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Joe Kelly Match Analysis - PWRFC 74 Washington 19 |
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Joe Kelly Match Analysis - PWRFC 74 Washington 19
Event Date:
Saturday, 09/25/04
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Man of the Match Marcus Respice was nothing short of spectacular!
We got off to a quite a shaky start - inevitably, in attack we let the adrenaline and first match jitters get the best of us in the very early stages - Washington capitalized on their one area of competency i.e. the ability to be scrappy at the breakdown - they contested the ball creating slow & sloppy possession for us - the referee allowing them carte blanche to intrude in the rucks, enter from an offsides position, and remain offsides when positioned @ the fringes - in our haste and frustration under pressure, we did the opposite of what we intended, we persisted in forcing passes under heavy pressure, offloading to teammates who were in an even worse position to take on the defense.
Our instructions were to start the match with what we refer to as 'direct attack' i.e. taking the ball into contact generally looking to go ruck to ruck, with preserving possession as our first priority & offloading only when a pass is a 'sure thing'. 'Direct attack' can be equated to a boxer delivering body blows early in a fight in order to break an opponent down. Body shots are high percentage punches - the boxer's whole arsenal can be opened up later in the match. So, despite straying from the plan of a conservative start, we quickly recovered, largely based on the enterprise and ability of a number of individuals.
Early on, the intensity and scrappiness of our forwards, with flankers Matt Wyatt and Louis Tulio contesting ball heavily, and our tight five in solid support, we managed to score early, simply out muscling Washington in the sets and around the pitch. Once we settled down and began to develop something of a rhythm, Derek Tully @ 10 quickly began to recognize that sending the ball thru hands out wide was the order of the day - our midfielders Jeff Shipe and Gavin, always running the right lines and with Nas inserting from fullback & fixing outside defenders, he sent away our wingers all afternoon! The wings scored five tries between them and each had a number of big breaks tearing off chunks of yardage and setting us up to score deep inside Washington's 22m line!
Man of the Match, Marcus Respice,was nothing short of spectacular in demonstrating multiple ways of beating his man - vying closely with Marcus was Wayne DeMarco who demonstrated top class finishing prowess as well as hard hitting defense - Wayne demonstrated significant 'closing speed' in running down his opposite any time he appeared to turn the corner when Washington had the overload!
Our Man of the Match in the Forwards, Louis Tulio was a revelation, chipping in with grinding runs in traffic getting us on the front foot, scrapping for the ball at the breakdown, pressuring in defense and contributing in all the ways a flanker should!
Problematic Areas:
1. Although ball retention was good, ball presentation was awful both at the base of the scrums and in the rucks - Once again Kris Johnson had to dig deep all day to retrieve our ball. Solution, cleaning out our rucks NOT simply coming to the breakdown and trying to position ourselves as a 'barrier' to the defense - instead we need to get more committed to cleaning out defenders and producing much cleaner ball. As for the base of the scrum - a little work together with #8 & #9 to flesh out just how we want to manage ball @ the base - also - we need to call for the second shove to get our scrum going forward and get their #'s 9, 6, & 7 on the back foot - we had a dominant scrum so we needed to use it appropriately!
2. Flatness of our runners in attack, ball delivered to men standing flatfooted @ the fringe - these are problems often encountered on slow ball poorly produced by the forwards @ the breakdown - the remedy is first # 1 above, cleaning out the rucks - the second requires discipline and concentration off the ball, not succumbing to the temptation to creep up and get flat - as for the forwards standing off - the other solution is utilizing our repertoire of ploys such as the '41', 'Rocket', etc. - they allow for the forwards to ' time' their charges off the halfbacks lines - OR - because it was difficult for Kris to extricate himself from the ugliness in the rucks to get going on the '41's' - the other solution is to give the ball to Derek, move the point of attack out wider and run ' plus one's' and 'weaves'. Actually another part to the problem, once again because of our inability to clean the rucks, too many guys were needed to commit to the breakdown - thus sometimes NO runners available @ the fringe!
Short of these two areas, we were pretty damn competent around the pitch all day - hard to argue with our form given the scoreline - our rucking improved greatly in the 2nd half & we managed to align and reposition ourselves well in defense all day - We certainly aren't a well oiled machine on either side of the ball and we have work to do for sure. A plus on defense was that we got 'off the fence' and took 'turf' all day - our 'wedge' needs better choreography, but at least we're coming upfield and pressuring in a way we failed to do much of last year. We need to make it our goal to create more turnovers - we need to pinch the ball from opponents at least a dozen times a match to start - we had a patch when we were really attempting to poach and slow their ball down but we seemed to lose focus on that as the day wore on.
Sadly, due to our lack of numbers, we don't have anything remotely close to a full B-side - I felt bad for the guys, we need a committed corps of guys who can provide a meaningful match playing side by side with our own club mates - we patched together a side with guys playing over and help from Washington - let's really push to get a full side down to NOVA this weekend and pick up a couple of wins and have EVERYONE leave feeling like winners!
Joe
Click more information below for the press release and photos.
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contact: Joe Kelly,
coachkelly@therugbyclub.org
phone: 4844329170
more information >> |
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