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Experts calling for Burton to lest centre and O'Sullivan to half back last week are criticising the move this week.

The issue is defencem and if we are going to persist with that move Presto to the left side, and play Kiks at prop or lock. Start Hayes or Hopoi at left back row with Spinks possibly on the bench. Xerri could come off the bench to left centre, with Burto move back to 5/8 and O'Sullivan to hooker.

Burton teamed with O'Sullivan is a defensive gamble, but it might work better in attack.

If the Panthers beat the Storm abd are undefeated, that is a good game to gamble on an uncovential line up and more attaxk.

Cirro's main problem is our fans have a meltdown after every loss.
 
If Harry Hayes defends at left backrow there is no gap between O'Sullivian and Burton the crucial try scored by Duncan doesn"t happen.

If Tuala plays fullback in attack, he probably throws better passes than Tracey.

So Kiks can defend in the middle and sometimes attack on the left.

If Kiks needs a spell, Hopoi can play right second row, Presto can shift to the left and Hayes can do a spell defending in the middle.

Tracey can play fullback, but shift to centre in attack.
 
The changes are, Hayes starting instead of Hughes.
Xerri replacing Critter.
Sua replacing Montoya.

First 3 changes - Mann, Toups, Hopoi

Other changes =

O"Sullivan - when we need tonscore points
Hughes - when the gane is close.
Spinks - if / when we have the game won.
 
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If O'Sullivan comes on Burton shifts to left centre, Xerri to right center, Tuala to fullback amd Tracey to lovk or hooker.

If we train for them, these types of poistional shifts can make us less predictzble in attack and harder to defend.

And I would like to see how Tuala gioes at fullbavk.

Outside of injures if we only roll the dice when we need to score to win, it will not cost us a game that we have already lost.
 
No more changes. Just bring in Xeri first Critta and keep improving. We just dropped the ball way too much and gave away too many penalty’s. We fix those areas up we win most games.
 
If we don't want to start Hayes, Salmon can do the left edge role.

If Kiks wants a rest, he can defend on the left edge, but he must stay in postition, and he shouldn't rush up out of the line.
 
Micko said:
No more changes. Just bring in Xeri first Critta and keep improving. We just dropped the ball way too much and gave away too many penalty’s. We fix those areas up we win most games.
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IMO our left edge defence is weakness, if Kiks can stay in position and stsy in the line that helps, but his natural instincts are to attack in defence and sometimes when tries are scored against our left, i can't see him in the frame.

Overall i still maintain the we played well against Souths.

Fans were asking for O'Sullivian to start. It was obvious him playing halfback made a shaky left edge defence a lot weaker. So unless we make some changes we are going to leak at lot of points with him on the field.

We didn't get to see what O'Sullivan can offer in attack, there is a reason why the club is keen to see what he can do.
 
I feel for a team struggling for identity.. I don't think they know what they are..
Good hard footy players know what they want and know how to get across the line..
I reckon there's 4 or 5 players in the mix that could be left out and redesigned to mimic a Preston type player.. Kikau isn't being used to effect that he was out at Penrith which takes away points scoring ops..

I have the answers lol but at 15 points a game and ciraldo saying he's happy to win tight games every week based on defense I fail to see the attachment
 
Our identity is being a good defensive side. The attack against Souths was good enough.

Apart from a few sloppy head high tackles, the intercepted pass thrown by Tracey waa the major disappintment.

We don't have the speed and skill in the back 3 to win games based on attack.

We don't have the size and leg speed in the forwards to make the yards if the back 3 don't make them.
 
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I think Cirro is well aware or what we are missing.

When he started we didn't have quality middle forwards and he couldn't get them.

Like NFL games of NRL are mostly won in the middle and/or with speed on the edges. I takes high quailty coaching to win when you don't have either of those things.
 
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Speaking of quailty middles, I am hoping that Jayden Smith in Flegg is Oliva Smith with a name change.

That kid is top prospect, an elite rep level middle forward.

I can see Smith being the first prop picked for the QLD SOO side in a few years time.

Jope Rauqe is a monster winger playing Bsll who has played foe Fiji. IMO big enough to play NRL.

Angus Bowen in Matts is another big body.

Some of our better talent is in the lower grades or out injured. In spite of that the lower grades don't always win.

The NRL results we have earned the last 2 season don't come from a squad stacked with eilite talent. We might be closer to being that kind of squad by the end of the season.
 
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Hounddog said:
Our identity is being a good defensive side. The attack against Souths was good enough.

Apart from a few sloppy head high tackles, the intercepted pass thrown by Tracey waa the major disappintment.

We don't have the speed and skill in the back 3 to win games based on attack.

We don't have the size and leg speed in the forwards to make the yards if the back 3 don't make them.
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I don't see the defensive patterns talked up working out missed tackles is the worst in the league
 
Our defense was unusally poor againsts the Knights.

Against Souths, they are a quailty attacking side with 52% possesion overall and a mountain of possesion in the second half.

They scored 5 tries to 4.

One try was an intercept off a poorly executed pass.
One try was a freak pickup by Latrel of an unfortunate fullback fumble.
One try was a great chase by Latrel off a well placed kick with Tracey slightly out of position.

Perhaps only Latrel scores those tries, not many players do.

Tracey didn't make many mistakes but Souths took advantage of every mistake he made including a very minor positional mistske.

The Duncan try should convince us that O'Sullivan, Burton and Kiks defending on the same side is a bad idea.

The Murray try is hard to explain, but it was after Souths had a long spell of posession.

We made 345 tackles and missed 26, Souths made 287 tackles ans missed 33.

High missed tackle counts are often just part of our defensive style, we had high missed tackle counts last season and ended up the no 2 defensive side.

After the game against Souths I can definately make a case for replacing Montoya with Sua. A few more games like that from Tracey will suggest that we need a different fullback. And I also pointed out the issue with our left side defence.

Anything I can see Cirro can also see and he might know why I am wrong about somethings.
 
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We might finish this week in the top 8 or just outside it. We are still close enough if we are good enough.

A slow start to the season might mean fewer players playing SOO.

The business end of the season starts after SOO.

I'm not going to write the club off after 4 games in a 24 game season with 2 average performances which resulted in wins, 1 poor performance and probably our best performance of the season against Souths.

In the past, the Dogs have won comps after starting the season much worse than this.
 
Having viewed some of the Panthers / Storm game, i am inclned to go even more defensive.

The players I have in mind are Hayes, Turpin, Readon, Underhill and AJ.

I would leave out O'Sullivian and Spinks.

We probably need Hughesy starting so their pack doesn't overpower us at the start.

How i hope to beat them is, engage them in a high speed defensive grind, frustrate their attack and hope that they make errors throwing the ball around under fatigue late in the game.

Any fan that thinks we can let them put 50 on us and can still win is delusional.

At this stage of the season, this is a game we can only win with defence
 
Dykes apparently pretty impresive playing fullback and 5/8 after a long injury layoff.

Woods only a few weeks away.

Woods and Dykes are likely to play some NRL this season.

Sua a couple of unfortunate defensive misses in reserve grade, great attacking player and his defence is good enough for wing in the NRL. Centre at NRL is questionable.
 
I would re-sign Tracey even though i hope that we have a better fullback option before the end of this season.

Tracey has great utility value he can cover fullback, wing, centre and 5/8. With a bit of training he can also probably develop into a player who can play some minutes off the bench at lock or hooker.

IMO one of our young guns Cocherane, Puru, or Bryenton will develop into a gun fullback over the next 2-3:years. But i am not sure that Cocherane will be ready this year.

If Tracey was injured at present, I would definately try Tuala at fullback.

And Dykes is the other option who might be ready in a few weeks.
 
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Mitch Moses 999,999,999,999 DallyM whinger of the year points 5 weeks in a row.
 
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Happy with the team Cirro has named.

Overall, i think our attack is better than last season, as a right centre Tuala is a good replacement for Critter.

Aa a captain, Kiks is a but quiet, Hayward and Galvin are going to need to do most of talking. Backed by Burton, Salmon and Mann.

For a young guy, Galvin is improving rapidly, he performed well in both of the losses.

I think Newcastle and Souths were pretty close to the standard we lost to most of last season. Sharks, Canberra, Manly were the only times we beat a high quality swiched-on opponent. The close losses to the Panthers and the Storm were the only really good performances in a loss.

Our consistency, composure and defence isn't quite where it was last season, but the attack is better, mostly due to Galvin.

We didn't get 2 forward pass calls against Souths that might have made a dufference. We didn't play badly, just made too many errors, some of them penalties.

Against the Panthers we need improved consistency, composure and defence and minimal errors. Hence, what we need to practise against the Panthers, is what we need each week.

And IMO Tuala needs to play fullback close to the opponent's try line.

Some in the media are setting up a false narrative about our performances last season.

The close loss to the Panthers was the only time we played close to our full potential for 80 mins.
 
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