Hail Sezer
Moderator
Dubs a dub. Tigers do a good job of scrambling the ruck and violently compressing and stretching the D line so I'm happy enough with how we managed that, granted they were without Api for most of it. They did also make a fair amount of errors so didn't really build much pressure that we had to defend for sustained periods.
Our work with the ball was good as usual but second half errors and poor decisions were still there under fatigue. AJ showed why he's still the top dog.
Mo & Tino tremendous bar a bit of sloppy D in the 2nd (wrap the ball up ffs), and JJ made a big difference to our middle. Really highlights how big the gap is between our best 4 middles and the rest.
Verrills did a lot of good on both sides of the ball. I think Randall is about the best backup 9 you could hope for, but what Verrills brings to the middle on D, his effort areas, and work with the ball, makes us a much better side.
Schoupp's inabiity to hit and stick is becoming a target. He's got good sense of when and how to go from passive to jamming, his kick chase effort is great, he doesn't shy away from the contact and he makes decent decisions (IMO) but he's just not wrapping up the ball carrier and unless he's pushing them back inside, it's detrimental. My theory is that he's not comfortable tackling with his left shoulder and that's why he keeps giving his opposite the outside (and puts himself in a weaker position) or goes chest to chest where the intent is great but unless you've got a big wingspan, you're just going to get bumped. He needs coaching, or to be on the other side of the field. Or both. BK is just as bad but he's got right-edge players coming at him and I've gone on about that enough. His contact has been an issue for years.
Tanah was good again and is continuing to build. His contribution was again an important part of how well we're using the ball and his kicking game is doing us plenty of favours.
Happy with Klese's work with the ball but he's still got some big issues defensively in both the contact and with his reads. Would like to see him getting more carries on exit sets.
JC has a way to go if he's going to be a 6 but he was better than the week before and just seems to be around the ball when things happen. It's something you want on the field. The way he planted that ball for the try looked so effortless at full-pace..not many get to that like he did.
Overall, and I'll focus on D here because we all know we can attack fine, I don't think we really got stress-tested to expose our problems but I thought it was clear Joliffe made a difference in the middle during our usual meltdown time-period. We're still not dong a good job at wrapping the ball up, and we're not sticking well enough on first contact across the park - both of these get amplified in a) the second half and b) in certain field position. Liu (who's goal line defence is the antithesis of his defence on the rest of the field) & Haas getting ran over once a week by a middle on the line is just not good enough either.
Shoutout to Phil Sami in game 100 who took 28 carries for 290m....huge. He's twice the player when on the right wing like T says. Happy to see him bag a try too.
Lastly...bitter sweet seeing Jahream Bula do so well. As everyone prob knows, he was spotted & signed by us when he was coming through Keebra and at that stage wasn't even the best fullback in their school side so was playing left centre. We banked on his athletic traits, developed him through JTS and gave him a pathway to NRL but he decided to try and play pro Basketball a few years ago, so walked away from RL altogether. Then earlier this year, now living in Sydney, decides he wants to play footy again and falls into the Tigers lap by asking his Tigers-contracted friend (and Keebra captain) Trey Peni to get him a spot in their JF side. Talk about luck.
Our work with the ball was good as usual but second half errors and poor decisions were still there under fatigue. AJ showed why he's still the top dog.
Mo & Tino tremendous bar a bit of sloppy D in the 2nd (wrap the ball up ffs), and JJ made a big difference to our middle. Really highlights how big the gap is between our best 4 middles and the rest.
Verrills did a lot of good on both sides of the ball. I think Randall is about the best backup 9 you could hope for, but what Verrills brings to the middle on D, his effort areas, and work with the ball, makes us a much better side.
Schoupp's inabiity to hit and stick is becoming a target. He's got good sense of when and how to go from passive to jamming, his kick chase effort is great, he doesn't shy away from the contact and he makes decent decisions (IMO) but he's just not wrapping up the ball carrier and unless he's pushing them back inside, it's detrimental. My theory is that he's not comfortable tackling with his left shoulder and that's why he keeps giving his opposite the outside (and puts himself in a weaker position) or goes chest to chest where the intent is great but unless you've got a big wingspan, you're just going to get bumped. He needs coaching, or to be on the other side of the field. Or both. BK is just as bad but he's got right-edge players coming at him and I've gone on about that enough. His contact has been an issue for years.
Tanah was good again and is continuing to build. His contribution was again an important part of how well we're using the ball and his kicking game is doing us plenty of favours.
Happy with Klese's work with the ball but he's still got some big issues defensively in both the contact and with his reads. Would like to see him getting more carries on exit sets.
JC has a way to go if he's going to be a 6 but he was better than the week before and just seems to be around the ball when things happen. It's something you want on the field. The way he planted that ball for the try looked so effortless at full-pace..not many get to that like he did.
Overall, and I'll focus on D here because we all know we can attack fine, I don't think we really got stress-tested to expose our problems but I thought it was clear Joliffe made a difference in the middle during our usual meltdown time-period. We're still not dong a good job at wrapping the ball up, and we're not sticking well enough on first contact across the park - both of these get amplified in a) the second half and b) in certain field position. Liu (who's goal line defence is the antithesis of his defence on the rest of the field) & Haas getting ran over once a week by a middle on the line is just not good enough either.
Shoutout to Phil Sami in game 100 who took 28 carries for 290m....huge. He's twice the player when on the right wing like T says. Happy to see him bag a try too.
Lastly...bitter sweet seeing Jahream Bula do so well. As everyone prob knows, he was spotted & signed by us when he was coming through Keebra and at that stage wasn't even the best fullback in their school side so was playing left centre. We banked on his athletic traits, developed him through JTS and gave him a pathway to NRL but he decided to try and play pro Basketball a few years ago, so walked away from RL altogether. Then earlier this year, now living in Sydney, decides he wants to play footy again and falls into the Tigers lap by asking his Tigers-contracted friend (and Keebra captain) Trey Peni to get him a spot in their JF side. Talk about luck.
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