Round 14 v Sharks Sunday

Dave03

SGI NSW Cup
I reckon a few dragons senior players would've been smiling and laughing post game while the younger ones are hurting. Clear divide between those who care and those who don't. Young should never be a head coach. His interchange use is soo poor. Tactically inept too. I hope this stops all the nonsense talk about him being the dragons head coach. Have a proper f*cking search for candidates.
 

blacksafake

SGI Jersey Flegg
Atkinson misses another tackle. You know as a coach if you know you have a player or players with one on one being a defensive liability you construct your defensive structures to ensure or try to ensure that you limit that situation. That's what coaches do. Apparently not ours.
His record as a defensive coach shows that he’s not capable of fixing things.
 
Well that was an ideal example of a game of two halves.

The Sharks were awful in the 1st half but we just didn't take advantage of that and punish them on the scoreboard . 6 points ahead at oranges was never going to be enough.

First half we had 85% completion rate v Sharks 65%. Errors favoured us as did time in possession but as we all know the law of averages evens up that particular stat every game.

Firstly my positives from the game.

I'll tell you now we simply cannot allow LPT to go anywhere that kid is to my eye developing very well. 17 tackles non missed by a prop in half a game of football is outstanding.

Against a current SOO prop AFB

The 1st half stats showed, in attack AFB 6 runs 74m 32m post contact LPT 9 runs 60m 18m post contact not bad for his 4th run on game.

Special mentions also to Stewart and Egan. That tackle by Egan on Stonestreet was a tackle from a bygone era, beautiful tackling technique.

In today's high speed game 90% of the time when a winger reaches top speed he breaks that tackle, so well done.

Atkinson kicking game, especially in the 1st half was very effective but when in possession we really failed to create anything in attack.

Then the interchanges and I cannot for the life of me understand why Lawrie and Kerr are on the bench. When they came on Stewart was moved from the edge to the middle to accommodate them and the game changed.

2nd half was a disaster, as I mentioned earlier, in today's game you have to punish the errors of your opponents. 3 unforced errors by us in the first 10 minutes were punished.

Firstly TU trying to offload when he should have taken the tackle, a try. Secondly Kerr play the ball error, a try. Thirdly Suli misses a one on one tackle off a scrum, another try 3 errors 3 tries. The game is as good as over.

The Sharks back 5 ended up running for 864m v our back 5 699m, we were well ahead at the end of the 1st half.

Another missed one on one tackle by Atkinson saw Trindall score and put the icing on a 28 zip 2nd half comeback.

I say that the bench selected at least 3 shouldn't be playing 1sts. You can't rely on the Couchmans to serve up the numbers they did against the Broncos every week, they need help, their bodies simply aren't up to those kinds of numbers week in week out.

That applies to the whole of our young pack. It takes time to develop especially physically in the forwards consistency week in week out at 1st grade level, today only Toby Couchman managed 100m +, whereas the Sharks pack after a very slow start, 5 of their forwards managed those figures.

From a coaching perspective I wasn't impressed with our game plan that certainly lacked creativity in attack.

In my personal view the interim coach is not the answer to our coaching ills.

We couldn't take advantage of last week's surprise win against the reigning premiers. We certainly returned to earth with a big thud in the 2nd half.

A very dissapointing effort, we now have a bye, then Newcastle.
 

Dragon David

SGI NSW Cup
If he has torn a pec it's season over mate. He may as well go and check out his new locker.
I've never been a big fan of Su'a. Bennett was happy to not to re-sign him at Souths and let him come to the Dragons in 2022 and he was an average back rower for us. The Club really did not kick up a fuss about him signing with the Eels. Saves them telling him he isn't needed in the years ahead when we will be dynamic.;)
 

Justadragon

SGI NSW Cup
I've never been a big fan of Su'a. Bennett was happy to not to re-sign him at Souths and let him come to the Dragons in 2022 and he was an average back rower for us. The Club really did not kick up a fuss about him signing with the Eels. Saves them telling him he isn't needed in the years ahead when we will be dynamic.;)
Agree Dave, when he's good he's awesome, but few and far between. Mind you when he's bad, he's bad. So yeah time to go we have more than enough back rowers to fill that void.
 
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