Getting it out of our system

[IRoosterManI]

We started on Fire, Now on the back of having Moa and JWH out we have slowed down to a walking pace, But i see this as a possitive, we were always going to struggle around Origin time but little did we know our 2 starting props would be out during it aswell, Round 16 marks the day i think we will start building towards the finals, we will have a full squad for the first time since playing Manly at Brookie (Our last impressive win), We will have 10 weeks to build up steam and push for the title.


Id rather these average games now rather then Round 24-26, Not to mention that even while playing Average we could have stollen that win on Sunday against a very impressive and full strength Warriors outfit, We arnt THAT far off and i think rounds 16 - 20 you are going to see us come alive.

SKD is having a shocker that is true but i have faith he can capture some form back but his going to have to do it VERY soon, I was angry with him on sunday but also felt alittle bad for the guy, He aint like Justin Hodges who couldnt give a shit how he played for us, SKD was GUTTED when he had that ball hit from his hand, 2010 he would have scored that 100 times out of 100, things are just not working for him atm.


Anyway Bring on round 16 and unleash JWH!!!!

[Guest]

its round 15 this week mate.

[Guest]

its round 15 this week mate.

I think he knows that.

[007]

its round 15 this week mate.

He was making reference to JWH coming back in round 16.

[hackthefortress]

He is writing off our clash against the Doggies.

[IRoosterManI]

He is writing off our clash against the Doggies.

Not totally we still have some good striking players but in saying that to get our named team this week to click together to beat a in form team with a much bigger pack is a HUGE ask, Ofcourse i will back them till the end but im not going to lie and say im confident, i think at full strength we are better then them, But we have a huge disadvantage coming into this one.

[Rooster_6]

I cant agree. I think it's the worst time to go through a poor patch of form, players are in and out of camp due to rep commitments our forward leader is out suspended and we're a realistic chnace of sitting outside the top 4 by the end of origin.

After the first half of the season teams are doing their homework and starting to figure our where we're weak and exploiting it. It's up to Robbo now to counter that but its hard when he's forced to play SBW at 5/8, Aubusson in the centres etc etc.

I thought we made some really subtle changes that worked in attack on Sunday but now Robbo has to go two weeks of training without his halves.

The disuptions are killing any chance of us gaining some momentum again, if we could jag a win against Canterbury it would be HUGE because with our halves backing up against Manly we'll really struggle.

[stephenj]

AT LEAST V MANLY WERE AT HOME SO SHOULD HAVE SOME GOOD SUPPORT AS WELL AS JWH back so maNLY WILL ALSO BE DEOUBLING UP WITH A FEW PLAYERS INCLUDING THEIR HALFBACK! im suggesting that week is the start of our roll on to the finals?

[Cockadoodledoo]

I cant agree. I think it's the worst time to go through a poor patch of form

When would you rather be out of form? The first 2 months of the season when you are then required to play catch up? We don't have too many key players with the brains to stay composed at the best of times.. Or at the back end of the season when the finals are on or we are playing for a finals place. To me the catalyst for the slump is simply the loss of JWH who absolutely leads the pack and provides tremendous go forward with second phase play. Marty has made metres in the past couple weeks but cannot provide second phase play and is very slow to get up and play the ball.. Moa had impact last week but only first game back.. This added to the distraction for Pearce (who never plays well during or after an origin campaign for that matter), Maloney who has never been there before and Jennings who seems to have picked up a minor injury to boot is hurting us bad.

[Rooster_6]

When would you rather be out of form? The first 2 months of the season when you are then required to play catch up? We don't have too many key players with the brains to stay composed at the best of times.. Or at the back end of the season when the finals are on or we are playing for a finals place. To me the catalyst for the slump is simply the loss of JWH who absolutely leads the pack and provides tremendous go forward with second phase play. Marty has made metres in the past couple weeks but cannot provide second phase play and is very slow to get up and play the ball.. Moa had impact last week but only first game back.. This added to the distraction for Pearce (who never plays well during or after an origin campaign for that matter), Maloney who has never been there before and Jennings who seems to have picked up a minor injury to boot is hurting us bad.

Yeh I'm not convinced so much that it's a form slump (I probably phrased it poorly) so much as it is the fact that we lost our two starting props for over a month and we have some very crucial players going through an origin series.

My point is I do think teams are starting to figure us out better (which was inevitable) and it's just a lot harder for Robinson to address these issues and then put the new or enhanced structures & processes in place when both his halves are going through and origin series. Leading up to the Warriors game was the first time since the Melbourne game that Robbo had Maloney, Pearce & Jennings involved in training sessions/video work/game plan talks etc, he'll have to wait until our against the Dragons until he gets that opportunity again and then they're off for another 2 weeks immediately after that. It's a hard time to be going through the process of trying to tinker with a few things within the team.

The biggest issues at the moment as I see them are;
- Our fringe defence, both edges (this involves all 3 of our origin players)and;
- Our structure in attack with SBW playing a new role (this involves both our halves)

Realistically when you look at the draw in 2 rounds we could be equal on points with 8th place. That's a huge blow to what was such a great start to the season.