for mine that was by far the most worrying part. the whole losing thing doesn’t bother me in the least when it comes to pre-season. We need to become a lot harder to score against if we want to become a Top 4 team.
It’s also hard to really rate some of the players because some are missing massive chunks of the games through management.
Myers as a forward, i think won’t have a big impact because he is so slow he can’t provide any pressure when the ball comes out. As an inside mid who can drift forward on occasion to catch the opposition out- then he could become a real weapon.
I have no worries about our forward line. It’s filled to the brim with quality and talent
I don’t have that many worries in regards to our midfield. Shiel will be a vital cog, and there is quite a bit of talent in there already. Guys like Langford and Parish while being pretty rubbish all pre season- they werent spending that much time in the middle. So my guess is the coaches are easing them into it as they know they will have a massive workload throughout the year
Our backline without Hooker…scares the hell out of me.
I don’t know the exact numbers but marking stats was telling to what I’d consider our biggest issue going into the season.
Our defensive structures must have been working to a degree as we slowed them up plenty of occasions. What killed us and what I’m very worried about is our skill level. Not many rebounds resulted in us marking the ball and a lot of there score came from basic skill error turnovers that makes it hard to structure up. They also scored goals from poor umpiring and from low percentage areas.
What I’ve taken away from the two preseason games is the lack of controlling the footy. The best way to prevent goals against is us having the footy. We can’t maintain possession nor the tempo with our current skill output. We also can’t win territory if we can’t hit a target out of defence or the inability to string 3 mark and kicks in a row.
Means nothing if we can’t deliver it to them with any system or accuracy… so much of our scoring is just front running rebound.
If we’re only scoring on the rebound, and only every so often, we’re in trouble - it just compounds our overall paper thin general defensiveness - not just the defensive lines.
Marking in our forward 50 were a concern. Joey is an obvious target but he’s often double teamed. The fact that he hasn’t hit his stride yet and was either playing for a free or leaping when he didn’t need to didn’t help.
Considering the 6-6-6 - I thought we’d have more space in our forward line. Provided we get the ball in quick enough.
Exactly, it’s all about making space for yourself and for teammates. The last thing any forward needs is a teammate leading into their space or flying for the same ball.
Was Hurley really p1ssd off or did he have a dose of the petulant childish mood. He didn’t look like the player I remember or was he just having an off day because Hooker was missing?
I’m just a bit concerned because we seem to be playing the same as we did in the JLT last season. Zero forward structure and a half field press rather than forward press. We tried that for a while and it failed miserably, it was only when we switched to the forward press and altered the forward line (albeit when Daniher went out and Hooker went to defence) that we played a lot better