Re: Match Reaction: Leeds 34 - Wigan 10
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:14 pm
To be fair I cannot recall a team kicking 2 40-20s in one half of a RL game. Add that to the repeat possession you get when you score tries and any team facing that would struggle.
What worried me was the coach and the players never reacted to that. No plan B existed. In fact both coach and players made things worse for themselves.
Initial selection was wrong so it was up to the coach to act boldly and instigate some quick interchanges. It is no good saving interchanges until the game has gone. Feka should have been taken off, Fielden too and Hock / O'C played at prop to allow Hansen and Tomkins to play out wide because defensively the threat was out wide. Leeds had outfoxed Noble big time and he then failed to act to rectify it.
The coach, senior players should have then issued a call to be patient, lots of time left, work our way back into the game by not giving away possession, slow the game down as and when needed by kicking to touch. Wigan needed to dig in and absorb and reduce the pressure. Oner hs to question a coach who did not anticipate given their start to all gams this season, that Leeds have been hot early doors all season but lost it as the match progressed. The coach/players should have been aware of that.
Ultimately, Plan A was poor and what worrys me is that Noble thinks Plan A is good enough as long as the players apply it correctly. Well I am sorry Mr Noble, your Plan A sucks. We did not start the game badly. The first half was a continuation of the last 40 minutes v Leeds in the play off when we could not get out of our own half. So in essence that is 80 minutes of domination and results v Leeds are starting to replicate those v Saints who similarly dominate the crude Noble Plan A.
Sam Tomkins is doing very well ut the honest truth he is playing on totally the wrong side of the pitch. He is left sided. NZ made Tommy play right side and hooker to accomodate Benji on the left yet Noble puts a youngster in a position he is less suited to. Incidentally, Ainscough is a right not left winger.
The need to play plyers on the corect side would be less important if we actually played a game focussed upon breaking team down the middle before going wide. Instead from tackle 1 our half backs fan wide as very often do our second rowers. If players fan wide early and stand very flat then any opposition getting into their faces is going to make life incredibly hard for Wigan.
Even worse the reliance on Hock and Feka makes it easier for teams to target where the ball will go. Leeds have done a number of Hocky in the last 2 games v them. They compress their defence where he is and swarm at him in 2 and 3s. They even apply gamesmanship and really go to town on the ball which paid off last night and also ledge him heavily.
If you never change your approach then any team is going to know what you do and you become very predictable. We were playing a team that was vulnerable down their left side last night. Hall is a very good prospect. His defence is not his strength. He was carrying an injury. Senior was mising, Watkins is young and liable to make mistakes particularly when asked to play on the left when he is a right centre (look how many mistakes he made last night), Ali Lat does not want to defend, Burrow will defend but he cannot prevent offloads etc given his stature. We had that glaring weakness to attack and we never did instead we went down their right defence which is stronger.
Whatsmore if you kick down your right, Leeds left it makes Leeds play left to right which is the harder direction to play, Leeds players love running right to left and if you let them do that then by the last tackles, Rob Burrow is near the left touchline which is great for a left footed kicker.
Leeds threw a curve ball at us last night, we threw the same ball at them we always throw match after match.
Our basic sets that we use to exit our own half are no better than what schoolboys would use. Your own half, exit sets should be great sets because they are the ones you use the most. If Wigan want a playmaker hooker then you have to have a pack that plays as a pack in their own half and offers options, dummy runners and makes the opposition guess. You need Gaz Hock doing the hard yards because he is better at that than props like Fielden (He should be ashamed that it is so) Somebody mentioned last night that Lowe and Monie adapted to conditions / tams etc. Inded they did. Moving big teams laterally is not a brain wave by McLennan, we used to do it to Bradford when Kelvin, Hill, Hobbs played for them. Moreover, Monie had forards running far more intricate hard yard exit sets than Noble has and we are talking a decade later. How many time would Monie have 2 props running together any the outside one crying the ball would simply pop a short inside pass to his supporting teammate. What British SL coaches do now is say ys we want to exit our half and not make mistakes but we do that by scooting, by running one out, by keeping it simple.
What worried me was the coach and the players never reacted to that. No plan B existed. In fact both coach and players made things worse for themselves.
Initial selection was wrong so it was up to the coach to act boldly and instigate some quick interchanges. It is no good saving interchanges until the game has gone. Feka should have been taken off, Fielden too and Hock / O'C played at prop to allow Hansen and Tomkins to play out wide because defensively the threat was out wide. Leeds had outfoxed Noble big time and he then failed to act to rectify it.
The coach, senior players should have then issued a call to be patient, lots of time left, work our way back into the game by not giving away possession, slow the game down as and when needed by kicking to touch. Wigan needed to dig in and absorb and reduce the pressure. Oner hs to question a coach who did not anticipate given their start to all gams this season, that Leeds have been hot early doors all season but lost it as the match progressed. The coach/players should have been aware of that.
Ultimately, Plan A was poor and what worrys me is that Noble thinks Plan A is good enough as long as the players apply it correctly. Well I am sorry Mr Noble, your Plan A sucks. We did not start the game badly. The first half was a continuation of the last 40 minutes v Leeds in the play off when we could not get out of our own half. So in essence that is 80 minutes of domination and results v Leeds are starting to replicate those v Saints who similarly dominate the crude Noble Plan A.
Sam Tomkins is doing very well ut the honest truth he is playing on totally the wrong side of the pitch. He is left sided. NZ made Tommy play right side and hooker to accomodate Benji on the left yet Noble puts a youngster in a position he is less suited to. Incidentally, Ainscough is a right not left winger.
The need to play plyers on the corect side would be less important if we actually played a game focussed upon breaking team down the middle before going wide. Instead from tackle 1 our half backs fan wide as very often do our second rowers. If players fan wide early and stand very flat then any opposition getting into their faces is going to make life incredibly hard for Wigan.
Even worse the reliance on Hock and Feka makes it easier for teams to target where the ball will go. Leeds have done a number of Hocky in the last 2 games v them. They compress their defence where he is and swarm at him in 2 and 3s. They even apply gamesmanship and really go to town on the ball which paid off last night and also ledge him heavily.
If you never change your approach then any team is going to know what you do and you become very predictable. We were playing a team that was vulnerable down their left side last night. Hall is a very good prospect. His defence is not his strength. He was carrying an injury. Senior was mising, Watkins is young and liable to make mistakes particularly when asked to play on the left when he is a right centre (look how many mistakes he made last night), Ali Lat does not want to defend, Burrow will defend but he cannot prevent offloads etc given his stature. We had that glaring weakness to attack and we never did instead we went down their right defence which is stronger.
Whatsmore if you kick down your right, Leeds left it makes Leeds play left to right which is the harder direction to play, Leeds players love running right to left and if you let them do that then by the last tackles, Rob Burrow is near the left touchline which is great for a left footed kicker.
Leeds threw a curve ball at us last night, we threw the same ball at them we always throw match after match.
Our basic sets that we use to exit our own half are no better than what schoolboys would use. Your own half, exit sets should be great sets because they are the ones you use the most. If Wigan want a playmaker hooker then you have to have a pack that plays as a pack in their own half and offers options, dummy runners and makes the opposition guess. You need Gaz Hock doing the hard yards because he is better at that than props like Fielden (He should be ashamed that it is so) Somebody mentioned last night that Lowe and Monie adapted to conditions / tams etc. Inded they did. Moving big teams laterally is not a brain wave by McLennan, we used to do it to Bradford when Kelvin, Hill, Hobbs played for them. Moreover, Monie had forards running far more intricate hard yard exit sets than Noble has and we are talking a decade later. How many time would Monie have 2 props running together any the outside one crying the ball would simply pop a short inside pass to his supporting teammate. What British SL coaches do now is say ys we want to exit our half and not make mistakes but we do that by scooting, by running one out, by keeping it simple.