Some impressive stats from our leaders...

[Thirteen]

Our lack of a kicking game was very obvious on Saturday.

[ism22]

Great post. But remember Robbo has lost the dressing room…

Sorry, I forgot about that.

Hopefully next week he can find the dressing room so that we get some coaching during the game. Knew something musta been up there

[rooster till i die]

Yeah , we have good players , doing a lot of good work , it's just the silly errors that cost us ,
e.g vs Bulldogs.
Not finding touch
kick off out on the full
forward passes.
throwing an intercept.
goal kicking.
28/42 66% completion

We dont throw enough dummies or offloads.

You can add that one try was from a forward pass. Not good at all.

[Rooster89]

Thanks for sharing these stats.

I think this backs up the theory that individually the players seem to be in semi decent form.

It's the lack of cohesion in our combos and individual errors that isn't allowing us to get in a attacking position to even score points.

People are giving our leaders a hard time because we're not winning. Just thought I'd have a quick reflection, noting that our results coulda been a LOT worse without some of these efforts:
- Teddy's run for 300m two weeks in a row now, with 11 tackle breaks in the last game.
- Keary made 290 kick metres and ran for 105m
- Crichton made 41 tackles and 135m (80m of that being PCM... 2 offloads in there as well)
- Manu had a quiet game but made 24 tackles at centre with 3 being 1-on-1
- Collins ran 128m and made 30 tackles in ~40 minutes

---

There's a lot more stats but IMO we're giving some of these guys a hard time. Yes it probably woulda been better if Manu took some of those runs instead of Teddy, but I reckon that contrary to popular opinion, our leaders are holding up the team right now.

Minimal tries are getting scored against us and most of them are our own stupid fault rather than that of exhaustion and/or poor defensive systems.

I reckon we're closer to everything clicking together than fans may think. Robbo says he's been here before (i.e. stuck trying to work-out how to improve our attack) and he seems confident rather than worried about it all. Hopefully our attack comes good over the next couple of weeks - I reckon it will soon and it'll be awesome seeing it all happen!

[Bondicigar]

The chooks should give Cooper Cronk 500k to run the water. He can call the shots from behind the play.
All you need is a calm head a voice and a game plan to lead a team around a park...

[roosterchook]

The down the middle back on the inside pass got Teddy through for 3 breaks, what upset me was the lack of support .

I think it used to be the Morris twins who had great support play and also great under a high ball. Teddy made so many breaks with no one in support. Don’t they discuss these things at training or have they just lost interest doing the ‘little things right’ which was the main difference last year. We would make that extra effort then but now the boys seem not to be focused or just plain lazy and going through the motions. There doesn’t appear to be that desperation, that rooster hunger we are used to seeing. This might be the price of too much success.

[ism22]

I think it used to be the Morris twins who had great support play and also great under a high ball. Teddy made so many breaks with no one in support. Don’t they discuss these things at training or have they just lost interest doing the ‘little things right’ which was the main difference last year. We would make that extra effort then but now the boys seem not to be focused or just plain lazy and going through the motions. There doesn’t appear to be that desperation, that rooster hunger we are used to seeing. This might be the price of too much success.

Oh shyte yeah!!! IMO we're missing the B-Moz tries that we had early on last season. He's not particularly tall or athletic... he just knows how to spot a meat pie from a mile off.

This season we've got way more size and athleticism in our outside backs. However, one thing that I think's stifling players like Manu and Teddy is that nobody can keep up with them at the moment. This makes Teddy look silly (although his stats are outrageously good) because he can no longer just flick the ball backwards at the right time and KNOW that B-Moz will be there (which he always is). Instead he's either holding onto it (knowing there's no support, but hoping SOMEBODY besides the opposition will catch-on) or we're throwing the ball backwards to nobody (which is happening way too often).

Hopefully this week we sort something out. I'd say half our problem is that rule changes have targeted our success over the past 5 years or so and it's meant that we've had to evolve. Yes Melbourne have had to as well, but I feel like they're generally given a license to try out dodgy new tactics rather than being told 'guys this one was for you... any attempt to negate it will result in a heap of penalties / sin-bins... just tell your boys to settle down'.

We've adapted our defence this year (which was killing us last year) as Rads and JWH are no longer being cited for 6 week suspensions every week. I think our attack still needs to catch-up with our defence though.

As seen the last 2 weeks... our opponents didn't score any more tries than us (and were unable to put the games to bed, both were very much live up until the last tackle). We just didn't offer anything in attack (although both games had us close to scoring in the dying minutes, with almost tries being disallowed). Even with the clunkiest attack in the comp, we're close to being better than 3/4 of the teams in the comp. This is much better than winning, but having very little potential for improvement in our game (if anything, having complete flogs over-performing temporarily).

[roosterchook]

Oh shyte yeah!!! IMO we're missing the B-Moz tries that we had early on last season. He's not particularly tall or athletic... he just knows how to spot a meat pie from a mile off.

This season we've got way more size and athleticism in our outside backs. However, one thing that I think's stifling players like Manu and Teddy is that nobody can keep up with them at the moment. This makes Teddy look silly (although his stats are outrageously good) because he can no longer just flick the ball backwards at the right time and KNOW that B-Moz will be there (which he always is). Instead he's either holding onto it (knowing there's no support, but hoping SOMEBODY besides the opposition will catch-on) or we're throwing the ball backwards to nobody (which is happening way too often).

Hopefully this week we sort something out. I'd say half our problem is that rule changes have targeted our success over the past 5 years or so and it's meant that we've had to evolve. Yes Melbourne have had to as well, but I feel like they're generally given a license to try out dodgy new tactics rather than being told 'guys this one was for you... any attempt to negate it will result in a heap of penalties / sin-bins... just tell your boys to settle down'.

We've adapted our defence this year (which was killing us last year) as Rads and JWH are no longer being cited for 6 week suspensions every week. I think our attack still needs to catch-up with our defence though.

As seen the last 2 weeks... our opponents didn't score any more tries than us (and were unable to put the games to bed, both were very much live up until the last tackle). We just didn't offer anything in attack (although both games had us close to scoring in the dying minutes, with almost tries being disallowed). Even with the clunkiest attack in the comp, we're close to being better than 3/4 of the teams in the comp. This is much better than winning, but having very little potential for improvement in our game (if anything, having complete flogs over-performing temporarily).

Great post. I feel a lot better after reading it. You’re right we are close. We just ‘missed it by that much’ as Maxwell Smart used to say if anyone remembers him from Get Smart. I think we will really know where our defence is at when we play the top teams.

[Easts75]

Compare our main kicker in general play distance in 290M to DCE’s 690M or Cleary’s 500M..

Our long kicking game is the worst in the comp. As soon as we are pinned in our 20 the opposition has us farked

[4 the all in brawl]

The stat that matters is the 2 competition points.

[The Lip]

Our long kicking game is the worst in the comp. As soon as we are pinned in our 20 the opposition has us farked

It's very true - can't kick out of our own end can't run out of our own end - that's trouble. Luke and Sam are not going to find a long kick - they don't have it. Time for the pigs to really fire up and hit the opposition line like Sam Moa and make yards out of our own end. They can do it at least - we know that they just haven't been or we have made an error and turned over possession too early.

they do need to find a long kicker - it's a good idea I think to give someone else the kicks when we are stuck in our 40 on the last. If that's Teddy as King suggested or anybody else who shows at training they are capable. Can Momo kick long? Surely he can do something?

[BraveTheWorld]

Maybe controversial but I thought Teddy was exceptional against the Dogs. Sometimes he may make 200+ metres but seems ineffective, but I thought it was the best he looked all year last week.
I also, somewhat surprisingly thought Keary looked relatively sharp. Obviously still not at his best, but looked much better than he has done.

As someone has already mentioned, it doesn't seem to be a lack of form on the behalf on individuals - it's just having everyone gel as a team and be o the right page. This makes me optimistic about the rest of the year, to be honest. Kind of similar to what went on in 2018 for us. I know we're not the same team we were then, but we looked pretty ordinary to start that season too.