Welcome to the mad house.
I've spent many hours contemplating why Cappy has a back on the bench.
Yesterday while I was out fishing the answer came to me.
Defence.
This is how I got there.
Go back to the 1st time the Warriors carried a back on the bench.
Dominique Peroux was carried on the bench to come on a d defend.
That anomaly was created by Lazy man Hurrell.
What that experiment revealed is that in a side that has a tight eighty minute middle third , the Warriors lose by virtue of their leaky edges.
When the opposition attack us our edge players are somewhat assisted by our tacklebot backrow (minders create lazy mindee's). Even so.....our backs are used to carry the offensive workload of our forwards in our own half.
That donkey work tax's our backs like it tax's every other teams forwards.
This is why we see our edges leak when the side is on the Blackfoot.
McFadden is wathing the defence of our backs in games and waiting till they show signs of flagging....he is treating them like the traditional management of forward packs....carrying a bench player to make some tackles at right time.
To paraphrase Cappy after the Manly game where Lolohea sat on the bench till the 82nd minute ' we were waiting for the right time to use him, our team was going well so we waited till he was needed'
Most of us looked at that plan from an attacking POV.
Nah man, its about having a fresh tackler out there for our backline that gets used as forwards.
The injury cover theory just didn't quite make sense to me. There is also the obvious injection of a speedy player when opposition defence shows signs of tiring.
Dude, I think you've spent way to many hours contemplating this subject maybe... here's my thoughts on the matter
Cast your mind back to round 2 vs The Broncos at Suncorp. We were matching them, in the grind and at some stages getting the better of the Broncos.
Then Bang! Manu picks up a rib injury then Blake is off with concussion taking us down to 2 left on the bench.
This is when we lost our shape completely and the Broncos put on 2 quick tries effectively ending our battle.
I think Kata went to wing ,
Roache come on to Centre, then RTM come on when Blake went off.
Then we move onto round 4 vs Knights Cappy puts Konrad on the bench for the next 3 games, yes Konrad as back cover.
Then TL returns from injury vs Manly so both Thomas and Konrad were on the bench for that round.
Round 7 vs Dogs Thomas is on the bench , Lolo is put in at 6 but this is the game
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck picks up his injury. Tui gets moved to fullback Thomas comes on at 6.
We were still able to win that game even though
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck went off because with Thomas on the bench we were still able to keep our structure.
Round 8 he has Jonathan Wright on the bench, now you can't tell me he's on the bench for impact!
He's had Matt Allwood on the bench before the introduction of
Jazz /
Roache rotation. So for a period before the Sharkies GP game he did have an all forward Bench.
Then he's got Tui on the bench for the Sharkies game, then Blake blah blah blah
Personally if you do the maths I agree with his theory that you don't need all forwards on the bench. However, for this weekend, I'm agreeing with those that would rather have
Afoa on the bench against the Bunnies forward pack.
That would make a hell of alot more sense then having Blake there for this game.
Also as with Wright I doubt your gonna get much impact from Blake coming off the bench as we saw vs the Titans. I wouldn't complain though if a back went down injured and Blake was on the bench as a replacement. Maybe he is selecting bench on a game by game basis.
I don't recall it being a talking point prior to this season.
