2021 Rd 9 V Knights: Game Day

[Rickmando]

A lot of these things we are identifying - Rick has been allowing them to happen for years. We were questioning in 2018/19 - why were we letting oppositions sides march 80m per set? For years, we have been ignoring seemingly simple basics of rugby league. Time for Rick to go - his mysticism has run it’s course.

[afgtnk]

Down to 11th now.

Updated numbers from the split between our first and second halves

1st half

For: 123
Against: 72

2nd half

For: 50
Against: 137

We've led or been even in seven out of our nine games at halftime. The two that we weren't were against the Eels (two points behind - 2nd on the ladder) and Panthers (1st).

Going off memory, I think the splits between our first and second halves were fairly symmetric in the previous two years - maybe give or take 5%. If you replicated our first halves this season in the second, based off F/A we'd be sitting around 4th on the ladder.

Edit: had to correct numbers

[gangrenous]

It’s crazy. Does this happen to other teams with such stark contrast and I just don’t care so I don’t notice it? Raiders have had several seasons like this earning them the faders tag on a number of occasions. Diabolical.

[kiwi raider]

So can we conclude Hodgson isnt the problem yet?

[Botman]

So can we conclude Hodgson isnt the problem yet?

Lets give it another couple of weeks
wait until he signs somewhere else, THEN we can conclude that

[afgtnk]

For benchmarking:

Panthers

1st half

For: 124
Against: 42

2nd half

For: 136
Against: 18

Eels

1st half

For: 106
Against: 82

2nd half

For: 154
Against: 42


Storm

1st half

For: 150
Against: 42

2nd half

For: 142
Against: 66

Eels a clear second half team. Panthers and Storm pretty even between both.

[Billy Walker]

When Ponga landed that short kick off to start the second half we collectively said here we go....

When the Knights scored shortly after it endorsed what we were thinking....

I’m guessing the players are no different - confidence is shot. They would have the same fears and hesitations we have and one or two things go wrong and it’s all self perpetuating.

A bit of luck wouldn’t hurt this team.

[Raider47]

The presser left me feeling more dejected than the fulltime score. Ricky seems like a broken man with absolutely no answers which doesn't bide well for the next 16 weeks.

Ugh and that post made me even more dejected. 16 weeks?

[afgtnk]

When Ponga landed that short kick off to start the second half we collectively said here we go....

When the Knights scored shortly after it endorsed what we were thinking....

I’m guessing the players are no different - confidence is shot. They would have the same fears and hesitations we have and one or two things go wrong and it’s all self perpetuating.

A bit of luck wouldn’t hurt this team.

We're getting all the luck we deserve mate.

You make your own, and we haven't been doing **** to get any.

[Raider47]

I'd say losing your starting halves to injuries is pretty unlucky.

The Knights didn't have Pearce or Green. We had plenty of luck. That is a press conference of a coach who has no idea how to fix this mess.

We need a complete overhaul in how we do things in pre season.

[afgtnk]

Down to 11th now.

Updated numbers from the split between our first and second halves

1st half

For: 123
Against: 72

2nd half

For: 50
Against: 137

We've led or been even in seven out of our nine games at halftime. The two that we weren't were against the Eels (two points behind - 2nd on the ladder) and Panthers (1st).

Going off memory, I think the splits between our first and second halves were fairly symmetric in the previous two years - maybe give or take 5%. If you replicated our first halves this season in the second, based off F/A we'd be sitting around 4th on the ladder.

Edit: had to correct numbers

Did quick numbers for 2020 - attacking split for first half is fairly close (1st: 240, 2nd: 205), but I was incorrect to assume defence split was close (1st: 230, 2nd: 84).

So yeah, last season we'd finish much, much stronger defensively.

Interestingly enough, we're on average actually scoring more points in first halves this season (13.66 per game in 2021, 10.43 in 2020) and conceding less also (8 per game in 2021, 10 in 2020).

Every single **** thing is pointing to the main current issue being fitness and conditioning. Everything. There is no way on Earth we could've finished so strong last season if we weren't physically capable of going the distance.

Likewise, you cannot all of a sudden lose your **** so consistently in second halves, given your first half has been decent, unless you can't physically keep up.

It is not possible IMO.

[kiwi raider]

So can we conclude Hodgson isnt the problem yet?

Lets give it another couple of weeks
wait until he signs somewhere else, THEN we can conclude that

yea absolutely(realise you are taking the piss). Lets conclude that hodgson, papa, tapine, rapa, wighton, williams etc are all rubbish, despite numerous origin/international appearances. Where do we go from here?if we cant get rep level players performing at club level where do we go?

On a completely unrelated note i watched the crusaders win yet another title despite playing pretty average football for the first 20 of the 2nd half and at one stage having 2 in the bin against 15.
Winners know how to win.

We don't

Razors message? Simple. Positive end to your set. If you have a **** set. You kick well. If you kick **** you chase that much harder. This is what this raiders side used to be about. Chasing hard. Wanting it more. We simply dont want it enough

[simo]

Agree with all of you who think this was dubbys fault. **** him right?

[Billy Walker]

When Ponga landed that short kick off to start the second half we collectively said here we go....

When the Knights scored shortly after it endorsed what we were thinking....

I’m guessing the players are no different - confidence is shot. They would have the same fears and hesitations we have and one or two things go wrong and it’s all self perpetuating.

A bit of luck wouldn’t hurt this team.

We're getting all the luck we deserve mate.

You make your own, and we haven't been doing **** to get any.

Yeah hard to argue that. Listening to Mick Ennis go on about the team training as well as he has seen them and stressing all is well between Rick and the players he sounds quite genuine. Sometimes it is a disaster other times you just aren’t far off and only need a few things to click. We all jump straight to assuming a disaster behind the scenes. Part of me wants to believe we aren’t a million miles off. Look at best now I see us 6th place and going out second week of finals but that’s better than 9th I guess.

[Billy Walker]

Part of me isn’t enjoying watching Rapa play at the moment. If I contrast him with Papa - Papa is below his best but still leading the pack. I don’t think anyone doubts Papa can find a gear and get back to being the best front rower in the world. Similarly, Raps is below the best form that he has shown us but still in many ways is still one of our better backs. My sadness with Raps is that he is giving all he has - the dude is all heart and giving everything. I don’t think there is another gear and watching age catch up to him is tough to see.

[-TW-]

Part of me isn’t enjoying watching Rapa play at the moment. If I contrast him with Papa - Papa is below his best but still leading the pack. I don’t think anyone doubts Papa can find a gear and get back to being the best front rower in the world. Similarly, Raps is below the best form that he has shown us but still in many ways is still one of our better backs. My sadness with Raps is that he is giving all he has - the dude is all heart and giving everything. I don’t think there is another gear and watching age catch up to him is tough to see.

He's pretty much our best player atm

If they all put in as much as he does we'd be 6-3 not 3-6

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[yeh raiders]

Part of me isn’t enjoying watching Rapa play at the moment. If I contrast him with Papa - Papa is below his best but still leading the pack. I don’t think anyone doubts Papa can find a gear and get back to being the best front rower in the world. Similarly, Raps is below the best form that he has shown us but still in many ways is still one of our better backs. My sadness with Raps is that he is giving all he has - the dude is all heart and giving everything. I don’t think there is another gear and watching age catch up to him is tough to see.

He's pretty much our best player atm

If they all put in as much as he does we'd be 6-3 not 3-6

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He deadset is. Moves like he has been shot in both knees, but still contributes so much.

[Billy Walker]

Part of me isn’t enjoying watching Rapa play at the moment. If I contrast him with Papa - Papa is below his best but still leading the pack. I don’t think anyone doubts Papa can find a gear and get back to being the best front rower in the world. Similarly, Raps is below the best form that he has shown us but still in many ways is still one of our better backs. My sadness with Raps is that he is giving all he has - the dude is all heart and giving everything. I don’t think there is another gear and watching age catch up to him is tough to see.

He's pretty much our best player atm

If they all put in as much as he does we'd be 6-3 not 3-6

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Yep - but he’s 80% on what he used to be. Don’t get me wrong he’s got to be close to one of the first backs picked at the moment and I wish others would play with the same heart Raps plays with. There are just some things beyond him now which is tough to watch at times.

[tommyhud9]

Just not fit enough. Plain and simple.

We aren't a top 4 team on ability TBH, but we are definitely a 5-8 team.

The fact we are 3-6 and have blown leads comes down to fitness and not being able to adapt to the modern game.

[-TW-]

That's on NAJ as far as I'm concerned

It's his job to develop a fitness program to get the players conditioned to the needs of the game.

It seems to me they went lighter on endurance training, underestimated the impact the set restart for offsides would have

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[Billy Walker]

Panthers, Storm and Eels are the clear standout teams at the moment and hard to bet against the premiership going to one of them. That said, it is a long season and you only need to look at the Roosters injury situation to see how quickly it can all change. We have a deep quality roster - we look horrendous at present but I think we will end up in the 8. Whether we have any momentum or are just making numbers remains to be seen.

[Billy Walker]

Is fitness something you set in the off-season and maintain through the season or is it possible to step it up mid-season (like now). If Ricky arrived at the same conclusion as you have, is there anything he can do about it now or has that ship sailed for 2021?

[Hong Kong Raider]

Storm look scary - put on 50 against Souths without Papenhuyzen (Souths also had a lot of players missing). But they amaze me with their quality to have good seasons without a rebuild. I was waiting for them to fall when Cronk left, Slater retired, and this year, Smith, Suli V and Tino not there. Still strong as ever. Year after year. What a great club. And good players in their prime want to play there.

The Panthers juniors are great. Imgaine if we had people like To'o, Staines and Burton. Naden cannot even make 1st grade.

Parra recruited well - Opacic has surprised me. The other Papa playing great. Even Cartwright has played his best footy in 3 years. Someone on this forum did say we should look at the NZ Papa late last year.

Our recruits like James and people returning from injury like Hodgson, Horse, Guler, Bailey, haven't had the same impact.

[Lui_Bon]

Without wishing to rehash points that have already been made, there are obviously two basic problems - no CNK organising any defence, let alone making those last line saves, and no fitness.

With fitness, I can't help but wonder if Stuart's plan was to ease them into the season because it was a short preseason, thinking that they'd be peaking by the finals. Apart from the obvious flaw there, it looks like the club has failed to take into account the sped-up pace with the 6 again rulings, and we've also had a slightly above average set of injuries. By contrast the Panthers have suffered nothing. So maybe it's because they're the youngest team and we're the oldest.

Also, we are the shortest team, on average. This killed us against Parramatta. Lane just had to stand there...

I'd say our squad is unbalanced, undertrained, underconfident now, and too old and too slow. Every player needs to be at least one of fast, strong or tall. Most of our blokes are lucky to satisfy one of those criteria, and they're not even smart to make up for it. Look at the Panthers, they almost all get a 2 out of 3 (except Liam Martin...)

enough.

[moto748]

Wow. At half-time I thought, two ordinary teams, but at least George is looking lively...

But these seconds halves; you just can't look past the coach, can you? Despite the Raiders dismal second half record,it never occurred to me that they'd lose. largely because, Newcastle aren't all that. And they're not. And you could see that lack of urgency all over the pitch. When the lad Musgrove got injured and had to go off near the end, there were two Raiders there, but he wanted it more and got to the ball first, picking up a knock in the process.

Rapana tries his heart out every week, but he is struggling with injury, and his best days are probably behind him, so I think the comment that he looks the best of the backs says more about the rest of them than him.

[-PJ-]

I wonder how the bus ride home from Wagga Wagga Wagga went.

A bet the boys played “I spy” then after that got boring they broke into “the wheels on the bus”

[moto748]

Is it a long way to Wagga Wagga?

[-PJ-]

Is it a long way to Wagga Wagga?

Depends where you are travelling from.

[RedRaider]

I think that’s also fitness RR. 3 people in a tackle triples your tackle efforts for the team. They haven’t got the petrol in the tank it seems.

They’re emptying the tank each week. It’s just the petrol light comes on at half time.

I don't disagree that fitness appears to be an issue Gangers. It is a fact that we have multiple players in the tackle but they have gone back to the 2017/18 practice of allowing the opposition ball carrier to progress and then fall down, rather than driving the ball carrier backwards. Other teams (Panthers/Storm) are using this method successfully under the 2021 rules. Those sides appear to get a lift from their defensive work. It energizes them. We don't seem to have any emphasis on this part of our defensive play.

[Billy Walker]

I wonder how the bus ride home from Wagga Wagga Wagga went.

A bet the boys played “I spy” then after that got boring they broke into “the wheels on the bus”

If I know the this team I’d suggest the first half of it would have been great. They’d be drinking beers and singing along to songs like the Bryan Ferry classic “let’s stick together”.

It would be a bit before Yass that the wheels would fall off the bus. The beers would also run out with the players lamenting that they only bought half a case.

They would cut a forlorn figure are they quietly stood there watching the bus that somehow now caught alight slowly burn while they await on girlfriends and partners to come to the rescue.

[BadnMean]

Part of me isn’t enjoying watching Rapa play at the moment. If I contrast him with Papa - Papa is below his best but still leading the pack. I don’t think anyone doubts Papa can find a gear and get back to being the best front rower in the world. Similarly, Raps is below the best form that he has shown us but still in many ways is still one of our better backs. My sadness with Raps is that he is giving all he has - the dude is all heart and giving everything. I don’t think there is another gear and watching age catch up to him is tough to see.

He's pretty much our best player atm

If they all put in as much as he does we'd be 6-3 not 3-6

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Agree with you both. I full appreciate what he is doing and he still has that palm and that aggro full on style and he can still break a tackle. But he shouldn't go around again next year either. He should go out while he's still playing good footy because when he makes a break now, he just can't go anywhere.

I wish we could find another position for him. He's got skills -saw him kick a 40/20 easy as you like one game- he can pass both directions - vision. Not a good enough tackler for a shift into the backrow though. Probably too loopy to ever go into the halves but in a different career, it might have been interesting as a running 5/8.

But if we are regenerating that back 5 next season, he shouldn't be there. That back 5 needs speed and Jordy Raps going around one more time again just for the memories is a backwards move.

[Bay53]

Is fitness something you set in the off-season and maintain through the season or is it possible to step it up mid-season (like now). If Ricky arrived at the same conclusion as you have, is there anything he can do about it now or has that ship sailed for 2021?

I think it is very hard to catch up.

The reality is short pre seasons are deadly for us. The summers of 2015/16 and 2018/19 were magnificent preparations. Even though we didn’t start those seasons totally on fire, you could see very early on we were well prepared.

2019/20 was the first time we had made the finals two years in a row since 2004. However, the thing that will always be unknown is how would 2020 have gone if it was a normal season. We got two early wins against ordinary sides and then we all stopped for 2 months. We will never know if the short pre-season of 2019/20 (which included needing to relocate to the Sunshine Coast) hurt us, because everyone then started from scratch again in round 3.

We clearly have big fitness issues this year. We just look out on our feet in the second half every week. I think there are quite a few players who have picked up injuries and are playing through but we shouldn’t be falling away like we did, especially yesterday on the back of a 9 day preparation.

[BadnMean]

Is fitness something you set in the off-season and maintain through the season or is it possible to step it up mid-season (like now). If Ricky arrived at the same conclusion as you have, is there anything he can do about it now or has that ship sailed for 2021?

Very, very hard to dramatically improve conditioning mid season simply because of the need to be relatively fresh for game day, peak for the game and then have a day or two lighter recovery. To get the volume of work done needed to really step up fitness you'd be going into game day fatigued- which dramatically increases risk of soft tissue injuries + obvious negatively impacts game day performance.

Season is a tough, long slog that often players lose a couple of kgs at the end of it simply becase for the reasons outlined above and managing niggles and fatigue, they can't even get in to the gym often/hard enough to maintain all that strength they added during the off season when they could just train to their hearts content without the match days to freshen up for-take a breating- then recover.

The exception would be people who have been out injured can pick up match fitness in a few weeks, but that's a separate circumstance coming from a low base back to "good enough".

[BadnMean]

I think that’s also fitness RR. 3 people in a tackle triples your tackle efforts for the team. They haven’t got the petrol in the tank it seems.

They’re emptying the tank each week. It’s just the petrol light comes on at half time.

I don't disagree that fitness appears to be an issue Gangers. It is a fact that we have multiple players in the tackle but they have gone back to the 2017/18 practice of allowing the opposition ball carrier to progress and then fall down, rather than driving the ball carrier backwards. Other teams (Panthers/Storm) are using this method successfully under the 2021 rules. Those sides appear to get a lift from their defensive work. It energizes them. We don't seem to have any emphasis on this part of our defensive play.

Psychologically it'd be a huge lift. Also a "good gamble" on energy resources as yes, more tiring to be commititing more defenders to the tackle each time BUT every time you pull it off you save everyone else from that 10m shuttle run. It'd be motivating working for each other knowing your mates will pay you back next time they make a tackle. Then they get a good field position, which again is easier on the energy use as an attacking kick and keeping a team trapped in their end is a lot less sapping than having to attempt the huge long kick followed by a 50-60m sprint to kick chase every time.

So if you execute it well, it doesn't end up more tiring overall. Relies a lot on the excellent kicking game of their halves + need some discipline too.

[TongueFTW]

Phil Gould said on his podcast it seemed like the Raiders “missed the jump” when it came to the pre-season, and I couldn’t agree more. The second half against the Sharks was the first sign of poor fitness/conditioning, we were extremely lucky to win that game. Then, the Warriors game was a debacle which everyone excused at the time, but in hindsight was another warning. No matter the circumstances, the way we conceded cheap points in that second half has been a consistent trend since.

There is a certain arrogance and entitlement within this team, but they haven’t won anything. They call themselves the “best pack” in the competition, yet the forward pack has been dominated by almost every opposition pack, bar the Tigers. This really does feel like 2017 where the team was conditioned to “peak” at the right time, forgetting the journey there is much more important, essentially viewing a Top 4 spot as their right. The season is over, and there aren’t short term answers. This isn’t a matter of changing a player here or there, it is a systematic issue, and it starts with the coaching staff. Stuart said he needed internationals and Origin players when he first came to the club - he has them now, and responsibility lies with him for the poor on field performance, fitness and defence. The thing is - there is enough talent in the squad to go on a lucky run and make the 8, but even then, we are a tier below Parramatta/Souths, and several tiers below Storm/Panthers.

I also think the stupid decision to not submit a Jersey Flegg team beggars belief. The group of clubs that owns the Raiders make enough money sucking the community dry through pokies to afford a Flegg team. For a club like us, who needs to be relying on junior pathways, to not have a team in Jersey Flegg, shows you where the secretive boys club that run things have their priorities. There needs to be a full investigation into who owns this club, and who is treating it as a money making exercise instead of a football club.