2025 Witzer Pre-Season Challenge - Round 2 - Knights V Eels - McDonald Jones Stadium - 6:00pm Friday 14 February

Honestly don’t think it’ll be necessary for Sharpe to do much kicking as it’s clearly a way the club wants to use Kalyn. If he’s a decent third option who kicks it 3-4 times a game that’s plenty. Ezra Mam and Tom Dearden are both the third option kickers with their clubs and no one is tearing up their five-eighth licenses.
 
Yeah Fletch simply there to take opportunities with tired D, support and using his speed to create advantages on edges. Be very simple for him at start of year.
But the type of “simple that could result in 2-3 more try’s a game.
 
I think sharpe will play abit of a hybrid role and nit a traditional 5/8 role. he will chime in running some shape for his outside men but im thinking we may see him in and around the ruck alot pushing in support. We might be looking like a team who looks like they have 1 half and 2 fullbacks.
 
That does bring up an interesting point. In football (soccer) there’s a lot of emphasis and innovation around formations (442, 424, 4231, etc) and player positions (false 9, inverted full backs, etc) but in both codes of rugby there doesn’t appear to be that level of innovation. Anyone got any ideas on why not?
 
Thieves Like Us said:
That does bring up an interesting point. In football (soccer) there’s a lot of emphasis and innovation around formations (442, 424, 4231, etc) and player positions (false 9, inverted full backs, etc) but in both codes of rugby there doesn’t appear to be that level of innovation. Anyone got any ideas on why not?
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These unga bunga's aren't real smart. Any morre than 2 things to do at a time and theyre in trouble.
 
I think with soccer that sort of innovation tends to come after a period of tactical stagnation though, which is kind of what happens in the NRL too. There was a very long period of teams picking three props in the middle and those guys never passing, and now that's changed where not only do heaps of teams play with a dedicated ball playing 13, but now playing multiple non-passing forwards put you behind the curve tactically.

The innovation probably happens quicker in soccer because there's no formation rules, whereas in league you have to pick guys for 13 specific positions. There's also the fact that soccer has so many leagues all over the world - so whereas in the NRL you have 17 head coaches where most are afraid to lose their job and just mimic successful teams and the odd innovator every few years, you have likely over a thousand professional head coaches in pro leagues where the standard is at least decent. Among that cohort there would be dozens of coaches feeling pretty secure in their job and happy to play a style which goes against the zeitgeist.

Honestly I think you can point to stuff like this in any pro sport. Every NFL franchise was looking for their own Tom Brady in the draft, a calm & collected pocket passer who moves the chains, until Pat Mahomes' first two seasons happened, and since then everyone is convinced you need a dual threat with a cannon for an arm to truly compete. The NBA spent decades with teams terrified to shoot more than a few threes per game until the Spurs and Warriors showed how efficient your offence could be if you took dozens of them, and now you have some teams shooting more 3's than any other kind of shot attempt. And so it goes. All these innovations would happen quicker if there were gridiron and basketball leagues of comparable stature to the American ones in other countries and there was stuff like the Champion's League in which the differing styles of play which emerge in those leagues clash against each other more often.
 
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Thieves Like Us said:
That does bring up an interesting point. In football (soccer) there’s a lot of emphasis and innovation around formations (442, 424, 4231, etc) and player positions (false 9, inverted full backs, etc) but in both codes of rugby there doesn’t appear to be that level of innovation. Anyone got any ideas on why not?
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An interesting conversation. I really like total innovation in sport and I must say league doesn't do much of it. I'm fascinated that all teams attack with block plays still, which originated back in 92 here at the Knights under the innovation of Alan Bell. The role of the fullback is the one that has seen the most innovation in that time with Billy Slater really being the main driver behind that. I think a big difference between league and football is that in league most guys are given a simple plan to follow and you find body types to carry out those plans, where as football, if you find a guy who can unlock a defence, you can build a plan around them (like the false nine becoming an ideal role for Messi at Barca). English football has lost the technical battle in Europe for many years because they used the league model of body shape more than letting the gifts of the individual flourish.
 
Thieves Like Us said:
That does bring up an interesting point. In football (soccer) there’s a lot of emphasis and innovation around formations (442, 424, 4231, etc) and player positions (false 9, inverted full backs, etc) but in both codes of rugby there doesn’t appear to be that level of innovation. Anyone got any ideas on why not?
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The ease with which you can score in rugby codes compared to soccer would factor in. Some teams like to not have the ball at all and just score in transition in soccer through counter attacks, set piece etc.
 
Owey said:
An interesting conversation. I really like total innovation in sport and I must say league doesn't do much of it. I'm fascinated that all teams attack with block plays still, which originated back in 92 here at the Knights under the innovation of Alan Bell. The role of the fullback is the one that has seen the most innovation in that time with Billy Slater really being the main driver behind that. I think a big difference between league and football is that in league most guys are given a simple plan to follow and you find body types to carry out those plans, where as football, if you find a guy who can unlock a defence, you can build a plan around them (like the false nine becoming an ideal role for Messi at Barca). English football has lost the technical battle in Europe for many years because they used the league model of body shape more than letting the gifts of the individual flourish.
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Great post overall but this take always drives me crazy hahaha. Darren Lockyer erasure!
 
In the days of unlimited tackles and 3 metre separation the most important players in every side was the fullback, who had room to get up to speed, spot a gap in the defence and make a break.
I never saw Clive Churchill play, but from how my father described it, he was basically a 1950s version of Billy Slater. A Jockey sized fullback who split defences and set up his outside backs.
 
If you’re talking about more of a ball-playing role, you could even go back to Robbie O’Davis … the first try he scored in the 1997 grand final was exactly because of that, Manly expected him to be doing something with the ball, running it was the surprise option which led to the try.

Other fullbacks at the time - Mullins, Brasher, Silva, Peachey, Ridge - were much more the typical ball runners.
 
Maybe we are gonna be the team to innovate the split in roles between the 5/8 and the fullback.

Traditional roles in defence, but with Sharp popping up in attack like a fullback and ponga taking control of his lethal left edge.

I prefer ponga 2 off the ruck, but he is a good ball player in attack.
 
Ponga and Sharpe swapping roles sounds complicated in attack. If Sharpe is on the left, first receiver, majority of the time he would be trying to create space for ponga second receiver. The danger would be him stepping and going himself.

His elusiveness and speed would just burn the defence. Also that extra threat would create more space for Ponga cause the defence would be more in two minds.

The question is does Sharpe have that ball playing finesse? If/when he does look out! Throw Lucus in there also there’s speed to burn on the left.
 
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This is 100% it Frank. That running threat cutting back inside is why when you queue up a Walsh or Drinkwater highlight reel they're passing to unmarked wingers so much more than you see in a Ponga one. In the Ponga one there'll always be more of him zeroing in on a favourable matchup and burning them for pace 1-on-1, or making a select pass after drawing two defenders in a wide 4-on-4. That threat cutting back inside from Dearden and Mam makes a world of difference.

There are plenty of clips of Fletcher Sharpe cutting back off his left foot and making clean breaks in his reggies highlight reels and I'm optimistic it'll translate to first grade as a 6, because he's already been shown to be a very dangerous and elusive runner at NRL level at both 1 and on the wing.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Honestly don’t think it’ll be necessary for Sharpe to do much kicking as it’s clearly a way the club wants to use Kalyn. If he’s a decent third option who kicks it 3-4 times a game that’s plenty. Ezra Mam and Tom Dearden are both the third option kickers with their clubs and no one is tearing up their five-eighth licenses.
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Except for the integrity unit 😂
 
On ABC radio they were saying Votano was getting time at fullback.
I don't know if they have heard that from club sources or they are just assuming it.
 
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