Quote: Magic Superbeetle "'"
It’s interesting you mention our “30 minute lull” as I call it. It’s less to do with Walmsley / Lees off and more to do with them going off with Knowles as well. Knowles leads our defensive line and with the three of them off, Roby does it but is slightly less effective due to his age. It was telling that in the semi final Knowles actually played through to 37 minutes and despite you scoring around then, I don’t think we suffered nearly as much from our usual drop off. Next year though, I think the plan will be to bring a fresh Roby on for Knowles, and play his old high energy high involvement game for 20 minutes (rather than being managed through 80 as he is at the moment), which I think will do a really good job at keeping the pressure up throughout the game. It’s part of the reason I think Lussick will go really well for us.
It’s also interesting you single out Dodd as a defensive weakness. In Fages and Lomax we probably have 2 of the best defensive halves in the comp (if not the best) and we have been playing Dodd at hooker for large parts of this year to really focus on his defence, and a lot of his training has been around defending as well. We didn’t keep Richardson because the club weren’t confident he could pick up the defensive aspect of the game like Dodd can, and I’m comfortable with an off-season he will be in good shape. He’s not perfect yet (it wouldn’t have surprised me if Fages was playing if he had managed to push Luke Briscoe out for your second try for example, which Dodd didn’t manage), but it would surprise me if he’s targeted like you would Richardson for example.
I think Mata’utia had a poor start to the season, which has led to our backrow being a little underrated this year (not helped with Bentley missing 90% of the season, and Thompson being … underwhelming). If Mata’utia plays the whole year like he has since the cup final, he will be a dream team second row next year. The other backrow spots are interesting. Obviously we have signed Sironen as a direct replacement for Thompson, but Batchelor is getting better and every game so who gets the 12 shirt is going to be a bit of a pre season battle. Add in Jamie Bell, (Konrad Hurrell), Jake Wingfield and Matty Foster (who impressed on duel reg at Leigh this year) it’s likely to be one of our most competitive positions next year.
Hopoate for Naiqama is a like for like swap so it’s hard to say if it’s something that should/ could be targeted. What I will say is Naiqamas age is starting to show this year and some of the defensive reads he makes when jumping out the line haven’t been as effective. This is where Catalans targeted in our 5 minute disaster class on MW, so I can actually see Hopoate improving this aspect.
Not really sure where you have seen a weakness in Grace (if anything kicking at Coote is a far more effective strategy this year, he’s dropped a couple cold like the first minute of the semi). I will say it’s the bomb to the centres that seem far more effective against us at the moment (again I think Percival dropped one in the lead up to your second try), and again something Catalans used at MW which I hope we have a strategy for this time.
Ultimately the best way to know how we would do against an NRL side is look to the 2020 WCC where we lost to the Roosters 20-12. It was a game of coulda shoulda woulda for us bombing a few opportunities which could have given us the lead. The team is slightly different now (Luke Thompson was awesome for us that night) but if we were to win it again, i really hope to see another WCC to see how we have progressed.'"
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