Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 8:28 am  

I don't think the club needs a reality check but I agree we need to get back that intensity of the Maguire / Wane era and not accepting defeat easily.

The biggest thing we are missing is leadership on the pitch. When the going gets tough we lose all composure and start giving away dumb penalties, dropping off tackles, sloppy offloads, etc.

You can see it coming a mile off, teams get on a roll against us with a quick play the ball and the un-ravelling escalates quickly. Nobody seems to be directing us to slow things down and tighten it up, it's so predictable and horrible to watch.

We need a calm head to guide us and Farrell, Smith, French & co aren't that guy.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 9:06 am  

Orrell Lad wrote:

I don't think the club needs a reality check but I agree we need to get back that intensity of the Maguire / Wane era and not accepting defeat easily.

The biggest thing we are missing is leadership on the pitch. When the going gets tough we lose all composure and start giving away dumb penalties, dropping off tackles, sloppy offloads, etc.

You can see it coming a mile off, teams get on a roll against us with a quick play the ball and the un-ravelling escalates quickly. Nobody seems to be directing us to slow things down and tighten it up, it's so predictable and horrible to watch.

We need a calm head to guide us and Farrell, Smith, French & co aren't that guy.

Now that I agree with.

Our game management is poor in tight, difficult games at times BUT it was under Maguire and Wane at times also.

I don't think there were issues with our defence on Sunday, in fact I thought we were excellent apart from letting SKD offload, but we made four of five strange calls second half which put us under pressure rather than putting more pressure on them culminating in the really strange call to kick early in golden point.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 9:29 am  

Egg Chasing wrote:

Now that I agree with.

Our game management is poor in tight, difficult games at times BUT it was under Maguire and Wane at times also.

I don't think there were issues with our defence on Sunday, in fact I thought we were excellent apart from letting SKD offload, but we made four of five strange calls second half which put us under pressure rather than putting more pressure on them culminating in the really strange call to kick early in golden point.

A good experienced HB would remedy some of that imo. Taking the right options at the right time etc. People have differing opinions on French, but one thing we can all agree on is that he's unorthodox in the way he plays. Is that the right option for what we need? Personally, I don't think so but others will disagree.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 9:48 am  

Things aren’t as bad as this thread might make you believe IMO but I agree with a lot of points for improvement. The mains ones for me being-

-We need two more experienced and proven quality forwards for next year (if we get get one of them for this year than great)

-We need a steady hand and a natural halfback at 6. The spine is too inexperienced to shoe horn in a second full back at stand off. I’ve been patient-ish with the move but I think I’d be making the change come Saturday.

-The players and Peet need to learn lessons. Peet is young, the spine players are young and days like Sunday can happen but take your medicine and make sure it doesn’t happen next time. If you’re prepared to put a young player on the bench, use him. If you’re in positions to win the game, make sure you’ve practised until it’s second nature how you nail it. When you have the ball on the opposition line, in those conditions, stop going for the glory play and show some patience. The amount of times we threw wild passes or kicked possession away was really poor.

I honestly don’t think we’re too far away from having a fantastic side ‘if’ we can get things right over this next few months.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 10:05 am  

sergeant pepper wrote:

A good experienced HB would remedy some of that imo. Taking the right options at the right time etc. People have differing opinions on French, but one thing we can all agree on is that he's unorthodox in the way he plays. Is that the right option for what we need? Personally, I don't think so but others will disagree.

It’s not just the HB or indeed French is the problem it’s the lack of creativity and power in the pack.
KPP and Mago can offload but for whatever reason they appear to have discarded this from the forwards. Smithies did a lovely offload in the CC final but I don’t think that he has repeated since.
We have no forwards who can punch holes in defences or have the ability to score form relatively close range. We have a pack of defenders who offer very little to our attack and the one forward who can run through gaps is starting to show that time may be catching up with him.

It is fixable but some of the signings so far don’t even start to fix the issues. Not sure where we are going to get a HB from unless we pay a transfer fee for say Croft. If we did that I assume that either French or Field would have to depart?
With good players in the squad such as Smith, Smithies, Field, O’Neil, Havard and French we have the seeds to develop a really good team. The next few signings will determine if we go from a competitive hard working team to the team to beat if other teams want to win trophies. I suspect with the cap and juggling quota spots it could be 2025 before we have the right balance within the squad.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 10:08 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

The players and Peet need to learn lessons. Peet is young, the spine players are young and days like Sunday can happen but take your medicine and make sure it doesn’t happen next time. If you’re prepared to put a young player on the bench, use him. If you’re in positions to win the game, make sure you’ve practised until it’s second nature how you nail it. When you have the ball on the opposition line, in those conditions, stop going for the glory play and show some patience. The amount of times we threw wild passes or kicked possession away was really poor.

That's the big one for me. Do we learn from the mistakes of Sunday or just rinse and repeat.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 10:16 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

Things aren’t as bad as this thread might make you believe IMO but I agree with a lot of points for improvement. The mains ones for me being-

-We need two more experienced and proven quality forwards for next year (if we get get one of them for this year than great)

-We need a steady hand and a natural halfback at 6. The spine is too inexperienced to shoe horn in a second full back at stand off. I’ve been patient-ish with the move but I think I’d be making the change come Saturday.

-The players and Peet need to learn lessons. Peet is young, the spine players are young and days like Sunday can happen but take your medicine and make sure it doesn’t happen next time. If you’re prepared to put a young player on the bench, use him. If you’re in positions to win the game, make sure you’ve practised until it’s second nature how you nail it. When you have the ball on the opposition line, in those conditions, stop going for the glory play and show some patience. The amount of times we threw wild passes or kicked possession away was really poor.

I honestly don’t think we’re too far away from having a fantastic side ‘if’ we can get things right over this next few months.

I agree with the vast majority of that. We are still light years ahead of where we were under Lam.
I still think we are going to struggle this year for silverware but Saints appear to have some serious injuries and that may limit their ability to land the GF this year.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 10:19 am  

sergeant pepper wrote:

A good experienced HB would remedy some of that imo. Taking the right options at the right time etc. People have differing opinions on French, but one thing we can all agree on is that he's unorthodox in the way he plays. Is that the right option for what we need? Personally, I don't think so but others will disagree.

Our inability to just build pressure and stay patient in the opposition 20 is a real killer for us. The amount of wild cut out passes we're throwing needs to stop, especially in conditions like those on Sunday. The game in the wet should be really simple. Complete high and try and play the game at their end and make them defend their line. If you get to the end of a set in the opposition 10, then try and force a repeat set and repeat, until they switch off. Harry Smith needs to improve in that regard but I give him leeway given his age/experience and the weight on his shoulders, minus a natural halfback partner. He's a fine kicker from hand all over the field, bar in that last 10-20 metres.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 10:26 am  

Itchy Arsenal wrote:

I agree with the vast majority of that. We are still light years ahead of where we were under Lam.
I still think we are going to struggle this year for silverware but Saints appear to have some serious injuries and that may limit their ability to land the GF this year.

There is frustration there this year, I can't lie and the main reason is that the title is up for grabs. It's wide open and I still don't rule us out because even Saints have problems and I don't think any side is anything like being unbeatable. We're going to need to work the 6 position out and we're going to need to get Havard and Ellis on the field together, without any injuries to other big players in the pack like Faz and Smithies but if we can do that, nobody scares the life out of me. I think our big aim now has to be to finish 3rd at worst and avoid a trip over to France in the play offs (presuming they finish top). I wouldn't rule beating anybody out in a Grand Final but a trip to France is a different kettle of fish.

Saturday is huge IMO for the chances of a top 2 finish and for confidence. We can't let them come here and want it more than us. They have eyes on a cup final, they have no hooker and we need to beat them to the punch early in the game.

Re: Does the club need a reality check? : Tue Jul 25, 2023 10:50 am  

Could Kyle Flanagan be an option at 6? Like Sutton, he's apparently on the outer at the dogs. Probably not as experienced as we'd like, but he's got potential still.

Funnily enough, when you compare his NRL experience and career to that of Croft, there's plenty of similarities - both have played around the same number of games. Both highly rated youngsters who faltered after big moves (Croft at Brisbane and KF at the Roosters). KF is the same age as Croft was when he moved to Salford etc.