Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:27 am
Itchy Arsenal wrote:
Love your optimism and hope some of it can rub off on me.
Where’s the improvement in our kicking game though?
It’s been nigh extinct for a generation and as much as love TL defence hits and that he epitomises a great clubman his kicking game is zero, zilch, non existent.
I suspect non us know what Field really is. He could be a hidden gem or a crock of shoite.
If we don’t sign a new HB in all likelihood we have no kicking game. An area where we are I would argue worse than our go forward but yet, no announcement on how we propose to rectify this pretty alarming deficiency
We start off again with one arm tied behind our backs.
This is where I get frustrated with our long term recruitment policy. Fundamentals are just ignored or put on the hard step. We’eve signed 3 Aussies in 2 years who play HB or FB on good or mega wages but not one of them can/could kick from hand or kick goals when we’ve been screaming for both since 2013.
No disrespect to Miski or Thornley but they don’t overall improve our back line one iota nor do they bring additional skills sets one players who they’ve replaced.
I suspect Marshall is marmite for a lot of fans.
I’m in the I like him camp. I like my wingers to have pace and the confidence to use it.
I can’t think of one centre currently on our books who Marshall would love to link with because he can feed off him. Marshall has gone matches I’d argue seasons without any any decent ball. What’s the point of him? Stick Smithies on the wing if we want a guy to drive the ball in from our own half and can give the “middles” a breather.
What I’m getting at is how are we going to play? On paper it’s gonna be “tough”, low risk and prescriptive rugby. I personally don’t want or more specifically “need” rugby of that ilk
Lam’s “regime” was every man for himself with zero risk maybe because he thought that was their capabilities or more than than likely he hadn’t got a clue. At least we knew we were going to get shoite.
If someone had said to me say 3 years ago that our only recognised centre would be Thornley, that our new winger is an unproven championship player and we don’t have a single HB with an all round proven kicking game with less than 2 months before preseason I’d have thought he was taking the urine.
As I say hopefully your optimism proves to be the outcome rather than my pessimism but unless we sign a really good HB with a kicking game and a decent centre if Hardaker goes I’m still looking at at a squad that’s got much weaknesses as strengths. Hard work is a given for me and you can’t win without it however, on it’s own it isn’t enough to win consistently and win the games that really matter and that is where I think we may come unstuck
Where’s the improvement in our kicking game though?
It’s been nigh extinct for a generation and as much as love TL defence hits and that he epitomises a great clubman his kicking game is zero, zilch, non existent.
I suspect non us know what Field really is. He could be a hidden gem or a crock of shoite.
If we don’t sign a new HB in all likelihood we have no kicking game. An area where we are I would argue worse than our go forward but yet, no announcement on how we propose to rectify this pretty alarming deficiency
We start off again with one arm tied behind our backs.
This is where I get frustrated with our long term recruitment policy. Fundamentals are just ignored or put on the hard step. We’eve signed 3 Aussies in 2 years who play HB or FB on good or mega wages but not one of them can/could kick from hand or kick goals when we’ve been screaming for both since 2013.
No disrespect to Miski or Thornley but they don’t overall improve our back line one iota nor do they bring additional skills sets one players who they’ve replaced.
I suspect Marshall is marmite for a lot of fans.
I’m in the I like him camp. I like my wingers to have pace and the confidence to use it.
I can’t think of one centre currently on our books who Marshall would love to link with because he can feed off him. Marshall has gone matches I’d argue seasons without any any decent ball. What’s the point of him? Stick Smithies on the wing if we want a guy to drive the ball in from our own half and can give the “middles” a breather.
What I’m getting at is how are we going to play? On paper it’s gonna be “tough”, low risk and prescriptive rugby. I personally don’t want or more specifically “need” rugby of that ilk
Lam’s “regime” was every man for himself with zero risk maybe because he thought that was their capabilities or more than than likely he hadn’t got a clue. At least we knew we were going to get shoite.
If someone had said to me say 3 years ago that our only recognised centre would be Thornley, that our new winger is an unproven championship player and we don’t have a single HB with an all round proven kicking game with less than 2 months before preseason I’d have thought he was taking the urine.
As I say hopefully your optimism proves to be the outcome rather than my pessimism but unless we sign a really good HB with a kicking game and a decent centre if Hardaker goes I’m still looking at at a squad that’s got much weaknesses as strengths. Hard work is a given for me and you can’t win without it however, on it’s own it isn’t enough to win consistently and win the games that really matter and that is where I think we may come unstuck
There’s no doubt there’s some pre season optimism building inside of me and as ever, that probably papers over some cracks in the squad and I absolutely agree there are some. We desperately need to sort out a halfback IMO and I’ve said before, I think it’s pretty shambolic that it hasn’t been sorted but when I shelve that issue and look at the other 16 spots and the squad in general, I do genuinely see us as being stronger. I’m not sure how we can’t be because other than that halfback spot, all the other lads who have left may as well have not bothered turning up last season. All of Manfredi, Gildart, Clubb, Clark and Bullock offered next to zero in 2021 (through no fault of their own in a couple of cases) and we also need to factor in the biggest exit and incomings and that is Lam going and a new coaching team coming in. There are a good few unknowns in the squad, like Miski and the two props but I have a good feeling about those lads. I’ve seen glimpses of them and looked at plenty of stats for the two props, both in the NRL and the NSW Cup (which is a very good standard) and they’ll improve us I believe.
That all leaves the elephant in the room and that’s the halfback spot. It’s so late now to sort one out and how we’ve left ourselves in this position I’m not too sure. I still sense we could see Jacob Miller come in and then there are one or two options still knocking around Down Under, like Corey Norman, so we’ll see what happens. I still have high hopes Harry Smith will settle under a better coach and in a team with more grunt in the middle and if he does, he can sort out the kicking from hand. A pairing of him and Norman wouldn’t be a bad one IMO, with Tommy as back up and Field covering a few spots.
All debate about squad strength aside, the biggest factor will be the coach. There are huge improvements in every single player from what we saw last season and we can’t forget that.
