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If only Reece and FPN had worked out!!! Damn that woulda been sweet if both coulda just slotted in with career-best form.
I have the exact same fear and I guess that's why I love the sport. We SHOULD be maybe a 75% chance of winning on paper I reckon. However, we always struggle against physical teams. ALWAYS!!! George farking Burgess and Angus farking Crichton will run amok and our bench is sooo limited (with Maubs starting in the centres and Napa out).
I'm confident in our starting squad but we will have spells where it's Butcher and Collins up against the simple but effective tactic of 'run the Burgess brothers + Crichton at wm then peg the ball to Cook, Inglis or Gagai whenever you see a hole'. Simple gameplans like that WORK because they don't rely on all the class and polish that we bring to the game. If Souffs get ahead early and are given a heap of penalties... they'll just get their forwards to grind us + Reynolds to constantly grubber the ball into touch. We won't catch them.
If Cronk controls the positional game early, we weather the initial 30 minute Burgess/Crichton onslaught without conceding more than a try and Teddy/Toops/Manu/Fergo aren't dropping the ball, we will break them. We need to beat them in the race so that THEY are interchanging their exhausted big boys before we are giving SST/JWH/Cords/Liu a spell. If we do that and score a few tries doing so, they will be broken. Their only hope will be a last 20 minute physical spell, at which stage they'll be playing catch-up and Cronk will bureaucratise those farkers out of the game with his superior game management.
Originally posted by Louis N
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I'm confident in our starting squad but we will have spells where it's Butcher and Collins up against the simple but effective tactic of 'run the Burgess brothers + Crichton at wm then peg the ball to Cook, Inglis or Gagai whenever you see a hole'. Simple gameplans like that WORK because they don't rely on all the class and polish that we bring to the game. If Souffs get ahead early and are given a heap of penalties... they'll just get their forwards to grind us + Reynolds to constantly grubber the ball into touch. We won't catch them.
If Cronk controls the positional game early, we weather the initial 30 minute Burgess/Crichton onslaught without conceding more than a try and Teddy/Toops/Manu/Fergo aren't dropping the ball, we will break them. We need to beat them in the race so that THEY are interchanging their exhausted big boys before we are giving SST/JWH/Cords/Liu a spell. If we do that and score a few tries doing so, they will be broken. Their only hope will be a last 20 minute physical spell, at which stage they'll be playing catch-up and Cronk will bureaucratise those farkers out of the game with his superior game management.
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