Kalyn Ponga discussion

slotmachine said:
And there's a reason he always gets moved back. Outside of the head knocks and defence he fundamentally struggles to play 5/8 sitting in the line with the defence in his face, rather than pushing up into the line with more time and space.
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Problem is while that’s true, he’s really poor at a lot of basic fullback play. He doesn’t return the ball with any gusto, he very rarely backs up the play and never has, his reads at fullback in defence are pretty good at least, but his urgency to get back depends on how motivated he’s feeling.

He’s one of the best attacking players in the game but unfortunately doesn’t really fit into being either a great full back or a great half. If you want someone like him to work in the side you need to basically have a steady halfback and hooker running the show with KP just jumping in when he wants…but we’re paying him to run the show.

I do feel a bit bad for him because I genuinely think all the head knocks have made him subconsciously afraid of contact.
 
Kalyn said years ago in an interview that he likes being the guy who throws the pass for the try, rather than the guy who scores it. That’s very obvious in how he plays

Because we’ve never really had anyone creative (Blake Green looked to be the best) to playmaker for him, he’s taken on that role and been the one to do it for others.

Unfortunately, we’d be better off if he just stuck to being an out and out fullback, who can also ball play too.
 
Newygirl said:
Kalyn said years ago in an interview that he likes being the guy who throws the pass for the try, rather than the guy who scores it. That’s very obvious in how he plays

Because we’ve never really had anyone creative (Blake Green looked to be the best) to playmaker for him, he’s taken on that role and been the one to do it for others.

Unfortunately, we’d be better off if he just stuck to being an out and out fullback, who can also ball play too.
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I genuinely think he wants to be a half not a fullback, but he simply isn’t built for front line contact.

I’ve got some pretty reliable intel that both moves to 5/8 were driven by him not the club but neither Brown or AOB thought they could say no to him.
 
Chaister said:
He’s one of the best attacking players in the game but unfortunately doesn’t really fit into being either a great full back or a great half. If you want someone like him to work in the side you need to basically have a steady halfback and hooker running the show with KP just jumping in when he wants…but we’re paying him to run the show.
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Oh completely agree, its a huge problem. And the POS vanity purchase of Brown doesn't fix it. He's a very good 6 but never the guy to run the show, be a leader, put the team on his back etc.
 
Chaister said:
I genuinely think he wants to be a half not a fullback, but he simply isn’t built for front line contact.

I’ve got some pretty reliable intel that both moves to 5/8 were driven by him not the club but neither Brown or AOB thought they could say no to him.
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This is no way to run a footy club.

And there is a fairly simple solution to all of this.

Dylan Brown is pretty close to exactly what you’d get if Kalyn actually was a natural 6. He’s not as dangerous of a runner, but he’s more robust, and plays better footy more centrally, playing direct with the defence in his face.

Fletcher is about as natural a fullback as you ever see.

$1.4 million in cap space which could get you a serviceable halfback eg Sandon Smith + possibly multiple first grade middles…
 
slotmachine said:
Oh completely agree, its a huge problem. And the POS vanity purchase of Brown doesn't fix it. He's a very good 6 but never the guy to run the show, be a leader, put the team on his back etc.
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As much as I hate to say it I think I agree with HarVeeGee’s point that from a squad perspective we’d probably be more balanced using Kalyn’s money to buy a halfback (yes I know there’s none but I think 1.4 mill would encourage someone out of their contract) then play Brown at 6 with Sharpe at 1. It’s not going to happen though. We’ll probably offer KP 2 mill.
 
If some other club wanted him and would give up a good forward I’d pull the trigger.

Jamie Humphreys is literally on the minimum wage at Souths, could legit be gettable for $600K come November. Or yeah Sandon Smith for about that too.
 
We are a better team when Kalyn is at his best. No doubt about it.

We just don’t know how to get the best out of him positionally, structurally and in our set plays.

Whatever it is: psychologically impacted from the head knocks (maybe he needs another dose of sports psychology - he came back firing after that stint), carrying an injury, not having a coach that can recognise and design a gameplan to his strengths, not having quality players that can enact that gameplan around him.

Whatever it is, if we can’t find a solution it’s a waste of his talent and our time/cap to be trying to make it work.

We are at a crossroads with Ponga, in my opinion. It’s starting to become one of those dead end relationships with both parties thinking they can make it work. Think he either commits to us for the rest of his career (barring a stint in rugby if he desires or a twilight club change) to try and build some legacy and work through this rough patch - and if that’s the case I think we see a new coach come in and try their luck. Or we part ways and let him go chase a premiership or more money elsewhere and try and develop a more conventional squad/gameplan.
 
bremsstrahlung said:
…. not having a coach that can recognise and design a gameplan to his strengths, not having quality players that can enact that gameplan around him.
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To be honest until more recently I was on this train of thought. I subscribed to the narrative that we’re blessed to have a generational talent at our club so it must be the complete fault of the coaching or the other players if he’s not performing, he can’t be at fault himself.

I’m starting to move away from that though and realising more of the responsibility needs to go on Ponga. There are a lot of good players in the comp who have bad coaches and bad squads around them that effect their ability, but that shouldn’t effect their effort. That’s my main issue with Ponga and not something that can be blamed on the coaching staff or other players. He’s just not jumping in to try and sway things or lead by example.

I think Sharpe’s emergence really cemented it for me. He’s playing in the same ****ty side under the same ****ty coaching. He’s a rookie in an unfamiliar position, I’m sure he doesn’t know what the **** he’s meant to be doing…and yet he still actively puts himself into positions to get involved. I wish KP did that.
 
Parra are going to pump us next week. They're playing decent and expansive footy.

The week following the Panthers will close us out with 80% effort and going through the motion.

Weeks following we'll lose players to Origin and that'll be the excuse everyone at the club including the coach and the fans use to explain why we're still undeserving to be competing in the NRL despite having arguably the best edges in the comp on paper.

We're a headless chook. How the coach keeps his job amidst persistent unreconciled failure is sincerely confusing to me. I don't understand it.
 
Chaister said:
I think Sharpe’s emergence really cemented it for me. He’s playing in the same ****ty side under the same ****ty coaching. He’s a rookie in an unfamiliar position, I’m sure he doesn’t know what the **** he’s meant to be doing…and yet he still actively puts himself into positions to get involved. I wish KP did that.
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That’s it.

The thing that has most consistently been there in attack is Sharpe’s natural opportunism and effort areas.

I don’t think he’s been good at a lot of the halves stuff, but he’s been sensational at stuff which is traditionally what you want from your fullback…
 
A bit of a weird theory, Ponga was a champion touch footy player as a kid, the one with all the hop, skip and dancing moves to create the space required for touch footy. I don’t think he’s ever been properly coached during his career on the positioning needed for his role, the coaches just froth over the freaky things he can do.
 
Ponga would be a great "franchise anchor" player for Perth Bears.
Perth would suit him - big country town sort of vibe about it - and he was born in WA.
 
Billy said:
Ponga already looks like a playmaking and running 5/8 in attack. He has his spot in the line between Fitz and Moga and camps there all game.
Watson looks more like a fullback with limited playmaking skills.
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6 years on. Not much has changed
 
This has been a blight on our team since bringing Ponga to the club. He doesn't play fullback except when he retreats there in defence, walking around the backfield 20m behind the play for the entire set. I'll hand it to him that once we get on our try line he does.

Then in attack, we have him moving in to the halves and dominating the ball. When breaks have been made and our fullback should be streaming though supporting, you see Ponga standing still out where he was setting up for the next play.

The effect of this is we lose that fullback that is always supporting chances, and we lose out in the halves with traditional 5/8th and half getting their ball time given to Ponga.

That 10 game winning streak someone mentioned it wasn't all Ponga getting us those wins and of course it wasn't. We had Marz and Dom with strong runs coming out of trouble, often winning us penalties. We had Dom that was just running around defences in broken play. We had motivation, a forward pack that was putting in and dominating. We then had KP that could play off the back of that and exploit those tired and retreating, disheveled defences. And we also had Hastings in the 7 which can't be understated.

It was a bit of a power, blitzkrieg game and we were confident and dominating.

There is absolutely no reason we can't play like that now. Yes, Cogger is trash, but we don't need him to be brilliant either. Or Gamble for that matter. This team wins when the whole team is putting in. Much like the dogs, or Raiders etc. The Dogs are up the top because they are motivated and all drive in the same direction.

It's easy to play out the fantasy of getting rid of Ponga, and hiring a 7, a few middles and somehow that is the magic pill needed at the club. I just don't see it. Without the club being able to get their act together with attitude and effort every game, professionalism, those players aren't going to suddenly change it. I mean how is an NRL average 7 and a few extra NRL average middles, going to change our fate, when AOB can't make best use of one of the most dynamic attacking players in the world! Along with several origin quality players.

I don't think that 10 game streak happened because of AOB, but in spite of him. And AOB hasn't been able to recapture that again. If we are moving Ponga on fine, but AOB needs to go with him. Or, rather than make such drastic changes, let's just make one change.
 
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