Joined: Apr 09 2010 Posts: 13300 Location: The Moon
fez1 wrote:Jon Wells analysis of the defensive frailities on Sky was spot on. The issue was Duftys organization of the line - a key full back attribute. Loads of people criticize the Sky presenters but I've watched really good analysis by both Phil Clarke and Jon Wells
Was interesting to watch that and today I made a point of watching him, for large parts of it he was same as last week. He was often too central and of no help to the edge defence which was alluded to by Powell in an earlier interview, he was not blaming Dufty but the pictures told the story. Someone on here said he looked disinterested but would then pop up in attack. Would not pick him over Brett Hodgson.
Dufty did not look a happy man at all today, got more involved as the game went on but still very quiet in general. I was made up Green got to actually play properly today, and i thought he did a very good job. Bullock getting back to his form before his injury which is good. Vaughan, don't need to say much at all, he puts it in week in week out. Dudson had i thought his best game for us, nothing special but just ran the ball up hard and tackled well. Not a world beater but if he can keep putting in grafting performances it's what we need. Kasiano played well today but as always i prefer him coming off the bench to add punch rather than starting, but he does a good job either way. Harrison is just a worker, he doesn't do anything special but works hard. Currie had a good game, Thewlis was great, Wrench had a decent game and the more he plays the better he should get. Not a great game from us in the second half but the age old a wins a win will do for me at this stage.
As long as Hughes is paying the bills then sticking posts in the ground is the only marketing strategy. There seemed to be little last year other than tube surfing with Buck and Dusty.......it's almost like they watch Field of Dreams every January to motivate themselves.
It looks like there were some lessons learnt from previous games yesterday. Recently teams have easily been able to work their way down field and end a set with an attacking kick that we typically struggle to deal with. That was not the case yesterday and our forwards put a lot of effort into restricting metres and getting bodies in the tackle to drive them back and control the ruck. This often brought Currie and Harrison into the middle to assist and I think Watson and co spotted this and in the second half they tried to shift to the edges knowing that fatigue would set in and we would struggle to cover the edges.
It felt like at times it was just individual errors in our own half that gave Huddersfield their chances. Clark dropping the ball stone cold in the first half led to a try and on either one or two occasions Dufty spilling the ball led to tries. We can't afford to gift possession this easily. until we regain that resilience in our goal line defence we need to keep teams away from our 20m area. Last week we gifted Hull the territory from Kick offs. Today it was just spilling the ball. I heard in commentary that Lucas Green is highly rated by the club, if that is the case why has he not been trusted to come off the bench? I thought he did ok. Some strong carries and he wasn't a weak link in defence.
I like Dufty and want him to do well here and people make mistakes but I just wish he would have the same enthusiasm when defending as when he is attacking. Standing still and watching what happens and then jogging along the try line when Huddersfield are shifting the ball. There is a really good player in there and it is frustrating to watch when we are defending sometimes.
Well first and foremost we needed the win. Thewlis's try was superb, Walker was my MoM as I thought he had a very good game. Ratchford's 5 from 5 proved decisive, and good to see Lucas Green get game time. On the downside, we kept putting ourselves under pressure by gifting possession through errors, after we had taken control of the game with a 2 to 3 score lead. We've conceded 16 tries in our last 3 games, which is not good enough - our left side defence was particularly bad, yesterday. Williams's last play kicks yielded precious little for the majority of the game.
Joined: Jan 23 2006 Posts: 7392 Location: Looking for a coach that can coach
The centres (? second rowers) don't seem to offer much in defence or attack. Huge gaps in the defensive line and falling off tackles. In attack it seems its a kick on the 5th as there is no/limited structured attack on the 3rd/4th.
Atrocious 80min performance but at least we hung on to win. Defence in our 20 and attack in the opposition 20 is embarrassing. Thewlis, Williams, Wrench, Walker and Currie were all very good but Dufty and Ratchford need to be dropped even though the latter won us the match according to some on here with 5 kicks from in front of the posts. Need to see some improvement soon.
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