(iStats) Aekins is 165 or so an av. He has never cracked 200. Charnze cracked 200 2/4 games in 2021 and averaged 200 across the first 4 games. That included the wet bog in the nulla where he had 148.afgtnk wrote: ↑May 1, 2021, 3:41 pmAekins is making 200m a game atm, which is more than CNK. Think that goes to show how metres from a fullback can be overrated.Boomercm wrote: ↑May 1, 2021, 9:50 amYes I think our problems are bigger than CNK's absence... But I'm going to add one more thing CNK brings to the team that hasn't been mentioned as often recently, and when it was mentioned in the past - it was usually spun as a negative. He brings 160-200m in tough carries. Often 2 per set when its really tough.GreenMachine wrote: ↑April 30, 2021, 7:32 amJesus, this broken record again.The Nickman wrote: ↑April 30, 2021, 7:26 amYou see, here is the issue and I'm tired of people making this argument. It's not just the tries CNK physically stops himself (and the last two games he probably personally cleans up two to three), it's also the communication that a good defensive fullback brings to his whole defensive line.TongueFTW wrote: ↑April 30, 2021, 7:14 am The last few weeks, the second halves have been carbon copies of each other. Inability to get out of our end, being pinned in our 10. Fatigue, playing one out, forwards finding it impossible to get into the game since our first 3 tackles are in our own 20. Souths had a number of forwards (Su’a, Knight, Kolomatangi, Arrow, and bloody Mark Nicholls!) break 100m, while we had only Guler. There has to be a circuit breaker, an early shift, a tip on play, an offload, something - you can’t just use outside backs for tackles 1-4, a prop on tackle 4, kick from the 30 and expect different results. It means the opposition start their sets on the 30-40m line, and the cycle continues. The threat of the shift means opposition defence can’t compress like they are doing, and it makes metres easier to come by for our forwards. You need to be varied, but also do it early in games - trying to do it under fatigue is difficult. Wighton also needs to work more on his kicks when we do get in a decent kicking position - they need to land 5-10m out in a corner (like Moses and Reynolds did to us), not on the 20-25m.
I think this cycle has led to our defence being the worst it has been since 2018, we are letting in 2-3 tries from simple numbering up. Both of our second rowers had shockers defensively, either through being out of position (CHN over chasing) or simple one on one misses (Young). CNK does make a difference, but he wouldn’t have been stopping many of those tries. I called for Whitehead and Rapana to be moved to the right before the game for defensive reasons, I think that is essential, but when your edge is on the back foot and under fatigue, it is hard to keep making the right decisions.
Anyone who has played with a good defensive fullback who is always talking knows exactly what I mean here, they move the defensive line left and right, tell everyone where the holes are and just constantly keep communicating.
And THAT'S what we're mainly missing in defence right now.
Please stop.
CNK doesn’t defend on the edge nor impact the arm grabbing technique Hudson Young seemed to implement last night.
Nor does he have anything to do with Corey Haywire Nerra’s one man army of penalty give aways...
The Team Problems are far greater than the positive impact CNK arguably brings..
But please keep spinning...
I've been in the bunch that has been critical of him for doing this - thinking he was wasting himself on tough carries, then not being available for more expansive attack, or following up with runs through the middle looking for offloads. But we are now seeing how it would be very difficult for him to do this - as our outside backs and forwards are just not able or willing to take those hard carries and make those hard meters.
This is a real problem because making those meters should not be his job
EDIT - he probably only makes 70-100 of those meters as tough carries. But the timing of them seems more important than I previously realised.
He and CNK are very much quantity over quality. Teams would have no fear kicking to them.
Stats confirm what you see by eye. Charnze makes more meters overall and takes more hit ups and dummy half runs than Aekins. He makes less meters floating 2 or 3 out around the backline. I'm not saying Aekins isn't doing a job - he's doing what a FB is typically supposd to do (in attack). But he's not making as many tough meters as Charnze. And no one else seems to be stepping up.