Fantastic Mr Catpiss wrote:
i disagree, and i speak as someone who loved 2016 ben currie, and has defended him to the hilt as he's recovered from his 2 acl surgeries when people had their knives out for him over the 3 years after that.
Last year my opinion changed because it was visible, what he WASn'T doing, and that had nothing to do with his knee, i've even used the left side argument my self when talking about toby king in 21,
2 or 3 decent lines run a year when williams is motoring isn't a good pay off, the defences dont respect him, and he gets targeted in attack.
that try against saints where he 'lost his hips' if you go back and look you'll find lots of examples where thats happened, would you see a saints or wigan forward like that? or would you see them trying to make a last ditch tackle?
I’m not sure he does ‘lose his hips’ for the Saints try. If you watch the play unfold, Mikaele is slow to shift from his position at C defender, opening a gap up slightly. Currie’s man at that point is Lees, Mikaele picking up the ball carrier (Knowles, I think) but he doesn’t get close. There’s no inside push because Dufty is at B and looks to sink behind the line. I’m an ideal world, inside push means that Currie can move on one, Mikaele has an outside shoulder on Lees and the inside man cover Knowles. But that doesn’t happen, so Currie has to defend Lees. When the ball goes, Hayes shoots out of the line, but Ratchford and Ashton don’t. The last pass, Mikaele still hasn’t passed the mark of 20m in from the touch line. Hayes is beyond the ball and it’s a 3 vs 2 and Ashton guesses wrong.
The root cause isn’t Currie’s hips at all, it’s the fact that we’re so slow and pedestrian when pushing from the middle that we can’t cover the numerical advantage.
The same happens with the first try. Mikaele doesn’t make an effort on Lomax, barely even in the screen, leaving Crowther worried about being stepped and not making a move. Drinkwater should do better, but at that point Lomax is outside of Crowther as Crowther has had to compensate for the lazy effort from Mikaele. That’s on 11 minutes. Lazy efforts on 11 minutes. From a guy we’ve flown half way around the world. TWICE.
