: Fri Apr 24, 2009 9:03 pm
Alan wrote:
For what it's worth, I am on record, on here, as saying Donlan must be full back - he's wasted anywhere else. But, I also think Mort has tremedous potential, as full back - but believe he should be on the wing, at the moment. He is a try scorer, kicks goals for fun, and can (usually!) take the high ball.
I'm with you on this. Donlan should be full back but I also think Mort should be in the team (he had a good game last night and he can kick goals). Do we drop Mort to play Donlan in arguably his best position at full back or do we try to fit Donlan in elsewhere to accomodate Mort at full back? Thinking long-term I'd go with the latter, I think Mort has lots of potential.
As for what's going wrong? Well where do we start?
We're trying to play a simple brand of rugby which is all well and good if you can respect position and the laws of the game, but we just can't help ourselves can we? Every game we give away stupid penalties and make basic mistakes that inevitably end up costing us. Last night was a case in point. Fev weren't much better than us and didn't exactly play an expansive game, but they respected possession and field position better than we did (especially in the second half) and crucially took their chances when we presented them.
I remember Kelly saying, when he first joined, that the entertaining rugby and the expansive game would come when we started respecting possession and discipline but the mistakes and the penalties are still there. Once again we find ourselves at the bottom of the Fair Play Index. How many years are we going to have to put up with an ill-disciplined team? It's not just the penalties but it's the timing. We seem to be masters at giving them away on the 4th or 5th tackle.
We do play a bland brand of rugby at times but when we threw it about last night we came away with some points. We should be playing a more expansive game and coming from someone who has backed Kelly so far, I am disappointed that the team looks so reluctant to throw it about. Something is going wrong somewhere, but I don't think the whole blame can be lumped on Neil Kelly. The same problems seem to exist that became apparant especially during Abram's reign and they've been around ever since.
