Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:02 pm  

Our offence was bad, and as you say, that probably put a lot of stress on our defence.

I've never been a big fan of the 'we'll just score more than you mentality. And imo the fact that the defensive issues lasted all year (to an extent, certainly got better with Segeyaro and others back). Is worrying because defence should be a lit easier to fix than attacking issues.

At the end of the day we'll need a massive improvement on both sides of the ball to contend next year, and imo, defence must always come first.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:06 pm  

Barrie's Glass Eye wrote:

Our offence was bad, and as you say, that probably put a lot of stress on our defence.

I've never been a big fan of the 'we'll just score more than you mentality. And imo the fact that the defensive issues lasted all year (to an extent, certainly got better with Segeyaro and others back). Is worrying because defence should be a lit easier to fix than attacking issues.

At the end of the day we'll need a massive improvement on both sides of the ball to contend next year, and imo, defence must always come first.

Saints, Wigan, Hudds, and Warrington conceded fewer points than us last year. Nobody scored more.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:19 pm  

That's not the point, defence has to be good if your offence struggles, ours wasn't. Saying we'll just score more is a bad attitude to have. We conceded a lot of points in individual games.

Im not interested in the points conceded as that can be skewed by individual games, I'm not interested in last year or really in arguing with you, as clearly we disagree.

But the bottom line for me is we cannot defend as we have this year and expect to contend.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:35 pm  

Barrie's Glass Eye wrote:

That's not the point, defence has to be good if your offence struggles, ours wasn't. Saying we'll just score more is a bad attitude to have. We conceded a lot of points in individual games.

Im not interested in the points conceded as that can be skewed by individual games, I'm not interested in last year or really in arguing with you, as clearly we disagree.

But the bottom line for me is we cannot defend as we have this year and expect to contend.

It is the point. Why are we accepting the offence struggling? the 404 points we scored this year was a terrible total. It was atrocious. Had it merely been poor, we probably would be in the middle 8s. Had it been ok, we would have been in with an outside chance of the top 4. Had our offence been good we would have been in with a decent chance, had it been as good as it was last year we would be league leaders.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:37 pm  

I think that whilst poor attack can lead to struggling in defence I also think that poor defence can lead to poor attack.

Whereas last season we grew confidence from our defence, this season I think it's drained us of energy both physically and mentally. And that's aside from any tactical issues as starting our sets further down the field, having less energy to attack with or the opposition having more energy with which to defend themselves.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:48 pm  

Him wrote:

I think that whilst poor attack can lead to struggling in defence I also think that poor defence can lead to poor attack.

Whereas last season we grew confidence from our defence, this season I think it's drained us of energy both physically and mentally. And that's aside from any tactical issues as starting our sets further down the field, having less energy to attack with or the opposition having more energy with which to defend themselves.

Our defence was the 6th best in a league of 12 last year.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 2:14 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

Our defence was the 6th best in a league of 12 last year.

No it wasn't. You're looking at how many points were conceded by each team. That is purely statistical and doesn't take into account other related and variable factors that are needed to judge the best defence.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 2:37 pm  

Him wrote:

No it wasn't. You're looking at how many points were conceded by each team. That is purely statistical and doesn't take into account other related and variable factors that are needed to judge the best defence.

I'm afraid your subjective judgement on who had the best defence made 0 difference to the amount of points we earned last year.

The actual amount of points we conceded had a huge effect.

include all the other related and variable factors needed judge the best defence you want. The results on the field are all that counts.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 5:25 pm  

Him wrote:

I think that whilst poor attack can lead to struggling in defence I also think that poor defence can lead to poor attack.

Whereas last season we grew confidence from our defence, this season I think it's drained us of energy both physically and mentally. And that's aside from any tactical issues as starting our sets further down the field, having less energy to attack with or the opposition having more energy with which to defend themselves.

It's a vicious cycle isn't it, we struggled defensively, so had to try harder to score, which resulted in errors, which made it harder to defend....

As I said I think our scrambling defence worked hard in some of close games, which takes a lot out of the tank.

Re: McDermott : Wed Sep 14, 2016 6:50 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

I'm afraid your subjective judgement on who had the best defence made 0 difference to the amount of points we earned last year.

The actual amount of points we conceded had a huge effect.

include all the other related and variable factors needed judge the best defence you want. The results on the field are all that counts.

You don't think our defence last season had any bearing whatsoever on our attack?

Unfortunately you appear to be doing your usual of arguing like a politician. You're trying to deny the other argument has any validity whatsoever. It's a popular, if somewhat simple debating tactic. Which is why it's used so often by politicians.