Round 17 Panthers V Knights - Saturday 24 June 5:30pm - BlueBet Stadium, Penrith

Cooper Johns said:
I'm a huge hastings fan
But why can't he kick deeper
His kicks land on the 20 metre line
His kicks aren't going high enough or far enough
If he is injured get Clune and give Hastings a rest
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At this stage it’s pretty inarguable that it’s coached. One of Jake Clifford’s big selling points was that he could boot the ball into orbit, but he was also putting up these low risk chip bombs into the corner 20 metres out by the time AOB had had time to work on him.
 
Compare the game plans & the results:

Plan in yardage

Knights: Earn the right to spread the ball with big effort runs & a fight to win a quick ruck. A lot of onus placed on the hooker to generate ruck speed (ie by reading the ruck and picking the right little tricks around the play the ball to draw in certain defenders and in so doing nab an extra few metres for one-out runners). Run through structured block plays on the back of good play the balls, with Jaeman Salmon the main target in their defensive line.

Panthers: Put fatigue into the Knights middles via continual changes of angle and simple yet effective ball movement and offloading through the middle third, lowering the onus on their limited hookers and halves to generate all momentum and attack.

The result: Massive territory and yardage imbalance in favour of Penrith. Dylan Edwards made 200 metres anyway and Izack Tago in particular had a lot of joy later in yardage sets even if we did arguably slow them down on the first couple of tackles, making 247 metres in 21 carries. Penrith starting most of their sets on the 20 metre line or further upfield had them kicking from about Newcastle’s 40-20 metre line all game, when they weren’t just camped in our end for set after set, that is. Penrith tackled 46 times in the Knights 20, Knights tackled in the Penrith 20 three times. Oof.

One slick try to the Knights, but otherwise they handled our shifts and seemed to adjust well to what we were throwing at them. The second easy try for Hastings points to them having vulnerabilities on their goal line with some of their better defensive players out (from memory it was Eisenhuth who let Hastings stroll through, a pretty bad defender), but we had virtually no opportunity to test that.

Greg Marzhew the only player in our team to have a big yardage game and more than 10 metres/run, so I dread to think how bad it could have been without him.

Kicking plan

Knights: End most yardage sets with a conservative kick brought down on the opponent’s 20 metre line on Turuva’s wing, to give time for chasers to meet the receiver as they catch the ball. Intent is to nullify the kick return and then be able to compress the defence to slow the first two play the balls, blunting the impact of Edwards and Turuva who are both great in yardage. This is what you might call a negative, conservative tactic.

Panthers: Kick for depth and distance, backing the execution of the halves to generate repeat sets and pin the Knights in their own 20 for long periods.

The result: The above mentioned territory imbalance. Penrith gave away 4 seven tackle restarts by my count, so there was a downside to the kicking plan, but were much less fatigued than us and we never got huge yardage from those sets. They also forced 3 line drop outs, with one leading directly to a try from a Knights error, and nabbed a whole bunch of other repeat sets and opportunities in that zone. With Cleary and Luai out their attacking shapes weren’t brilliant, but aside from the D Saf microsleep and the cocked up line drop out try, we were under huge amounts of fatigue and looked on the brink of conceding constantly, with the easy barge over try being a common result of extreme defensive fatigue.

———

You would never say Penrith don’t play a really rigid and structured game, but the point of everything they do is to make the opposition uncomfortable and get themselves on the right side of the field position and possession battle as much as possible.

AOB on the other hand I think is way more “stay in our comfort zone and wait for our opportunities”. That makes Penrith a really bad match up for us, being the side which usually leads the comp in set completions, possession %, territory %, etc. And when we’re focused on sticking to our comfortable game plan, it means we’re doing nothing to put discomfort and doubt into the opposition. They know what we want to do and they’re very happy to be on the other end of it.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Compare the game plans & the results:

Plan in yardage

Knights: Earn the right to spread the ball with big effort runs & a fight to win a quick ruck. A lot of onus placed on the hooker to generate ruck speed (ie by reading the ruck and picking the right little tricks around the play the ball to draw in certain defenders and in so doing nab an extra few metres for one-out runners). Run through structured block plays on the back of good play the balls, with Jaeman Salmon the main target in their defensive line.

Panthers: Put fatigue into the Knights middles via continual changes of angle and simple yet effective ball movement and offloading through the middle third, lowering the onus on their limited hookers and halves to generate all momentum and attack.

The result: Massive territory and yardage imbalance in favour of Penrith. Dylan Edwards made 200 metres anyway and Izack Tago in particular had a lot of joy later in yardage sets even if we did arguably slow them down on the first couple of tackles, making 247 metres in 21 carries. Penrith starting most of their sets on the 20 metre line or further upfield had them kicking from about Newcastle’s 40-20 metre line all game, when they weren’t just camped in our end for set after set, that is. Penrith tackled 46 times in the Knights 20, Knights tackled in the Penrith 20 three times. Oof.

One slick try to the Knights, but otherwise they handled our shifts and seemed to adjust well to what we were throwing at them. The second easy try for Hastings points to them having vulnerabilities on their goal line with some of their better defensive players out (from memory it was Eisenhuth who let Hastings stroll through, a pretty bad defender), but we had virtually no opportunity to test that.

Greg Marzhew the only player in our team to have a big yardage game and more than 10 metres/run, so I dread to think how bad it could have been without him.

Kicking plan

Knights: End most yardage sets with a conservative kick brought down on the opponent’s 20 metre line on Turuva’s wing, to give time for chasers to meet the receiver as they catch the ball. Intent is to nullify the kick return and then be able to compress the defence to slow the first two play the balls, blunting the impact of Edwards and Turuva who are both great in yardage. This is what you might call a negative, conservative tactic.

Panthers: Kick for depth and distance, backing the execution of the halves to generate repeat sets and pin the Knights in their own 20 for long periods.

The result: The above mentioned territory imbalance. Penrith gave away 4 seven tackle restarts by my count, so there was a downside to the kicking plan, but were much less fatigued than us and we never got huge yardage from those sets. They also forced 3 line drop outs, with one leading directly to a try from a Knights error, and nabbed a whole bunch of other repeat sets and opportunities in that zone. With Cleary and Luai out their attacking shapes weren’t brilliant, but aside from the D Saf microsleep and the cocked up line drop out try, we were under huge amounts of fatigue and looked on the brink of conceding constantly, with the easy barge over try being a common result of extreme defensive fatigue.

———

You would never say Penrith don’t play a really rigid and structured game, but the point of everything they do is to make the opposition uncomfortable and get themselves on the right side of the field position and possession battle as much as possible.

AOB on the other hand I think is way more “stay in our comfort zone and wait for our opportunities”. That makes Penrith a really bad match up for us, being the side which usually leads the comp in set completions, possession %, territory %, etc. And when we’re focused on sticking to our comfortable game plan, it means we’re doing nothing to put discomfort and doubt into the opposition. They know what we want to do and they’re very happy to be on the other end of it.
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We struggle with Melbourne for the same reasons.

A really noticeable difference too is the leg speed difference between the two packs. Penrith forwards have time to wind up and really make the most of it. This can be coached.
 
Owey said:
We struggle with Melbourne for the same reasons.

A really noticeable difference too is the leg speed difference between the two packs. Penrith forwards have time to wind up and really make the most of it. This can be coached.
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There are a lot of things that can be coached to improve teams. You need a good coach to improve the way teams play.

You also need managements that are willing to act when coaches fail to get results.
 
A couple of bad plays and it might have changed the game (result?)
Ponga hoping the ball goes dead when it clearly wasn’t followed by a short drop out resulting in Penrith scoring.
Gagai‘s fumble, should have cleaned up, Penrith score.
Hetheringtons slap/sin bin prior to half time, team tired/stuffed then have to play man short further tiring team
 
MBQLD said:
One of his first bombs of the game went up from halfway and only went 20 metres. He really needs to get them down on their own try line with chasers and make them work their way out. It’s been far too easy for teams the last month or more.
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Surely this has been a game plan of AOB for the last few years. If we try and kick it long when we are coming out of our end on the 5th then surely that’s eventually puts us in better field position.
 
I think the plan with the bombs is to kick it to land 20-30 metres fwd so that chasers, especially Young can arrive and hopefully regain, if touched by opposition then 6 more tackles, unfortunately we either knock on, get caught in possession or they gather it in. If we bomb 50-60 downfield we can’t regain, unless knocked on, and they run it back 20-30 metres.
We need variety in depth, trajectory and placement, we have become obsessed with kicking to Young, even the short dropout putting ourselves under constant pressure
 
Certainly being able to contest the kick is part of it too, but they’re doing it whether or not we’re in position for that.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
At this stage it’s pretty inarguable that it’s coached. One of Jake Clifford’s big selling points was that he could boot the ball into orbit, but he was also putting up these low risk chip bombs into the corner 20 metres out by the time AOB had had time to work on him
Click to expand...
Clifford developed a bad case of the yips with his big kicking game, after a lot of them were going out on the full. From what I was told coaching staff wanted him to keep doing them but Jake lost all confidence.
In all fairness to the coaches the club hasn't got great kickers, Hastings, Pearce etc are never going to be like Moses, Cleary, Burton etc. Another point is our forwards rarely get us over the ad line where that extra half second gives the kickers more time and opportunity.
 
Frank McWilliams said:
I think the plan with the bombs is to kick it to land 20-30 metres fwd so that chasers, especially Young can arrive and hopefully regain, if touched by opposition then 6 more tackles, unfortunately we either knock on, get caught in possession or they gather it in. If we bomb 50-60 downfield we can’t regain, unless knocked on, and they run it back 20-30 metres.
We need variety in depth, trajectory and placement, we have become obsessed with kicking to Young, even the short dropout putting ourselves under constant pressure
Click to expand...
It is a Wayne Bennett tactic and we have used it since he was here. The idea isn't to contest. If you try and contest, knock it forward and the opposition comes up with it, that is the zero tackle. The idea is to arrive and put the catcher down as he is catching it. Close pressure can still produce errors, but if you tackle the bloke as he catches it, you are basically taking a tackle out of their set. Bennett loves that kind of stuff. We aren't really arriving at the same time as the ball at the moment. I'm not saying I agree with it either, just giving the background.
 
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