Quote ="Pat Bateman"Just read an article from a couple of weeks ago regarding Chis Chester saying that him and the coaches have been focusing on what has gone wrong over the last 12 months. He also says him and the coaches have been watching NRL games and have spoken to coaches regarding what we can implement to help improve us. I can honestly say that we look so uncomfortable and unconfident in attack I can’t see this being an easy fix.'"
If that’s the case I admire him for at least admitting there has been a problem the past 12 months and not just focusing on the injuries and bad luck. Which hasn’t helped by the way. Some will disagree but I thought the performances have slipped year upon year after 2017. I think the quality, experience and knowledge in that 2017 squad was vastly overlooked. I think Kear and Chester made a good team and I imagine Kear brought the discipline whilst Chester gave players the freedom. I think we also reaped the rewards of Brian Smith’s good recruitment. I think we forget that our big players were in the form of their lives in 2017/2018. Even the squad players such as Annakin were at the peak of their powers. Arguably Fifita was in his best form last year before the injury. I think some players are now starting to decline. I don’t mean that they have become bad players and still aren’t exceptional talents. But injuries take their toll. Ashurst has hardly managed to get a good run since 2018. Tupou has been in and out. Even Milky has been disrupted too.
Some argue that we were on the top of our game last year before the injuries when we were in 3rd. I agree mostly but I actually thought we played better rugby in 2017. Apart from Leeds and Hull away we scraped a lot of wins and relied on individual brilliance (mainly from Fifita). I think we were still scraping results until Arona and Ashurst were injured and then we just seemed to implode. For me though the rot in attack had started to set in before the injuries. I don’t think we clicked half as much from the year before when we had Finn/Grix/Jowitt/Hampshire combining with Miller. I think Finn and Grix were really clever in attack and organised us really well. Players like Rocky and Miller seemed to have that extra space and I think that boiled down to players like Finn organising the attacking line. In truth we don’t have a clever half back anymore who can almost coach us on the field. It’s just a shame Finn was knocking on and just couldn’t handle the pace. He never had pace but he just lost that extra yard that was enough to get him in the right places. Brough is a different type of player who just wants to take control and be involved in everything. Unfortunately he couldn’t do that on a weekly basis as Father Time had caught up with him. Unfortunately we went through him too much and the plays were heavily dominated through him. I don’t think we spread it out enough.
After the Miller/Brough injuries we seemed to find a bit of a partnership between Jowitt/Reynolds/Hampshire and bar the odd game I thought all 3 did ok and deserved their place. However, we swapped and changed and it just seemed to confuse us. I was hoping Chester could settle down with is 1,6,7 and really give them time to develop their understanding but he seems to be unhappy with Jowitt and not convinced on him. I was happy with Jowitt/Hampshire/Walker and find them all to be talented FB’s. I reckon Jowitt would make a really good Stand Off and thought so in 2016 with the cut out passes he timed to perfection. I just can’t understand the Gigot signing and feel though we just got him because we could. I think a bit of it was panic too thinking that he could spark something.
We appear to lack any variation in attack at the minute. It seems to be the same move all the time. A forward tipping onto the HB who then hits the FB out of the back. Problem is the passing is so slow and not very accurate so the FB is getting closed down. I’m disappointed we don’t have anymore trick plays. No look inside ball, two lines of runners, early chip over the top to wingers etc. I think the coaching staff has to take some responsibility for how stale the attack is.
What I would say though is that our halves aren’t getting chance to play as our forwards are losing the collisions in defence and attack. Especially in those first exchanges in the first 20 mins. Our hookers and halves are playing off zero go forward and we make a lot of silly mistakes leading to extra defence. I can’t for the life of me understand why our forwards aren’t moving up and putting pressure on the ball carriers and kickers? We just seem to hang off meaning we are losing ground before even initiating the tackle. The kick chase is also appalling at the minute meaning we are giving extra yardage away there too. I think the forwards need to put their hand up and work harder. Get running onto the ball and force them to front up.
These are just my thoughts and there isn’t an easy fix. We just look a bit stale at times and I personally think our coaching staff may have reached their limit. That doesn’t mean anyone is a bad coach it just means things become too comfortable or it’s hard to see the Wood for the trees! Coaching is tough these days and it’s only the really top coaches and those with special teams who often survive 6/7+ years. We may not need to make loads of changes but I think we need a fresh pair of eyes somewhere. It’s ok asking other coaches in the NRL but they aren’t here to witness it up close and personal. I really do hope I’m proved wrong over the next few months and we can hit a bit of form. I would hate to see Carter/Chester’s hard work undone. It’s been a pleasure to watch competitive rugby but we need to address the slide before it becomes a big hole.
