Game Management - Still work to do from 2015? : Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:59 pm
I'll start this by saying Wigan were pretty exceptional last night and were desperately unlucky to miss out. So this isn't a criticism. But, in a game of such fine margins, you have to question whether our game management still needs to improve?
It was a big thing that the club openly talked about and worked on after the 2015 grand final, because it was a clear reason we lost that game. And it has improved substantially where, most of the time we run games pretty well. But the decision to take the two had huge impact last night which can't be overlooked.
You can't control the randomness at the end (well Bevan could have been a bit sharper and probably have got there, but it wasn't clear cut). But what you can do is control critical points of the game which enable you to play the percentages based upon the teams strengths, which give you a marginal advantage and increase your chances of coming out on top.
With 90 seconds on the clock, the decision to kick a goal from 45 yards ultimately cost us. I've heard people say 'with hindsight' etc. but its more than that for me. Many of us cried NO before we knew whether he'd missed or not, because it was a low percentage play.
With a fairly average kicker in Hardaker, you've probably got a 20-30% chance that was going to succeed, from there, at such a late stage, with the magnitude of winning the final -he always only had an outside chance. Had Richards or Botica been out there, you may take that same play, as with them kicking you are probably looking a 50/50 chance or better than 50%, but it was always only an outside chance for hardaker. Again, you play to your strengths.
The other option was of course to touch - pick the ball up 20 metres out and have 5 plays to set up your best chance at DG, with no time for saints to come back. Had we taken that course of action we'd probably been 50/50 on winning, or maybe a little more, but crucially, would have been guaranteed extra time.
Ultimately what's happened has happened and we move on - I'm devastated by the fact saints are now 8 SL titles to our 5, when such small margins (a kick at goal, and a flower punch), are the only reasons we are not 7-6 the other way! They look like a much more successful club over 25 years, but the only difference is 2 x 10 seconds passage of plays....that will take time to catch up!
But to catch up, when its likely Wigan and Saints are going to be very difficult to separate for the next 3-5 years, the way we manage games is going to be critical.
So it has to be an opportunity for learning for me....Its not enough to manage games well, we have to manage them exceptionally if we want to be on the right side of such small margins in the future!
