Re: Squad v hull : Mon Feb 14, 2022 1:12 pm
Wollo-Wollo-Wollo-Wayoo wrote:
Miller has some good points but yesterday when he picked up that loose ball on half way and turned sideways instead of heading for the gap it just about summed up his limitations. Then his knock on at 2nd tackle on our final set ended our involvement and had the majority of Wakefield fans heading for the exits. Many fans are now just waiting in purgatory for the end of Millers time. We need a replacement ready and hopefully still be in Super League.
Yeah that was really frustrating! He should have just pinned his ears back. Even if he got caught he would have bought an extra 20/30m and with a quick PTB we might have scored/got a penalty much like our first try.
There were plenty of head scratchers though. A few poor passes from hooker. Crowther no look passing to nobody in the first half when we had them on the rack. Fifita’s pass to touch. We just really struggle with set plays and ball movement and the wet/muddy pitches don’t suit our style. We are better on drier turf when we can run off the back of Fifita.
To be quite honest I think we would be better moving away from set plays and just focus on off the cuff plays. I think splitting our halves and the ball to the FB out the back just doesn’t work for us as we can’t seem to get the ball out fast enough. If we are going to persist with the ball out of the back I think we would be better using a half at first receiver passing to the other half back because it just doesn’t seem to get out quick enough when our LF/PR are passing it.
I think we should try to utilise our second phase a lot more. Countless times Fifita and Battye got their arm free with no support. I think half of this is due to the pivot players setting up for the next shift and ball out of the back. I think it stops the FB pushing up through the middle. A shame really as we scored our best try last year when two forwards got their arm free with Jowitt/Lino pushing up through the middle. Offloads can be a high risk play but at least you can kill the ball when men are supporting through the middle. It doesn’t always work but with our lack of ability in set plays I think we should play to our strengths. Most of our tries are coming from broken play and I think that’s what we should try and engineer through offloads/support play.
To end on a positive I thought our forwards did really well yesterday and really battled well. Battye found his front alot and Fifita was his barnstorming self. I thought Arona and Batch got through alot of work. I’m still not overly convinced with Hood as there were quite a few loose passes but that may come with time. I thought Gaskell played well and looked threatening when playing direct. A real shame he went off! No lack of effort yesterday and I came away feeling entertained but frustrated.
