Ok fekkwitts, prepare to shower yourselves with droplets from my fountain of wisdom.

I've had a little video session to consider the issues with our right hand side defence. Before the video session I was prepared to defend Smith and placed a lot of blame on McGuire. I was wrong. I know, now you have picked yourself up sit down because another shocker is coming.....

Gotcha made a very astute observation about the scheme (or lack thereof) yesterday with different players popping up in the right centre and Delaney being very central in defence. A tactic or players going roaming? Whichever, I hope Bluey fixes it quick.

Now, you can't always look in isolation at the player on the wing or the players two or three in (another good observation by Gotcha - you'll probably need the smelling salts by now). Looking at the Hull tries conceded down our right I have the following observations.

1, Delaney is at marker. Players need to cover. Probably more down to great play by Manu than bad defence but a poor read by McGuire and Burgess nonetheless and why is Burgess defending so wide?
2. Delany far infield again. Sinfield in the centres and gets stood up but recovers. Smith, however, has come in and left his wingman un-marked. Bad mark for Smith.
3. A poor inside read from Delaney and Smith comes in field leaving his winger, again.
4. Delaney rounded but Smith, yet again, comes infield and shows no faith in his inside defence. There is, however, a blatant obstruction on McGuire and this should have been penalty Leeds.
5. Loose pass in attack and Hull move the ball quickly to Turner on the wing.Smith shoots in, again, leaving Kirke covering the wing.

Conclusions. A bit of an organisational mess. Delaney needs to defend wider but can he cover for both McGuire and Smith? Smith was terrible and, on yesterday's show, the man who went to the right to shore it up last year can't get fit soon enough.

Oh, and though the focus of my video session wasn't our attack Burrow was everywhere yesterday.

Seems a good analysis to me.

We have been beaten by simple dummy runners on numerous times this season. Whenever a team has an angled dummy runner with a 2nd phase attacker coming wide and from deep, we seem to be falling for the inside runner and leaving massive overlaps. It's happened in nearly every game this season.

While talking about observations from Sunday, did anybody else notice Webb getting attention to his back after one of our last tries in the second half. He seemed to have all of his lower back strapped up, almost like a corset, but around his mid-rift. I know he has had his back injury and is supposidley over that, but could this be a clue as to why he doesnt sprint the ball back to the defence line, as per 2 years ago? I must say though, to contradict myself in a way, his kick returns have been better over the past couple of weeks, still nearly gives me a heart attack when he scoops kick throughs up one handed though, and hate his sloppy play the balls!!!

Also, I've said all season that we dont look as fit or as fast as our opposition, and the fact they scored nearly all their points in the last 10 mins of each half would back this up.

I've seen on a few threads Delaney is getting some grief (unfair in my opinion), for me he is doing alot of donkey work. Lots of defence, and lots of hard yards, probably because the pack at the moment aren't doing enough to get us the go forward.

Just trying to figure out which of Hull's tries didn't warrant coach G1's expert analysis.

I don't feel like he's ever fully gotten over this. In last years grand final after a tackle which put him on his back when it showed the replay and you could see him in absolute agony while he tryed to play the ball.

Sometimes during games as well I see him getting treatment on his back. I don't think it's really effectiing his performances but he hasn't looked a 100% with it for a long time.

According to him he's been in bed since the team got back from France and he felt very sick through out the game on sunday.

I am sure G1's analysis, per say, is correct and will of course confirm later myself!

Some of the people I stand with were pointing a finger at the right side defence and Smith, Delaney and McGuire. I actually thought, and said at the time, that the issue was more to do with the whole team failing to cover and operate a well organised sliding defence. We were getting caught on the overlap all the time down that wing, and while Smith may have chosen to come in was it because he probably felt he had to to try and cover the centre in the tackle or was it a poor read as G1 thinks? To me it would have been Smith fault if they had barged through at the centre while Smith just stayed out on the wing at all costs covering his winger, leaving a one on one with Delaney (or his cover at centre). You should always tackle the man with the ball and in a situation where the centres are going to be one on one, I would expect my winger to come in and try and help him effect the tackle and prevent the off-load. So the issue for me is how we ended up with equal or short numbers on that wing when we are supposed to be operating a sliding defence?

I will look at it and maybe I might agree that Smith read things poorly and maybe should have stayed out of the tackle and covered his wing man to prevent the over-lap, but my feelings on the day were that Smith, Delaney and McGuire were being left short by the whole team failing to slide accross quick enough, leaving them with one on ones and having to make split second choices to either come into and help cover or stick with their man. In short I don't think they should have been left in that position by their team-mates in the first place.

Yes, he tweeted on Sunday night that he had felt rubbish and said he would not play in a game if he felt so ill again. Suspect if Bluey had another real alternative option he would not have played.

Just noticed this quote from tvoc on the stats thread. So I would say one thing is clear, Smith was either making poor reads to come inside or felt that he had no choice but to come inside or it could be a combination of both, either way he should not be in a position to have to be continually making that choice IMO!

The clue was in the bit I've highlighted in red, as seems to be your prediliction at the moment.

I think Agar will definitely look at it as his main attack point next week, my suggestion would be to put Ablett out there to keep Delaney in position and McGuire inbetween Sinfield & Ablett.

Wow thats interesting, are you currently employed in the game as a defensive guru?

Thanks. I am trying to set a lead by posting interesting, rugby related topics for discussion. Like Serge Storms player ratings.

Try following our lead.

This thread is gonna go downhill once Puig has his say on G1's "Video sessions"

I take it the answer is NO?