The Rickman wrote: ↑August 29, 2019, 3:28 pm
To be honest, I think a big part of the reason we lost wasn't so much getting caught up in any niggle, it was getting too far ahead of ourselves and just trying to score off every play... it was sloppy football and they needed to just do what they've done most of the season. I was a little bit worried about this after the way they were posing for photos after the Storm game... like they'd won the grand final.
They certainly took the eye off the ball against Manly, and hopefully they've learned a LOT about how you go about winning football games against ANY opposition.
Agree.
The niggle wasn't an issue for me.
The biggest issue was the referring which interrupted the flow of play.
Also, Manly rushed our edge play makers (mainly Sezer) and we failed to counter this tactic. Cronulla will most likely do the same IMO (I.e. rush up on Sezer / Wighton).
We need to play short and through the middle if Cronulla attempt this tactic.
Have CNK rushing up in attack and preparing to take a ball inside of Sezer / Wighton so that Cronulla can't simply use the 'Umbrella defence' to counter our wide shifts.
Also - we may want to consider shifting earlier (like we did against Melbourne).
Cronulla will expect a grind - give them the opposite. It's high risk, but high reward.
I hope I'm wrong about this game. I'd love a win here to give the team confidence.