Fastest and one of the most skilful winger in the league. How often do we actually get the ball in his hands in open space. Badly underused in my opinion
Sent from my F5321 using Tapatalk
Fastest and one of the most skilful winger in the league. How often do we actually get the ball in his hands in open space. Badly underused in my opinion
Sent from my F5321 using Tapatalk
most of his work involves carting the ball up the middle when we start a set near our own line
How often do we go wide past the 2nd rows except for the last tackle? When was the last time we got the ball to a winger in space outside of the opposition 10m. We rely on Makinson and Grace for flying finishes in the corner and to make line breaks bringing the ball back out early in the tackle count. Neither of them ever get any attacking opportunities other than to dive for the corner on the last tackle.
Forwards win games. The backs decide by how much.
I think some of that is down to some of the injuries and unavailability we've had in the outside backs this year, Coote, Percival and Makinson have obviously been out at different times of the season. We've had a few centres this year but the chances of Bentley, Knowles, Costello, Welsby etc standing up and attracting the centre opposite them in their own half to put their winger away in space is next to none IMO so I think that's why we haven't been shifting the ball as much in that part of the pitch unless we have obvious numbers.
One area where we've took our eye off the ball IMO over the last couple of years is the development (or lack of) of outside backs and when we've had injuries there this year we've really struggled to cope.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
Yesterday, Scored one out wide and narrowly missed one. Both from the ball being spun out wide BUT I agree it does feel like we dont use him to his fullest potential - the stats may prove otherwise
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Last edited by Zippyarchie; 20th September 2020 at 14:38.
Now now, please don’t encourage wingers to go inside looking for the ball. We all know what happened to Tommy and Linehan.
I think a lot of it has to do with the standardization of the modern player, you simply don't get the mis-matches in pace between players that you used to. Gaps and space can be shut down more easily by fitter, faster players.
I think the game has changed and most teams don't play that way on a regular basis because of todays sliding defences. A couple of teams and that includes ourselves use a lot of second phase (eg Leon Pryce) from a deeper position and load up so that they get that extra player shape to create those spaces, some teams work more down the middle and have a good kicking game towards the edges. In saying that lately we've seen a couple of games where teams have thrown the ball out wider but the opposition have gone for the interception or have knocked the ball down.
For Regan Grace he scares the life out of the opposition if in space so they shut those opportunities right down, quite often I thought if we had half backs with a kicking game we could kick along the ground on a diagonal to the touchline spaces for Grace to run into but we are more of a team creating passing plays.
Yes but if you never go wide in the 1st 4 tackles of a set then the opposition can pack the middle fairly confidently. This means our props are running at 3 defenders every time and there’s no space for Roby to snipe. We’re then relying on a big carry from Walmsley or an offload to break the line. I’m not saying we should be spreading the ball wide all the time but a bit of variety would open up more space in the middle. At the moment 2 carries by the outside backs then 3 carries by forwards is not enough to break down better defences.
Forwards win games. The backs decide by how much.
I will never understand young fit wingers standing on the wing waiting for the ball. They have plenty running in their legs and lungs. When we are playing up the middle in our own half he should be on the shoulder of nearly every forwards drive looking for a pass or late offload.
If a 17 stone forward can find the lungs to play up and in attack and defence for long periods surely youngsters like Grace can find the energy to sneak in mid field looking for some offloads and still find the legs to get back over to his wing when we’re defending.
screaming in the family corner, scaring the kiddies
Stiddy the diagonal kick over the top or along the ground when a defence is moving up quickly is the perfect answer, Hulme (another one we would not sign back in the day) used it to perfection when people moved quick to stifle Chariots when at Widnes. Few if any (French maybe as sharp off the mark) can live with Regan in a straight line facing the same way, absolutely no chance if they have to turn and try to catch him
Wee Waa variety is an absolute must, the above mentioned kick would soon stop the middles being overloaded with defenders, it gives the forwards more room, alas it easy to coach from the keypad here I am sure a 60/70% play is not in the Aussie manual.
Fair play to Wire they took that short drop out knowing Gelling and King are great kick chasers that is a 50% play.
Usually its the props who bend the defensive line and leave tacklers on the ground for that space around the PTB to go wider. The problem for us is that we only have Walmsley who can do that for us, Matty Lees would be another ideal candidate for us because he's quick on impact but he's just not big enough to dominate a ruck.
Makinson and Percival with their lateral carries and change in direction causes a break up of that defensive line for the next play but both are missing for various reasons and that means our half backs are restricted on options and. shapes. Longy talked about it a while ago but now he's gone I think our attacking strategy has a narrower vision and I suppose our balance of attack and defence is not quite right.
It's all on the coach.
Last season, Makinson and Grace scored over 40 tries between them. The vast majority of those tries were not created by the centres but by Jonny Lomax or Lachlan Coote running into the inside centre channel and utilising the cut-out pass, whilst using the centres as decoys. It was a channel that Ben Barba had previously run into and it created a bucket load of tries.
For some reason, Woolf has decided to change all of that and constantly rely on the charge down the middle and the drop off ball. We are not running the arc towards the touchline anymore. Grace has missed Percival, there is no doubt, but we are starving the backs of ball in general.
Unfortunately, we have become that one dimensional that Alex Walmsley is THE tactic. To be fair, Kyle Amor has stepped up this season and the offloads of those two have generally been the only source of keeping the ball alive. If we don't turn and offload, we seem reluctant to move it all.
The try stats of the wingers are matched in their low numbers by the try stats of the centres. Naiqama has only scored one whilst actually playing in the centre position and he has been as starved of the ball as any of them.
The halves, of course, need to get the ball to the backs and I've discussed their limitations ad nauseum, but the stats speak for themselves as they are still the same two halves as last year.
THIS YEAR LENDING SUPPORT TO:- St. Helens RLFC, Manchester City, Celtic, Alemannia Aachen, Steps 1 to 6 Non-League Football
Hard to argue with, I think everyone must see that we're playing most of our plays in a 20/25m channel down the middle. It's easy to defend against as we're very rarely going to veer from this plan. Problem is we're not as strong in the middle now without LT, we're still a good team overall but we're flogging half of them while the other half are surely getting more and more frustrated. It's unsustainable as it is.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I remember coming home for one Winter game against Widnes at Widnes. One of the guys I was with said watch this, every time we come up fast, Widnes player X (it may have been Hulme) will just lob it over our heads for Offiah to run onto it. They got two tries from that.
Back in the day Stevo would forever witter on about "chipping it over the top" and wondered why no team would ever do it, basically as it is a high risk, low percentage play which rarely comes off. If we are talking about the tight games where we shoot ourselves in the foot and can't complete sets and kick well then I can't see how introducing plays that won't work 95% of the time is going to help.
Sent from my SM-A715F using Tapatalk
If you have one of the quickest if not the quickest player on your team, is a chip over the top really a 95% play. Even if it did not come off you have the oppo on their line/in goal and the forwards flat footed, Regan is a very good tackler if he cannot get there I would back him to get their cover defensively. If nothing it puts doubt in their minds and stops midfield crowding for their defensive sets.
What percentage is a 10m dropout to gain possesion ? King/Gelling and Currie seem to make it more than a 50-50(which it should never be) yet the downside to that is an oppo set restart on your own 10, why would Wire do it then?
During our famous comebacks when we went in front and the other team tried a short kick off after a try how many times did Wello diffuse a short Kick Off ? We used to put him on our 40 because we knew he would claim it, that is no longer a high risk percentage.
Why did his team do it so often then?
Charnley got burned by Regan last year on a straight run, the QE2 turns around quicker than Charnley, Ratchford is slower than an asthmatic pit pony pulling a piano, a kick over the top for them to turn and chase with Regan in a straight line chase to me is a no brainer.
I have conceded it easy to keyboard coach but we cannot keep dying wondering.
If Tony Smith had Regan in his team would he try it ?