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#2023276 27-May-2018 10:32

TeaLeaf:

Anyway, what we didnt do that we needed to, get off our line during the PTB to stop their forwards running over the top of us.

Why not? I recall a recent game where the other side just ran over us, and other games when we were up and at them. Who decided that they will just wait for them?

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#2023384 27-May-2018 14:05

Just watched most of it. Ive seen this before. Not urgent. rarely ran the ball. Played solid league, and not much more. Bunnies were urgent, ran the ball often.

Unsure why Warriors show great flair, then they just pay solid and slow.

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#2027530 2-Jun-2018 16:33

tdgeek:

TeaLeaf:

Anyway, what we didnt do that we needed to, get off our line during the PTB to stop their forwards running over the top of us.

Why not? I recall a recent game where the other side just ran over us, and other games when we were up and at them. Who decided that they will just wait for them?

I forwards. And on the field that falls down to the captain to give them a REV up which was RTS. IMO RTS is too nice to be captain. Somebody like Harris would make a solid captain. Generally size makes you feel you can say whatever you want lol. Although that never stopped Stacey Jones and that was 50% of what makes him an immortal in my eyes, his captaincy.

Souths just did again last night. Dont expect anything less from Souths, once they got Surgess back, Turgess and Gurgess just followed. Although to be fair George Burgess was carrying Souths prior. And with Johnston back, one of the best attacking backs in the game and a reasonably good fullback, along with the NSW 9, Cook, everybody was expecting Souths to make the 4, much like the Roosters, but Souths woke up a while back and are on a very long winning streak. Nobody accounted for the Warriors being in there or possibly Penrith.

We need our forwards to get off the 10m mark and run at the players and stop that 70 metres in 4 tackles, thats what killed us and has in other games. Thats the inconsistent part.

That and we didnt shut Cook down, but better teams have tried and failed to be fair. He makes Isaac Luke look very average this year and thats saying something. Hes on fire, hence him making SoO.

We also need some set plays where we have players running angles. If you look at our spine and entire back line up, you wouldnt just have them hitting the ball up. They need to be running off of each other and running at reverse angles with passes then back on the inside to open holes. SK is a bit of a stick in the mud for process and the whole, we wont move onto the next the playbook until we are 100% on defense etc has cost us in some ways. Offense is largely a part of defense. Firstly If you are not scoring players become disinterested. Secondly if teams have nothing to fear from us offensively they will just run riot offensively themselves. Time for us to utilise the Roster we have which has some big names on offense both in the backs and the forwards.

If we do all that, I can see us making 9/12 which will leave us 17/24 which should see us in the top 4. 10/12 and we are getting close to the minor premiership. But really the goal should be top 4, because it makes things that much easier come September.

Also we have had a much harder first half of the year, first up next week we have Manly in Christchurch which if we lose really speaks volumes of our offense. Then we have the cowboys. So 2/2 would be a nice start to get a roll on. But generally speaking we have less top 8 teams, but not any easy draw still. So if we make the 4 given our draw Id say we are a form team simply based on beating top 8 sides all season means you are playing at a top level already. But its all conjecture at this point.

All I know is, this is our best first half of a season in the history of the club, our first GF we were 7/12. But we turned it up in the second half.

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#2032711 9-Jun-2018 19:59

Much better set offense.

Hiku covered the best Full Back in the world very well.

Ken Maumolo is showing signs of frustration not being fed the ball so he went looking for it and was Lomu esque.

Johnson was back and showed signs of being him old self. Definitely hasnt lost speed.

Time to move on from defense training, if Kearney unleashes them with offensive set plays they could easily win the comp this year. But I feel Kearney is a bit of a stick in the mud.

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#2032805 10-Jun-2018 08:16

Goes to show if we are to play top NRL we need the full team. Im not sure how other sides play if a key player or two down. Plus, how many were Many down with SOO on?

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#2033747 11-Jun-2018 16:37

tdgeek:

Goes to show if we are to play top NRL we need the full team. Im not sure how other sides play if a key player or two down. Plus, how many were Many down with SOO on?

Well Souths were useless without their key players, Manly, missing half their team, Storm after losing 3 players off season started terribly.

But we actually were missing out best player in RTS on the weekend. But Hiku did a better job at FB than Centre.

We arent really playing offense footy yet, but by some of those plays green and johnson put on with dummy runners and reverse angles it looks like Kearney might be timing it right.

And Ken Maumolo, player of the game against tigers, he might not be scoring the points (as Kata isnt passing it) but he is making the stats, the real unsung hero of our team. I say put Beale into centre for Kata and let Ken bust tackles with ease like he does when given the ball. Normal 90kg Wingers, he only needs 3 metres and he will step to the side and push them to the ground hes such a beast.

We will only get better on offense is the take home msg. And the more we play at the opposition end, the less we are defending and potentially being scored against.

Offense is the best defense and all that cliche stuff...

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#2033860 11-Jun-2018 19:28

TeaLeaf:

tdgeek:

Goes to show if we are to play top NRL we need the full team. Im not sure how other sides play if a key player or two down. Plus, how many were Many down with SOO on?

Well Souths were useless without their key players, Manly, missing half their team, Storm after losing 3 players off season started terribly.

But we actually were missing out best player in RTS on the weekend. But Hiku did a better job at FB than Centre.

We arent really playing offense footy yet, but by some of those plays green and johnson put on with dummy runners and reverse angles it looks like Kearney might be timing it right.

And Ken Maumolo, player of the game against tigers, he might not be scoring the points (as Kata isnt passing it) but he is making the stats, the real unsung hero of our team. I say put Beale into centre for Kata and let Ken bust tackles with ease like he does when given the ball. Normal 90kg Wingers, he only needs 3 metres and he will step to the side and push them to the ground hes such a beast.

We will only get better on offense is the take home msg. And the more we play at the opposition end, the less we are defending and potentially being scored against.

Offense is the best defense and all that cliche stuff...

Yes, we were down one key player, Many was down more.so we won. RTS is a playmaker. Warriors need the full team, then we can compete anywhere. Anything less and its falls away quite quickly

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#2034194 12-Jun-2018 10:09

tdgeek:

Yes, we were down one key player, Many was down more.so we won. RTS is a playmaker. Warriors need the full team, then we can compete anywhere. Anything less and its falls away quite quickly

We suck when we dont get off our line, which is why Ken Maumolo is so loved at the club, his stats are off the hook for metres, and post tackle metres gained, which given Kata is a ball hog, hes getting all from kick returns. Kearney needs to solve that problem. Unlike Fus, Ken doest need a hole to score, his tackle breaks are amazing and being such a big guy, as long as there is no more than one player in front of him, he will score when they start from the 10m mark, but the ball always dies with Kata. I think Kata is trying replicate his rookie year where he and Hurrell were busting tackles running into players. It just doesnt happen for him anymore. He does have great defense, but that ball needs to get to Ken, who on our left side is our most Lethal player.

The forwards love his work rate in hit ups as it takes so much work off them and due to his speed, he normally gets 10m+.

There are probably 3 things that have cost us the 3 losses this year.

1. No go forward, this is partially to do with 2 but also caused by the forwards not digging in

2. Green having a bad day with Game management, which was ok when Lino was around as hes a game manager. Johnson gives us more offensive ability but if we cant get out of our own half we dont get to use him.

3. No offensive power, when we just cant get over the line. On the weekend when we were on Manlys try line, their players were all over Johnson, so twice Green gave a beautiful ball to Papali'i and Harris who both at 3metres are not going to be stopped, especially off quality ball and only 1 defender as everyone is expecting it to go to Johnson. Johnson when he does get the ball more often than not adds exceptional offense (as we all know). He is back, 100%. I can tell by the way he went up a gear in speed in his long range try, not easy to do, accelerate when you are already sprinting, but he just extends one stride and powers off it, remarkable talent. Then again he broke the field open and he could have scored himself but did the smart thing and put Fus back on the reverse angle to go unmarked over the line.

We can afford to lose 1, maybe 2 key players, but not both RTS and Johnson at same time. Lino doe a great job but he does the same job Green does, both are game management "Jones" type halves, which is what a 7 should be, now johnson is 6, hes in the position he should always have been in. He lacks the ability to push a pack around etc. Hes much better at adlib offense and just concentrating on how we are going to score than the over all game.

RTS out means no Hiku to feed the pass to Fus, Beale can do it, but IMO Beale needs to replace Kata. Beale can step and is ball player, hes not in his prime but has some real skill at centre and Ken only needs a ball which puts the tackler to the side so he can bust the tackle like swatting a fly. Also Beale is the sort when you are running and the offense make a msitake and creates half a break in the line he will step and straighten to go through the line. We didnt pay good money for him to be in reserves.

But if you look at these stats, last year Kata was up there with the best for causing tries. Plus his defense is one of the best in our team. Some how we just need to get him to trust Ken isnt going to get bundled into touch. if you watch the game again. Every single time, he just hits the ball up, doesnt try to create space for Ken and doesnt even look at Ken. Something needs tweaking.

https://www.nrl.com/news/2018/01/19/the-best-and-worst-defensive-centres-in-the-nrl/

With Kearney now adding offense set plays to training, I expect to see our offense stats climb. We are only about 8th on scoring and we are 8th on defense. So really need to dig in now to match Souths who have just stepped up a gear and are now the Favs with the punters and a lot of people.

5 games that impacted our position on the weekend were won by a few points in the dying minutes. If all 5 had gone our way we would be first equal not 4th. FRUSTRATING that they were so close more than they won. I mean youd expect at least one to hang on and go our way. Just shows the top teams arent unbeatable.

Still the top in offloads, but other teams have gained on us, but we really need players running onto those offloads not catching them flat footed.

Lastly Fusitua is now well and truely the top try scorer of the year, 3 clear of Addo-Karr.

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#2071706 11-Aug-2018 11:34

Nice win last night. They still frustrate me somewhat. Played solid, nothing more. Reliable. But when they run the ball, dummy half runs, offloads, they look very very dangerous, but its too infrequent. If they used these tactics more often, the opposing side will be wary, and that in itself buys time.

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#2077020 21-Aug-2018 19:13

No Warriors love anymore?

@tealeaf

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#2077355 22-Aug-2018 12:26

tdgeek:

No Warriors love anymore?

Hey mate, nah Im still on it, just been in and out of hospital so have to watch it on a tablet.

They been frustrating me too, but overall they heading in the right direction. Bennett follows a 3 step system when he takes a club which I think Kearney is following, after all hes spent time behind both Benntt and Bellamy who was also behind Bennett before the Storm. 1; Consistency, basically focussing soley on holding onto the pill and completing sets. We saw this last year with over 80% which is the marker these days. 2; Defense and fitness. Essentially League is on of the most physically demanding sports on the planet. If you are not running forward and getting smashed, you are constantly running backward 10 metres, there is never a rest. To defend your goal line you have to have amazing fitness levels, especially the big boppers who traditionally by the 60m mark cave in. They got Corvo over from the storm as head conditioning and fitness trainer. Hes a beast and knows his stuff. You could tell game 1 our fitness was night and day better than any other year in the clubs history. That turned into being (prior to dogs game) #3 overall defense and #2 red zone defense (20m zone). Thats a HUGE culture shift at the warriors. 3; Which I think will occur next year, Offense. Concentrating on set plays, using our natural talent both structured and unstructured. This has been my biggest frustration this year is offense.

We are leading offloads yet not very often do we have players backing up at speed. We should have Luke offloading to RTS into a hole which creates open field broken play which = more tries from out of the red zone. Our offense is almost 1 dimensional, in that we are relying soley on Structure footy. Complete 80%+ sets with 4 hit ups, 1 out wide, kick a bomb and wait for the mistake. Once mistake is made get into red zone, once there the majority of plays have been Luke to Green, Green one step, pass to Johnson, Johnson runs diagonally right with football in 2 hands drawing in 2-3 defenders, throws a face pass cutting out the centre to fusitua, try in the corner. The bomb for fusitua. And lastly usually green but some times Johnson sucking in defenders with their magic stepping and ball out in front, then a short ball to either a forward like Passi or somebody like Kata at speed 5m from the line.

Thats all well and good, but we are going to need a lot more variety and quality offense next year to take us to the next level, Top 4 and maybe even Minor Premiership. Currently we are under achieving when you look at that Roster, especially on offense, to be about 100 behind the top 6 teams in offense pretty much speaks for itself. Which is where I get frustrated, we have lost easily 6 games this year in which we could have finished them off and won the game, but our intensity on offense just hasnt been consustent. 6 extra wins would have us on 19 and cruising into Minor Premiers. Even losing the next 2. And its games like the doggies, ok I know the guys at the bottom were all out for upsets and to stick clear of the spoon. But this year prior to that game we were 8-3 away from home, we had the 2nd best goal line defense but let in 2 soft goal line tries, they had the 2nd worst goal line defense but we had chance after chance and couldnt crack them. Again a lack of offensive variety.

So Im not too unhappy, its a step in the right direction, changing the culture in the club on Completions, Defense and ESPECIALLY Fitness (80 minute players) is really good to see. Im hoping next year is our year. Any team in the top 8 can win on any given day, but its much harder when you have to do it 3 times than twice. I think we will take a lot of positives out of this year, we are retaining all our key players. If we can start scoring from anywhere on the paddock we could truely become a weapon like the storm and have nearly 200+ for and against not +1 :-).

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tdgeek

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#2083098 3-Sep-2018 11:23

They started off with a hiss and a roar, mixing great games with poor ones, but over time its evened out, less WOW games and less poor games, same with wow or poor periods. When they offload a lot, that's when they open up opportunities, yet often its the standard game up the middle. I'm hoping they start off offloading more, and in an unpredictable way. Of they had to as down on the scoreboard, and threw caution to the wind, they can explode. But throwing that recipe in every now and then when not expected might be a good plan. At this level now, no team can just grind up the middle and complete sets and hope they get given opportunities

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#2083210 3-Sep-2018 13:30

tdgeek:

No Warriors love anymore?

@tealeaf

Yep for sure - just forgot about this thread!

Stoked they are through to top 8 - been a long time.

Last game was a bit sloppy - but a dirty win is still a win.

Lets Go Warriors!

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#2083220 3-Sep-2018 13:38

driller2000:

Stoked they are through to top 8 - been a long time.

Last game was a bit sloppy - but a dirty win is still a win.

Lets Go Warriors!

Just think, if we bet the Titans and Bulldogs (both games we should have won), we would be minor premiers. The fact that there is one game (two points) between the top eight teams mean anyone could win this season.

tdgeek

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#2083225 3-Sep-2018 13:50

I see Stuff has an article about who will watch AB's and Warriors , as both on at the same, start time is 5 minutes apart. 42% to 38% to AB's so far. Not bad for the Warriors I thought

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