The roosters system looked completely different last year when he/pearce received the ball. On a backline sweep, every time, they had a prop running hard at the short ball, the second rower, centre and winger all moving at pace and rts sweeping at full speed.
Sure, it may sound like a basic backline sweep, but the biggest difference? Every one of them had the ability to straighten the attack and provide opportunities for their outside man. Meaning that the defence weren't able to simply slide to the corner and pick off the whole play, as they were so easily caught out by the guy hitting back inside on the straight line busting them open.
Teams have done their homework on us, they know that the short ball prop option is usually taken, therefore they have every opportunity to rush up and smash Jimmy whilst shutting down the prop. When they get it wrong, and the ball goes out the back it doesn't matter in the slightest as graham or leutele generally run towards the sideline, choking whatever space is left, and even if it gets to feki 9/10 times he steps back inside to avoid going into touch, providing more opportunity for the sliding defence to regroup.
Why did our right side
look so much more potent last year? Because these are the type of lines that are second nature to Lewis and Beale and it was so obvious last year. By running these lines you force the defence to jam in to shut down the play and that's when you create the overlap. The only reason the stats for left and right edges were comparable last year was due to the fact that we didn't have a half that could exploit these lines (hit val with a cutout or kick in behind the rushing winger).
Maloney is a fantastic cog in a well oiled machine, but right now he's trying to jumpstart a 50 year old tractor with a soggy sock and a couple of AA's. A beale for leutele swap is swap is a great start for that edge and graham just needs to play a bit straighter. We also really need a finisher on the wing, but i'm not convinced gagan's done enough at this point to justify taking the spot, although he has been playing inside a god awful centre so it's hard to tell.