I watched the game again to see specifically where we fall short. It's real weird how games look so different when it's playing live vs as a replay.
Some positives before I get into what looks off:
- Maumolo is a machine
-
Paasi then Maumolo hit ups are lethal in getting us momentum
- Our big back three, when fully fit, will get us serious metres, momentum and attract penalties
-
Hiku and
Harris are strong in attack
-
Blair controls ruck speed in the tackle well
- Refs penalised Knights for over-wrestling and being offside multiple times - we just rarely took advantage of it with poor attacking sets
-
Burr and Papalii are real hard workers
-
Herbert looks smart defensively
There are some serious issues here though which have been around for years:
- We don't control ruck speed cos we rarely physically dominate them in the tackle, especially during the first few tackles - oppositions quick play the balls lead directly to poor line speed
- Middle forwards playing for way too long and not enough metres (or forwards) off the bench
- poor running and lethargic shape off the first few runs in a set off our line
- halves, especially Green, standing way too far back and not threatening the line at all
- horrible 10m touch finders from Green and lack of kick penetration- he doesn't have a big boot or a torpedo bomb
- clunky attacking shape, especially when they use
Blair or Papalii as 2nd receivers with the centre running a crash (inside) line - worked once with
Harris (who really should be on the right edge) and
Hiku but didn't lead to a try
- block play off green where prop runs an out line gets shut down quickly resulting in us losing all go forward
-
Chanel Harris-Tavita is too green - some poor last tackle options and didn't execute quite a few runs and passes
- we looked real tired from the beginning of the second half. Once again, we needed fresh forwards off the bench
-
Beale needs to step back against 6'5" dudes and defend the kick rather than take himself out of play with a leap
We can criticize the forwards effort and will as much as we want but our forwards are slower (heavy), shorter (harder offloads) and are being played for way too many minutes because of the coaching staff. They don't get much help at all from the bench and they play off halves that can't kick to win field position, whether it be bombs that don't land in the 10m zone or kicks that don't force drop outs. The last few rucks said it all when
Blair,
Burr and Papalii stood in front of 6'5" 125kg Saifiti and Klemmer and got dwarfed;
Kearney knows and acknowledges this issue and continues to do nothing about it except give Satae/Sao 15 minutes at best.