Coach of the year

[Mike]

I'm concerned about our lack of metre making in the top level games. We won the WCC and the GF with defence and little field position. For some reason we're not making inroads on our out sets and finding ourselves pushed deeper and deeper.

We currently need incredibly commited defence, and the occasional break from our stars to get downfield. Imagine how good we'd be if we could roll up field a little more often!

[Charriots Offiah]

I'm concerned about our lack of metre making in the top level games. We won the WCC and the GF with defence and little field position. For some reason we're not making inroads on our out sets and finding ourselves pushed deeper and deeper.

We currently need incredibly commited defence, and the occasional break from our stars to get downfield. Imagine how good we'd be if we could roll up field a little more often!

We made more metres than HKR.

[the pieman]

I'm concerned about our lack of metre making in the top level games. We won the WCC and the GF with defence and little field position. For some reason we're not making inroads on our out sets and finding ourselves pushed deeper and deeper.

We currently need incredibly commited defence, and the occasional break from our stars to get downfield. Imagine how good we'd be if we could roll up field a little more often!

We made more metres than HKR.

i'll be honest at the game, i didnt think there would be much in it re metres made. We started well, they grew into it and started to win the territory battle, then French struck . We made more breaks than KR did, and may perhaps have tilted the M in our favour. KR were very much up the middle and never really broke us down, where we earned the right up the middle and made our yards out wide with French, Field, Wardle. Luke Thompson made some really good yards, and dents in the KR line and Mago when he came on likewise

I think our style change a little from last year with as Keighran isnt the same sort of centre as King was. Last year we really relied on the back 4 of Miski, King, Wardle and Marshall getting us on the front foot. i'm not knocking Keighran but he hasnt had the same presence as King in that respect. There were games last year where the 4 of them took the ball, and we were well into the opposition half after 4 drives

anyway, i think the original comment was possibly slightly ultra critical. We beat Penrith (yes, very much off the back of some great defence) but we scored 3 excellent, well worked tries which werent just individual moments of brilliance. We also forget that French has an excellently executed try chalked off from the scrum kick (ok so perhaps not excellently executed as it got disallowed ), so we bust Penrith 4 times without relying on French or Field to make a break

[Mike]

I'm concerned about our lack of metre making in the top level games. We won the WCC and the GF with defence and little field position. For some reason we're not making inroads on our out sets and finding ourselves pushed deeper and deeper.

We currently need incredibly commited defence, and the occasional break from our stars to get downfield. Imagine how good we'd be if we could roll up field a little more often!

We made more metres than HKR.

I've mentioned this before and been told the metres made are even, but my eyes saw us making distance kicks from our 40 vs their attacking kicks from our 40 for much of the first half. Our outside back breaks probably make significant contributions to our metres made stats, but that doesn't reflect the problems we had in the territorial side of the game.

What do the territory stats and attacking kicks look like? How long were HKR in our half vs us in theirs and how many PTBs did they have in the respective attacking zones. How many attacking kicks vs distance kicks were made for the two sides?

Also, and more pertinantly, do you think we were even in the teritorial game and its not something that we can improve on? As far as I can tell (from watching the NRL GF), if we were to make more impression in our go forward game we'd be a top NRL side, not just a side that can scrape a one-off with amazing defence.

[fozzie58]

Mike, I think you've hit that on the head, there.

Watching the game again, HKR came very close to scoring and possibly played the yardage game better, Smith's kicking kept them away from our line. He has improved them over the year and its a very close call between the two coaches.

They did get close you’re right but Wigan didn’t even look to me at least in the least bit threatened by them huff and bluster if the way I felt KR attack threat was

Watching it again, again , the HKR backs did not fire on the day, good defence played its part but thats an area Peter's will have to look at next.

For me May,like last year was their issue it left Lewis to do it all on his own,never a good thing that.