Round 2, 2012 NRL Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks v Newcastle Knights @ Toyota Stadium, Sunday, March 11, 2:00pm

[dier]

Yeah man, wtf is that. Did we get a repeat set all game from a grubber? I don't think so. With gardners speed we should be grubbering simply for the repeat set

I don't think we even attempted a grubber.

Maybe that has something to do with the coach

*Ding Ding* someone can see what I was getting at!

the Chad loves the grubber, good at it too.

Well be coached out.

 

[Beejay]

Tigers I know immediately after the game when the rough version of the stats is published all starting players are listed as 80 and all bench as 0. There's at least one revision after that. I got confused because I saw Bukuya had 80 minutes, that's pretty massive for him I reckon and is another stat in his favour.

Man I wish I had access to all the different camera angles during a game and especially replays.

Didnt Fox Sports allow for that very feature when they broadcasted games? What happened to that?

 

[ABshark]

First half:

Early thoughts: Started well with decent rhythm. The Gal v Snowden battle was great to watch. Will be close to the NSW prop combination. The Gardner blown try is absolutely horrid but at the same time explicable- the chase on the inside on Gardner allows Boyd to go for the intercept, and he is very good at it. Painful nonetheless.
Good on line defence before the first Newcastle try which was very arsey. Great tackle by Best on Boyd and by Pomeroy on Sau. Moving up in a consistently on our line.

Okay, I'm 20 minutes in and we've had a couple of sets on their line. Contrary to popular opinion, I think they've looked good. Newcastle have defended very well. Not enough momentum from the PTB has hurt us- De Gois has to get there more often. The problem has been a lack of patience and a lack of attention to detail backing up, timing the decoys etc, but overall there are attacking threats and good runs coming from everywhere. The general skill level has definitely improved.

Probably one my biggest frustrations is that we don't get anywhere near as much out of two of the most simple modern plays around- the grubber (as mentioned by others) and the second man decoy play. They simply need to focus on more repeat sets- is it symptomatic of the general desperation to score every play? My guess is yes, and further its part of the conditioned lack of confidence in our attack and also the lack of a cool head. That cool head is part of the second problem- our second man play slides too far cross field. One of the halfback/first receiver's roles is to straighten the attack from the outset so that each defender has to take responsibility for his opposite before he can slide, buying time for the outside attackers. We slide with the defence... especially the two centres. I suspect it wouldn't be so bad if Carney were a bit wider because he has that ability to skip outside his opposite and create the overlap on his own.

That said, the backline shape is SO much better than last year.

Thoughts at halftime- our blokes catch the ball with the line wide open and we lead by 4 tries to 1. i.e., they would be belting them. Because they are. Absolutely shredding them. Just not on the scoreboard. We haven't looked great at times attacking their line, but they didn't when they were going at ours either. At least there's plenty of football in this team.

 

[slide rule]

Probably one my biggest frustrations is that we don't get anywhere near as much out of two of the most simple modern plays around- the grubber (as mentioned by others) and the second man decoy play. They simply need to focus on more repeat sets- is it symptomatic of the general desperation to score every play? My guess is yes, and further its part of the conditioned lack of confidence in our attack and also the lack of a cool head. That cool head is part of the second problem- our second man play slides too far cross field. One of the halfback/first receiver's roles is to straighten the attack from the outset so that each defender has to take responsibility for his opposite before he can slide, buying time for the outside attackers. We slide with the defence... especially the two centres. I suspect it wouldn't be so bad if Carney were a bit wider because he has that ability to skip outside his opposite and create the overlap on his own.

That said, the backline shape is SO much better than last year.

Thoughts at halftime- our blokes catch the ball with the line wide open and we lead by 4 tries to 1. i.e., they would be belting them. Because they are. Absolutely shredding them. Just not on the scoreboard. We haven't looked great at times attacking their line, but they didn't when they were going at ours either. At least there's plenty of football in this team.

This!

The success rate of that play by other teams is unbelievable. Defending teams must know it's comming, but it's still difficult to stop. It's a reasonably simple, yet very effective play. It would suit our team down to the ground too.

 

[SharkShocked]

First half:

Early thoughts: Started well with decent rhythm. The Gal v Snowden battle was great to watch. Will be close to the NSW prop combination. The Gardner blown try is absolutely horrid but at the same time explicable- the chase on the inside on Gardner allows Boyd to go for the intercept, and he is very good at it. Painful nonetheless.
Good on line defence before the first Newcastle try which was very arsey. Great tackle by Best on Boyd and by Pomeroy on Sau. Moving up in a consistently on our line.

Okay, I'm 20 minutes in and we've had a couple of sets on their line. Contrary to popular opinion, I think they've looked good. Newcastle have defended very well. Not enough momentum from the PTB has hurt us- De Gois has to get there more often. The problem has been a lack of patience and a lack of attention to detail backing up, timing the decoys etc, but overall there are attacking threats and good runs coming from everywhere. The general skill level has definitely improved.

Probably one my biggest frustrations is that we don't get anywhere near as much out of two of the most simple modern plays around- the grubber (as mentioned by others) and the second man decoy play. They simply need to focus on more repeat sets- is it symptomatic of the general desperation to score every play? My guess is yes, and further its part of the conditioned lack of confidence in our attack and also the lack of a cool head. That cool head is part of the second problem- our second man play slides too far cross field. One of the halfback/first receiver's roles is to straighten the attack from the outset so that each defender has to take responsibility for his opposite before he can slide, buying time for the outside attackers. We slide with the defence... especially the two centres. I suspect it wouldn't be so bad if Carney were a bit wider because he has that ability to skip outside his opposite and create the overlap on his own.

That said, the backline shape is SO much better than last year.

Thoughts at halftime- our blokes catch the ball with the line wide open and we lead by 4 tries to 1. i.e., they would be belting them. Because they are. Absolutely shredding them. Just not on the scoreboard. We haven't looked great at times attacking their line, but they didn't when they were going at ours either. At least there's plenty of football in this team.

Assuming the second half wasn't worth watching?

I thought as much at the game

 

[OzChopper]

Second half definitely wasn't worth watching as they all looked like they had a "hang dog" expression on their faces not long after the start of the second half.

I'm not too sure whether it's a losing culture within the club or some sort of defeatist attitude that seems to permeate amongst the players but more times than not they seem to give up without making much of an effort.

There were a ton of positives to take out of the first half on Sunday that should have made them come out and turn it on in the second half but the feeling I got was that they had resigned themselves to a loss and played accordingly. Just my opinion.

 

[teflon77]

Lets face it, you should not be out played by a team reduced to 15 men which included losing their arguably best and most influential player in the first 10 minutes of the game. End of story. I think most would have thought it reasonable that we would have stepped up in the second half not just give up. It was almost like we were the ones playing a couple short.

 

[dier]

Lets face it, you should not be out played by a team reduced to 15 men which included losing their arguably best and most influential player in the first 10 minutes of the game. End of story. I think most would have thought it reasonable that we would have stepped up in the second half not just give up. It was almost like we were the ones playing a couple short.

This. That is two weeks in a row too.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

This. That is two weeks in a row too.

Yeah that's an overlooked point. Two weeks in a row the opposition has been injured by us and down to 15.

Although Tedesco was just running, and Gidley was tackling someone that didn't even have the ball.

I think this happened a lot last year too. The team that plays our opposition the week after gets all the benefits.

 

[josh11223344]

I watched the replay last night and picked up a few things that you don't at the game.

1- Gardner played well compared to the rest of the team, only dropped the crappy hospital balls where he was running into forwards and about to get crunched.
2- bukuya looks just as good on replay p.s. Should of been a try for the millionth time
3- pom and best are playing awesome, well done to pom very happy to see him not play like a retard
4- mills looked great running the ball
5- tupou has to be dropped
6- graham moves to the bench as a backrower
7- chad comes into be halfback, robson is probably the better option but I don't think by much and imo we may aswell give chad time to gel with carney as he is the perfect fit for many years to come. He might never be a superstar but he will and already is a great organiser, kicker and leader for a young guy and that's all we need at half atm.
8- once again we were the better team and by looking at the times we should have scored the game should of been 24- 18 (had we converted all tries)
9- the most dissapointing part is that half of that crowd won't show up again
10- we really weren't as bad as people are making out, still encouraging signs. It's not flannos fault we couldn't catch the ball. But it is his fault we don't have a halfback to organise the forwards and it is pretty unorganised around the ruck imo.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

Agreed with all of that. Mills had some really tough runs I reckon. Very big collisions.

 

[josh11223344]

I just added a couple, feel free to disagree I am expecting a few to

 

[Mark^Bastard]

I agree with your additions too.

The other thing that may or may not be Flannos fault is how unrelaxed we play. I'm not sure if that's directly Flannos fault, or is his fault through not selecting a settled half.

 

[josh11223344]

I think most comes down to not having robson or chad there. If we had someone like cam smith or robbie farah at halfback we would get away with it but de gois isn't that style of organising player.

 

[SDK]

Would probably leave Carney/Graham for round 3. I've gone on before about completion rate, ball control & Manly will simply smash the sh** out of us if we can't make the most out of possession. Graham has copped flak here, yet more than he deserves from here IMO. Graham is a great defender & he'll be needed rather than a small bloke against Manly.

That said & good to have options, Graham could go to back row, play like a Luke Lewis or Anasta (when he plays there). Means Gall can just run straighter & look for the occasional pop or offload. Tupou to bench.

I'd trust Flanno with the choice between Chad or Robo. I watched Robo play hooker in round 1 NSW Cup. Nothing notable at all. Chad did not go to the line either.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

Chad did not go to the line either.

This is what we need. Graham goes to the line by himself too much!

 

[sharks2010]

Agreed with all of that. Mills had some really tough runs I reckon. Very big collisions.

Yeah I agree with everything except the jace try. Was a double movement. He promoted the ball after it hit the ground

 

[BurgoShark]

Yeah I agree with everything except the jace try. Was a double movement. He promoted the ball after it hit the ground

While I don't think it was a try, it's not a question of whether he promoted it. The rulebook says nothing about that anymore - they changed the rule a few years ago. I would call the Bukuya try a double movement based on the old rule, but we have seen tries like that given before.

From the ARL Rulebook:

When an attacking player is tackled within easy reach of the goal line he should be penalised if he makes a second movement to place the ball over the line for a try.

or ....

If an attacking player in possession is brought down near the goal line and the ball is not grounded it is permissible to place the ball over the line for a try. In this case the tackle has not been completed.

... but ... in the NRL

An attacking player whose momentum does not allow the ball to reach the try-line or in-goal after their ball-carrying arm touches the ground may not reach out to score if a defender is in contact with them; this is disallowed by interpretation as a "double movement".

The Bukuya no-try was a definite no-try under either interpretation IMHO, but if you look hard enough you will find half a dozen like that which have been let go in the last few years.

 

[sharks2010]

If the jace non try was a player from another club and it was given a try we would all blow up delux. I know I would

 

[josh11223344]

I blow up about every try scored against us but if that was a game between two random teams that I don't support I would expect it to be called a try, imo it was all momentum.

No point talking about it though, they always find reasons to deny tries no matter which team it is.