General Tactical comments from last nights game. : Sat Feb 20, 2016 9:02 am
rolling up to last nights game I was hoping that we scored and the roosted scored less than 40 points, so from that aspect I was happy with the result.however, on seeing the roosters lineup and the saints lineup, I was disapointed with a few basic errors as a team.
Firstly, the roosters where not as strong as Souths last year, they don't have the all star line up and looked a bit rusty.
Secondly, they chose to play a safe game, standard one out football looking for gaps around the first man in and nothing special, they clearly understood the consitions, respected the opposition and patiently waited for Saints to make mistakes.
Saints too went for one out football to start with and the first 10 minutes were bright, they made it look like it was going to be a good tough match.
Then, sadly our backs didn't read the 'tough it out' script, they pushed the ball on too many occasions, they kicked on the 4th to the full back when there was space either side, 2 restarts went out on the full, there was no patience from them or the senior members of the squad, and time after time ball went to ground or into the roosters arms due to our mistakes.
I would much rather see saints play a game of chess, and go for repeat sets on the opposition line than throw speculative passes out wide or panic pass on the last to try and score on each set.
The roosters stuck to a simple game plan, and turned over on our line if they had too, they never looked like they were pushing the ball and always had patience and respect for the ball the conditions and the opposition. They got to the 5th and the put up a high ball turning us around in our own 10 every single time almost.
It would be interesting to see the stats on completed sets and the error count. I think our forwards did enough yards, but we gave them far too much ball and not in their own 10.
I think if I want to see anything come out of this I want to see Keiron instill patience in the team, and ability to simply play out our sets of 6 early on to enable us to wait for errors and work out were the gaps and weaknesses are and to stop the panic pass football late on in the tackle count when there are many minutes left on the clock.
we have the players to compete this year, but until we get them playing a simple game plan the off the cuff stuff won't work.