RTS to centre

[Guest]

After watching a replay of the game I'm amazed with the amount of people calling for SKD to be sacked. If he compare the other night to about 90% of games he played last year he was a lot better defensively. And this was against the current most dangerous player in the world. He was without doubt to play for the last try in the corner where he rushed up on Inglis when Pearce had easily slid well enough to cover him. Other than that and getting run over from a kick return by Inglis he shut down the play with good tackles multiple times and looks to have slightly improved his tackling technique. In attack he was pretty non-existant and dropped two poor passes but that was with no possession or field position for most of the game. Our attack took some poor options at important times but i thought when JWH and Moa were on and we were matching Souths forwards our offence looked far better, in particular on the fringes. At those times Pearce and Maloney both showed improved games from last season. Lets face it two Souths tries came from tapped back bombs that landed 20 in away from our jumpers and two were from very poor individual reads that would not have otherwise been tries. Sheck will learn quickly from this shocker. And he'll know he has to because he won't be moved to fullback due to poor performances on the wing. Feel sorry for the kid cos across 160 trial minutes he played 90 minutes at fullback 30 at centre and only 40 on the wing where he was always going to play. He probably trained most of the off season at fullback too. But from all accounts he's a very smart kid and a quick learner so he'll get much better. Give us 6 or 7 rounds and i think the combinations will be sorted, the timing will be there, SBW will understand his role and be back up to speed with league (thought he was very solid other than a couple of silly penalties anyway), Cordner will add that extra go forward that we lack when we start with Guerra and Maubs, Tasi or Evans will give us a second prop to help Kennedy out, Arona doesn't offer enough as a prop, and hopefully all this leads to less piggy back penalties which kill us every game. Certainly much better signs than last year imo. If we play that Souths team last year we get 50 put on us easily and they wouldn't have needed to kick for their 2nd and 3rd tries either.

Im glad someone was actually watching the game closely. Im sure I saw SKD put on a couple of orthodox shoulder-leading tackles 1 in particular on Inglis which was absolutely text book. Yea he has plenty of improvement in him but RTS was definitely more at fault - was coming in (which is fine) but instead of making a play/tackle he meandered in no mans land. He will learn though and this is part and parcel of a young team. Maloney's defence was actually quite strong surprisingly. SKD just needs some more consistency which will come once he gets across the stripe a couple of times to get his confidence up and get him going.

Kennedy had a career threatening injury that has seen him miss a good chunk of football. He will need time to come back to his best. LOD, Cordner and Tasi will make a big difference. The signs are there. As others have pointed out, souths lost their first 3 last year (including one to us) and we all saw where they ended up and where we ended up. I can definitely notice improvement at least in attitude and fitness. We are also far more potent in attack - Im pretty sure we made more line breaks than them despite having only 45% possession.

[Guest]

I am with Yak and roz. When the others watch the game they will be too...

[Jacks Fur Coat]

Skd was more muscle in dee than last year...his one on one tackle on Jeff Lima was copybook with yes....shoulder drive.

[elo]

What they should do is as soon as the see a team setting up a backline play,the defensive line should all together slide the D line to that side to anticipate the play,,, how hard can it be!!

We were doing this in the Foundation very effectively, on Thursday night the panicked rushed defence which SKD is infamous for was back in full swing for some reason and we got carved due to it. It was either flawed tactics from the coach or SKD breaking rank, I don't know which.

[Guest]

We were doing this in the Foundation very effectively, on Thursday night the panicked rushed defence which SKD is infamous for was back in full swing for some reason and we got carved due to it. It was either flawed tactics from the coach or SKD breaking rank, I don't know which.

Did you see Jennings using a different system on the left? They were the same systems executed poorly. And 9/10 it was executed poorly by RTS.

[Yak]

We were doing this in the Foundation very effectively, on Thursday night the panicked rushed defence which SKD is infamous for was back in full swing for some reason and we got carved due to it. It was either flawed tactics from the coach or SKD breaking rank, I don't know which.

We weren't really threatened out wide by such a high quality fullback so close to the line in the trials. So it's a little hard to judge what Robinson's tactics were to Inglis. Had he told SKD that he needed to rush up and shut him down (which he did three times, and missed once). It's worth noting that our left side defence did not really shoot up from outside other than Jennings once which saved a certain try. For the most part if that edge was threatened they would continue to slide and stay on their men and rely on their cover which was often Maloney to make a legs tackle. They did not have to deal with the strength, speed and skill of Inglis though. SKD did and if he slides each time and stays on his centre then Pearce is the man who has to tackle Inglis at full speed 10 out from the line. The last try was a poor read from SKD because Inglis wasn't even outside Pearce and they'd all slid well. In saying that if Inglis doesn't have the ability to bat that ball on so perfectly then he probably gets closed down by SKD again. We will not face that level of threat from fullback for a fair while and for it to happen in round 1 i think it's a blessing. Robinson will make sure SKD develops a better understanding of where his inside defenders are and RTS will have learnt where he should be when we're not right on the line and that he has leeway to give his centre because of fitter cover defenders this year. If they learn how to defend against the quality of Inglis then most other fullbacks in the comp will be easy meat for them. Early days people, nobody should be dropped after round 1 against a top 4 team with pretty much the form back and arguably form forward in the competition. In saying that I would be disappointed if we can't beat the Warriors next weekend. I think we're better than them in most facets even in this early stage.

[stephenj]

THE KIWIS IN AUCKLAND ARE HARD TO BEAT FOR ANY TEAM! but with sbw there we may well get a bit of sympathy support?

[Guest]

We weren't really threatened out wide by such a high quality fullback so close to the line in the trials. So it's a little hard to judge what Robinson's tactics were to Inglis. Had he told SKD that he needed to rush up and shut him down (which he did three times, and missed once). It's worth noting that our left side defence did not really shoot up from outside other than Jennings once which saved a certain try. For the most part if that edge was threatened they would continue to slide and stay on their men and rely on their cover which was often Maloney to make a legs tackle. They did not have to deal with the strength, speed and skill of Inglis though. SKD did and if he slides each time and stays on his centre then Pearce is the man who has to tackle Inglis at full speed 10 out from the line. The last try was a poor read from SKD because Inglis wasn't even outside Pearce and they'd all slid well. In saying that if Inglis doesn't have the ability to bat that ball on so perfectly then he probably gets closed down by SKD again. We will not face that level of threat from fullback for a fair while and for it to happen in round 1 i think it's a blessing. Robinson will make sure SKD develops a better understanding of where his inside defenders are and RTS will have learnt where he should be when we're not right on the line and that he has leeway to give his centre because of fitter cover defenders this year. If they learn how to defend against the quality of Inglis then most other fullbacks in the comp will be easy meat for them. Early days people, nobody should be dropped after round 1 against a top 4 team with pretty much the form back and arguably form forward in the competition. In saying that I would be disappointed if we can't beat the Warriors next weekend. I think we're better than them in most facets even in this early stage.

What are you doing on this forum yak? You talk way too much sense.

[kurtsherlock6]

We weren't really threatened out wide by such a high quality fullback so close to the line in the trials. So it's a little hard to judge what Robinson's tactics were to Inglis. Had he told SKD that he needed to rush up and shut him down (which he did three times, and missed once). It's worth noting that our left side defence did not really shoot up from outside other than Jennings once which saved a certain try. For the most part if that edge was threatened they would continue to slide and stay on their men and rely on their cover which was often Maloney to make a legs tackle. They did not have to deal with the strength, speed and skill of Inglis though. SKD did and if he slides each time and stays on his centre then Pearce is the man who has to tackle Inglis at full speed 10 out from the line. The last try was a poor read from SKD because Inglis wasn't even outside Pearce and they'd all slid well. In saying that if Inglis doesn't have the ability to bat that ball on so perfectly then he probably gets closed down by SKD again. We will not face that level of threat from fullback for a fair while and for it to happen in round 1 i think it's a blessing. Robinson will make sure SKD develops a better understanding of where his inside defenders are and RTS will have learnt where he should be when we're not right on the line and that he has leeway to give his centre because of fitter cover defenders this year. If they learn how to defend against the quality of Inglis then most other fullbacks in the comp will be easy meat for them. Early days people, nobody should be dropped after round 1 against a top 4 team with pretty much the form back and arguably form forward in the competition. In saying that I would be disappointed if we can't beat the Warriors next weekend. I think we're better than them in most facets even in this early stage.

Very good post Yak. Hard to argue with any of that.

[TDK]

Disappointed with comments about RTS, he isn't a winger just yet, but give him time he has only been playing league for 2 years or so, if changes were to happen, I would put SBW to centre, the guy was devastating for the all blacks at centre, get rid of SKD, put RTS to fullback, a position he is more accustomed too and Mini to the wing. Mini is captain so he needs to be in the team, and on the wing he won't make the same mistakes that RTS made.

[Guest]

brilliant lol

SKD was made to look like a complete goose about a dozen times last night.

Does he have shoulders?

Does he really think he's that fast that he can continually show better players that much space?

Oldfield to centre, Mini to the wing and RTS to fullback.

Pack up your rucksac and **** off back to the land of the long white piece of shit Kenny Dowall....

[Guest]

Skd on the roosters website talking about how excited he is to be heading home to play the warriors next weekend.

[Burnt Rooster]

I hate to say it, but being at the game, ans seeing by halftime how RTS's positioning had let 2 easy tries in down his wing, the coach would of made a positional change, or player change, or something to try and stem the flow of points down that wing, but alas, nothing done about it, and again in the 2nd half, exactly the same thing, two more unmarked tries. For mine its a fail mark for his first outing, tough marker I know, but it wasent rocket science to try and fix it.