Any game is won or lost in the forwards and our forwards yesterday were terrible, all of them.
So much so Yeo was benched.
Thats not saying they were tat much better but we were just impotent. The Henry injury didn’t help with our rotation but i did note Brown seemed to be a magnet and not one of our blokes could put a hit on him.
Garner went up many times to “hurt” someone but grabbed thin air.
But we do have bigger problems and these are magnified when we cannot impose ourselves in the forwards.
Edwards tried his best to carry the team and he at times was hitting up through the forwards, but is clear he cannot do it all although plenty in our team yesterday were onlookers instead of heavy lifters.
Of course all of this should be viewed in the contact we played a committed team in Manly who subject to injury i suspect will be in the GF. They are a good team with plenty of attacking options and as yesterday showed willing forwards.
The concern i take out of yesterday was that was our best team save for Cleary and Sorenson and we had our pants pulled down.
And i would view this as our worst game in 3 years, not so much for the effort but for the result.
I cannot recall the last time anyone put 30 on us, which suggest our defence simply failed.
we have for so long watched our system work in defence, but yesterday it was a shambles.
I think this would trouble Cleary the coach more.
Luckily we have a week off to reset but there are a few who will need a good hard look at themselves about what the season means to them.
The season is a long way from gone and has been touched on here the last few games we have looked drained…Roosters nearly ran us down and Manly could have put a bigger score on us but didn’t, but we were gassed.
Not sure how a single week helps this but we need easier wins.
I guess its how we respond to adversity which is what i am looking for but we need plenty to change.
If we are relying on Nathan to be the agent of change we are masking a bigger problem.
I hope they enjoy the bye and do really have a broader honest discussion about where we are at and where we want to be.