What cheeses me off with Robbo

[kakaruk]

Make no mistake, we lost the match because Michael Gordon missed a conversion. Having a substandard 33-year-old fullback is costing this team, most of all.

Bring on a goalkicking James Tedesco.

Might be better off playing Latrell at fullback?I agree with you Gordon has been average last few games and his kicking is poor. Makes you wonder if hes carying an injury.

[Spanner in the works]

In relation to Friend, I'm of the view that the top modern hookers of our time - Buderus, Farah, Smith - were/are less about making 50 and 60 tackles a game, but being another creative outlet in the middle. Typically you have a half on the left, one on the right, the hooker in the middle, and then the fullback chipping in wherever the attack is being directed, or hanging out on the other side to keep the defense in two minds. In this way your team can attack from all points of the field, and with any luck, break the line or even score.

I think it really matters how fatigued Friend is. When Friend isn't tired he can come up with some good attacking play, whether that be a scoot from dummy half, a good kick, or a good ball on the inside. This is Friend at his best, and I particularly enjoy when he brings out his kicking game, since he seems to be the only one in the side who can get a repeat set on a regular basis.

However, it seems to me he gets in to the groove of carving 60 tackles a game for large parts of the season, effectively becoming useless in attack and a very one-dimensional footballer. When I compare him to Buderus et al, I just feel underwhelmed.

I think Robbo needs to manage that. I'd prefer to see 50 minutes of Friend at his attacking best, rather than 80 minutes of Friend tackling himself to a stand still. It's not like his defence has any sting anyway; a few months ago I seem to recall one of the talking heads on Fox saying that if you're making 60 tackles a game, it means teams don't fear running at you, and they were talking about Friend at the time. Friend always seems to be the one making first contact in the middle of the park, and he always seems to be hanging on for dear life to the very end.

(On a related note, I think this is part of the reason teams trample us in the middle. They just seem to get too much of a roll on after first contact, leading to quick play the balls, and I think it's partly Friend's fault. I don't know whether he's leading the defensive line up too quickly, if our forwards aren't putting their shoulders in, a lack of communication, or if there's a couple of bludgers out there. I'm not sure he's the main issue, but it's not good.)

[trewhella]

I have to say some of them were outstanding today.
Boyd was incredible. Mitch went well as did the new centre.
That was a dodgy decision to win them the game. I wrote at the start of the year that Gold Coast and warriors will get legs up cause they have never won a comp.

The bench players from both teams made some shocking mistakes

I can't blame Robbo on that loss. Everything went well.......just don't think he used Connor effectively like most have indicated.

[milanja]

In relation to Friend, I'm of the view that the top modern hookers of our time - Buderus, Farah, Smith - were/are less about making 50 and 60 tackles a game, but being another creative outlet in the middle. Typically you have a half on the left, one on the right, the hooker in the middle, and then the fullback chipping in wherever the attack is being directed, or hanging out on the other side to keep the defense in two minds. In this way your team can attack from all points of the field, and with any luck, break the line or even score.

I think it really matters how fatigued Friend is. When Friend isn't tired he can come up with some good attacking play, whether that be a scoot from dummy half, a good kick, or a good ball on the inside. This is Friend at his best, and I particularly enjoy when he brings out his kicking game, since he seems to be the only one in the side who can get a repeat set on a regular basis.

However, it seems to me he gets in to the groove of carving 60 tackles a game for large parts of the season, effectively becoming useless in attack and a very one-dimensional footballer. When I compare him to Buderus et al, I just feel underwhelmed.

I think Robbo needs to manage that. I'd prefer to see 50 minutes of Friend at his attacking best, rather than 80 minutes of Friend tackling himself to a stand still. It's not like his defence has any sting anyway; a few months ago I seem to recall one of the talking heads on Fox saying that if you're making 60 tackles a game, it means teams don't fear running at you, and they were talking about Friend at the time. Friend always seems to be the one making first contact in the middle of the park, and he always seems to be hanging on for dear life to the very end.

(On a related note, I think this is part of the reason teams trample us in the middle. They just seem to get too much of a roll on after first contact, leading to quick play the balls, and I think it's partly Friend's fault. I don't know whether he's leading the defensive line up too quickly, if our forwards aren't putting their shoulders in, a lack of communication, or if there's a couple of bludgers out there. I'm not sure he's the main issue, but it's not good.)

6 out of the top 10 tacklers this year are hookers, friend has made the least tackles of those hookers.

[Rooster_6]

Toops has been great this year, along with Pearce & Cordner one of our best players.

Not sure he falls under the serial offenders list...

[Spanner in the works]

6 out of the top 10 tacklers this year are hookers, friend has made the least tackles of those hookers.

These are the average figures from last year for hookers, with Friend topping the tackle count (did top 8):

Friend - 53.3
Lichaa - 43.7
Smith - 42.9
Rein - 42.6
McCullough - 40.6
Peats - 40.2
McInnes - 38.0
Ennis - 36.4


And from 2017 thus far (top 5):
McCullough- 55.0 (includes golden point)
Friend - 47.6
Peats - 45.0
McInnes - 44.4
Pritchard - 42.5


This year it's less than 11 run metres on average a game and he doesn't register for tackle breaks, whereas his counterparts are 30+ metres and at least 1 tackle break. Further still, his average kick metres are the second lowest amongst the top tackling hookers, while he has a big fat zero against his name for line break assists and he's setup just one try. For total dummy half runs this year:

Smith - 49
Luke - 45
McCullough - 40
Hodgson - 31
Wallace - 30
McIllwrick -27
Farah - 27
Cook 26

Friend - 7


Suffice to say he's not much of a threat...

[ROC181]

Make no mistake, we lost the match because Michael Gordon missed a conversion. Having a substandard 33-year-old fullback is costing this team, most of all.

Bring on a goalkicking James Tedesco.

Tedesco doesn't play for us, this year. He's not part of the equation until next year. We're not in a two year plan. Gordon's kicking has been a disappointment and either Fitzy or johns have to keep working on that fast. Other than that he has been safe at fullback. We lost due to more than the missed conversion. The team was most likely stuffed from Tuesday and because someone decided to use only 16 players. You'd think someone would have realised the fatigue factor.