@crowsnest the problem is the @ function is hard to follow what the person is responding to especially if someone has made multiple posts.
Yeh I get that mate. If your following the conversation it isn't. If you join in late you simply catch up. On a mobile phone it's horrendous. On a computer it's not a problem because it's easier to navigate to the end.hard to follow what the person is responding to especially if someone has made multiple posts.
I can't use a computer in a hospital bed either.
Just a bit of constructive help, no offence intended. Whatever works for everyone.👍
@crowsnest I don’t think anyone takes offence to it at all. I find it hard to read as well. The highlight thing is probably the best way to go…. Now to work out how to do it
@crowsnest I don’t think anyone takes offence to it at all. I find it hard to read as well. The highlight thing is probably the best way to go…. Now to work out how to do it
it’s actually a great feature. Just select the text you want to quote and hit the “ icon that appears.
It's easy mate, as soon as you highlight a section of a post you qant to comment on, a floating inverted commas will appear right next to the highlighted text, you click on that and it takes you to a new comment window. You write your stuff next to the quote sign then click send and bingo.Now to work out how to do it
There are more than one consistent factor than Brooks. Do you wonder why in the second half our attack looked dangerous 30-40 out and Brooks looked like a halfback as opposed to how we looked inside their 20 in the first half? Could it have something to do with the line and pace that the outside men are running?
Attacking structure 50m out is very different to 20min out because the defensive line can crowd the play by rushing off the line and the fullback also often defends in the line. Attacking in the 20 is more like setting up a move in chess, it requires planning and sometimes you make moves (like moving the play to a certain part of the field) to setup the actual attacking opportunity a tackle or two later. That is why brooks sucks in the 20 because he doesn’t think, he is an instinct player and he has certain physical attributes that make him more dangerous in more open play (he’s fast). He is the worst 7 in the comp because of this lack of organising ability and game management but he is a better than average 6 in my view. The worst thing is that the club and multiple coaches have stubbornly tried to add the organisational element to his game (he must be a great person and great trainer so people are constantly trying to help him succeed). After this contract he will probably go to a club and have to play a more limited role as a 6 or utility and he will do great. Sheens just needs to make him a 6 and be done with it. The only hope is that somehow we jag an aging experienced 7 who pushes him out of that role for a while and he can thrive as a 6. Hastings gave us a glimpse of that (although again the coaching staff tried very hard to avoid a Hastings 7/brooks 6 combo so mostly it was Hastings 13 playing as a lock in defence and a 7 in attack). Sezer or Pearce are probably our only chance at giving this a real shot as any young half that comes in will be subservient to brooks which would be a mistake.
Hypothetical - Wayne Bennett rings Sheenius tomorrow and says 'if WT pay 3/4 of Brooks remaining 2023 salary, the Dolphins will take him off you for the rest of the year."
Would you take the deal?
For a bonus point, if Brooks does play out the year in the Dolphins 6 jersey, what is that team's win % over the final matches for 2023?
I can’t see the benefit in letting Brooks go now, certainly not if we pay 75% with no decent player swap.
Fair call. I assumed that there would be someone else in coming for what its worth.
My preference is that:
- we come to the view that Brooks will not be offered another contract and communicate that to him ASAP
- we use the rest of 2023 to try out other combinations. I really don't care who they are as long as we learn something from the experiment.
I remember Sheens saying that Brooks contract is up for discussion after round 6 so maybe there will be some news on that this week?
I remember Sheens saying that Brooks contract is up for discussion after round 6 so maybe there will be some news on that this week?
Now that AD is injured I'm hoping that it hasn't influenced Sheens' approach to the future. If Brooks does stay on it must be on a reduced salary and we have to sign another gun ⅝. If a gun ½ like Williams or even better, Hunt comes across, then Brooks has to play second fiddle.
Swap with Hunt plus $ 🤔
There are more than one consistent factor than Brooks. Do you wonder why in the second half our attack looked dangerous 30-40 out and Brooks looked like a halfback as opposed to how we looked inside their 20 in the first half? Could it have something to do with the line and pace that the outside men are running?
Attacking structure 50m out is very different to 20min out because the defensive line can crowd the play by rushing off the line and the fullback also often defends in the line. Attacking in the 20 is more like setting up a move in chess, it requires planning and sometimes you make moves (like moving the play to a certain part of the field) to setup the actual attacking opportunity a tackle or two later. That is why brooks sucks in the 20 because he doesn’t think, he is an instinct player and he has certain physical attributes that make him more dangerous in more open play (he’s fast). He is the worst 7 in the comp because of this lack of organising ability and game management but he is a better than average 6 in my view. The worst thing is that the club and multiple coaches have stubbornly tried to add the organisational element to his game (he must be a great person and great trainer so people are constantly trying to help him succeed). After this contract he will probably go to a club and have to play a more limited role as a 6 or utility and he will do great. Sheens just needs to make him a 6 and be done with it. The only hope is that somehow we jag an aging experienced 7 who pushes him out of that role for a while and he can thrive as a 6. Hastings gave us a glimpse of that (although again the coaching staff tried very hard to avoid a Hastings 7/brooks 6 combo so mostly it was Hastings 13 playing as a lock in defence and a 7 in attack). Sezer or Pearce are probably our only chance at giving this a real shot as any young half that comes in will be subservient to brooks which would be a mistake.
Hypothetical - Wayne Bennett rings Sheenius tomorrow and says 'if WT pay 3/4 of Brooks remaining 2023 salary, the Dolphins will take him off you for the rest of the year."
Would you take the deal?
For a bonus point, if Brooks does play out the year in the Dolphins 6 jersey, what is that team's win % over the final matches for 2023?
I can’t see the benefit in letting Brooks go now, certainly not if we pay 75% with no decent player swap.
Fair call. I assumed that there would be someone else in coming for what its worth.
My preference is that:
- we come to the view that Brooks will not be offered another contract and communicate that to him ASAP
- we use the rest of 2023 to try out other combinations. I really don't care who they are as long as we learn something from the experiment.
I remember Sheens saying that Brooks contract is up for discussion after round 6 so maybe there will be some news on that this week?
Like everyone else here ( I think) I am not wanting to renew Brooks, but are we prepared to head into November with Brandon Wakeham our only contracted halfback?
Like everyone else here ( I think) I am not wanting to renew Brooks, but are we prepared to head into November with Brandon Wakeham our only contracted halfback?
I have a feeling that Brooks options are going to be stay with us or go to the UK. He wants to stay so we have time to explore options
I'd like to see Brooks and AD (now Daine or Wakeman or ??) stand on different sides of the ruck or drop in behind and get our lock or Bateman to do more ball playing (first receiver) so when they go one way they then can swing it back the other way but keep deep and closer together with a fast swinging gate, a fast player like Daine or Charlie.
The faster the backline runs as a unit it makes it harder for the opposition D to react to misreads.
The Sharks started doing this a lot last year with success and now other clubs are doing more of it. The big fast outside backs were basically standing behind their inside man and deep which made it easier to swing the gate or turn inside.....BUT with speed.
If you stand deep and more behind you can run at pace to the outside of the D or cut back inside to the small gap. Do it too slow and your done, gaps closed. This makes the attacker to decide not to cut in because the gaps closed and ends up running across field lookin for another gap....disaster.
The opposition know that when we attack with a flat line all they have to do is jam in on AD and he'll turn in. Parra started ok but dropped off just before AD got injured.
We usually play a stock standard hands and/or cut out ball but with no depth or speed.... easier to defend against and we run out of room.
Most top clubs have one of there forwards ball playing which leaves the main play makers more room, are less predictable and are more creative.
Souths do it well ball playing with Cam Murray, Broncos with Patrick Carrigan, etc.
Watch their next games and look at their shapes (depth). I'll guarentee they score a lot of tries running at pace. But the fast play is after 1-2-3 strong hits bending the line inwards.
Imagine a straight piece of string on the desk. What happens if you get your finger and push the middle of the string in the middle up the table....the outside of both sides of the string moves inwards. It's the same as the defensive line. This applies outwide too, it's why our wingers (Noffa) rushes inwards and get caught out because the edges got sucked in.
Attack the edges too at pace. I'd rather see big Stefano make less runs if the ones he did make were ones where he started from the back fence and smashed into the middle. Then work on going to the knees and not get rolled over so he gets a quick play the ball. That's your main job Stef. Do that 10 times, make your tackles then have a breather.
Now that we have Bateman, I think we'll see him with a more active role once he settles in and players get used to him and understand his accent 🤣.
Brooks power game is running. We have to manoeuvre the D around so fast players can find more holes. So this means the most breaks happen around half way....meaning those initial hits ups have to have an effect so we can get some speed going.
This is nothing new. We were doing similar stuff in the 70-80's but it changed a bit due to more emphasis on D.
As a back, you want to do things that the D don't want you to do.
FORWARDS run hard.
BACKS run fast.
EASY
@crowsnest Enjoyed your post Crowie,and the point you make about depth and our shape I think is a really good one.I’ve seen Cronulla a couple of times this year where they were standing really deep almost reminiscent of the seventies and eighties,but they were seriously steaming onto the ball at pace.
I listened to the game on Monday(kayo fail)where Ruan Sims for ABCwas commenting on the shallowness and flatness of our attack and I have to agree with her as we’ve tended to fall into the habit of shoveling the ball side to side without attaining much pace and injectiion,although we did see some in the 2nd half,hallelujah.Hopefully Nado isn’t a casualty for too long because he is
integral to our strike.
Good post Crowsnest
I heard Cooper Cronk talk about our attack a lot lately, and he said while Brooks strength is running, there's smart running and dumb running.
I.e running in shape, with options inside, outside abs around the back, plus kick behind the line.
When Brooks runs, he just runs by himself and step inside, with no threat of passing.
Unfortunately, I dont think we have the halves at this stage capable to play like cronulla with their wide backline described so well.
Instead, is be playing off the strength of api at 9.
With each half running in his pocket and fullback down the middle. Give api and option to throw a face ball to a forward or pass to a half either a side who had shape to go inside to the fullback, shortfall to second rower or block play to centre.
The key is run at pace down the middle of the ruck. Once we lay that platform we then have the option to pass out wider.
Main thing - if I was sheens if running plays inside the red zone 24/7 - if we fix that up, we could start competing
Top 8 2023
Like everyone else here ( I think) I am not wanting to renew Brooks, but are we prepared to head into November with Brandon Wakeham our only contracted halfback?
No, we can't go into next year with Wakeham our only contracted 7, but I don't see why that means we need to renew Brooks.
I said I'd judge our recruitment strategy not on if we land Moses, but what our plan b was if we miss him.
Turns out we had no plan b lined up. And have stumbled on the dark, missing Williams & Pearce.
We need to pull out finger out and do everything we can to land a top class 7 fur next year.
Problem is, our GM Football has his hands full coaching a team that's lost 6 straight.
Top 8 2023
Like everyone else here ( I think) I am not wanting to renew Brooks, but are we prepared to head into November with Brandon Wakeham our only contracted halfback?
No, we can't go into next year with Wakeham our only contracted 7, but I don't see why that means we need to renew Brooks.
I said I'd judge our recruitment strategy not on if we land Moses, but what our plan b was if we miss him.
Turns out we had no plan b lined up. And have stumbled on the dark, missing Williams & Pearce.
We need to pull out finger out and do everything we can to land a top class 7 fur next year.
Problem is, our GM Football has his hands full coaching a team that's lost 6 straight.
i think it means we need to recruit that 7 in the next 6 weeks or so because if it gets much later than that, its going to get pretty tight and we cant go into next year with Wakeham as our only half.
i think it means we need to recruit that 7 in the next 6 weeks or so because if it gets much later than that, its going to get pretty tight and we cant go into next year with Wakeham as our only half.
I was really hoping that while they were chasing Moses, they were going just as hard at Williams and had him lined up to announce, as soon as Moses turned us down.
Our halves have been a question mark for a long time, and has been a priority project for the last 18 months since Sheens was appointed GM.
When they decided to move Hastings on, they really needed to be confident to land a better 7 straight away.
Given our situation - I'd be offering Warrington $1m transfer fee to get him out immediately.
Without a decent 7, we are going nowhere fast, and the longer we head in this direction, the harder it will be to attract and retain decent players.
Top 8 2023
