Re: Hardaker benched for 80 mins today : Sun Jul 17, 2016 7:58 pm
ThePrinter wrote:
He has a great rugby brain in defence TBF. You can't put some of his great stops down to just being physical. Putting the attacker in two minds and not making it easy for them showed a smart rugby brain in that department (his post match touch screen last year with Wells was an insight into this) and his positioning for long field kicks made it so much harder for the opposition kicker and team to pin us down nearer our line (he was usually 2/3 steps ahead of most FB's when setting off for a long kick downfield to the corner), however like you said the attacking aspect just became frustrating as you'd think he'd learn over time but hasn't seemed to at all.
Well he rarely showed much of a rugby brain in defence this season with missed tackles, leaving the high bombs to anyone but himself, getting knocked out on his own line when he should have gone to ground, not covering the ball movement in our danger zone and arriving too late to prevent a score, running down blind alleys, failing to pass and dying with the ball. Now this is evidence of a player without much of a rugby brain.
I put his one on one tackling down to bravery and physique and because he has lost a bit of speed his kick returns are now easily dealt with. I agree putting the attacker in two minds is good FB play however 19 year old Golding who you do not rate has shown this skill on a couple of occassions this season too. I regard this as a good skill but not evidence of a good rugby brain which is usually shown on attack by effective linking and creating space or an overlap for teammates.