05-22-2021, 01:34 PM
At least the back half resembles a team with adequate height, the front half still midget.
The problem is the Hawks have named a very tall forward line (3 x 197, 1x 193) which means apart from Delany our backs will be giving away height. Nothing we can do about that so they will just have to play tall and try and run them off the feet on the way out. Issue I have with that is that only the silver fox Brooksby (and if/when he rests forward Ceglar) are traditional ruck types the rest are athletes.
And at the other end they have 1 genuine tall Hartley at 199cm who will have a field day if we bomb it long anywhere near him. So need to lower the eyes and hit targets - not necessarily our strong suit. My thinking is go the old Bombers style "U-shape" forward line where the nominal CHF (i'd have Parsons) pushes up the ground leaving the flankers (Honey/Calazzi) to stay out wide and a space for the FF (Crocker) to lead into. Kennedy plays FP as the long bail out and Durdin to crumb at his feet. If they have Hartley fill the space at CHB then Crocker needs to lead away from there or the ball carrier has to look elsewhere - at least Kennedy is a marking threat against the rest of their backline as named. If they push Hartley back onto Kennedy then he has to lead at the ball, at least it will have dragged Hartley away from the prime intercept marking spot.
In the middle I would expect Ceglar to have his way at the stoppages, and indeed Brooksby when given Ceglar a rest. I think probably all that can be done is to give a contest, rove to their ruck and try to use Gundry's athleticism to work off Ceglar away from the stoppages. I suspect we will have our work cut out for us given the Hawks tall timber.
Go Blues2s !
The problem is the Hawks have named a very tall forward line (3 x 197, 1x 193) which means apart from Delany our backs will be giving away height. Nothing we can do about that so they will just have to play tall and try and run them off the feet on the way out. Issue I have with that is that only the silver fox Brooksby (and if/when he rests forward Ceglar) are traditional ruck types the rest are athletes.
And at the other end they have 1 genuine tall Hartley at 199cm who will have a field day if we bomb it long anywhere near him. So need to lower the eyes and hit targets - not necessarily our strong suit. My thinking is go the old Bombers style "U-shape" forward line where the nominal CHF (i'd have Parsons) pushes up the ground leaving the flankers (Honey/Calazzi) to stay out wide and a space for the FF (Crocker) to lead into. Kennedy plays FP as the long bail out and Durdin to crumb at his feet. If they have Hartley fill the space at CHB then Crocker needs to lead away from there or the ball carrier has to look elsewhere - at least Kennedy is a marking threat against the rest of their backline as named. If they push Hartley back onto Kennedy then he has to lead at the ball, at least it will have dragged Hartley away from the prime intercept marking spot.
In the middle I would expect Ceglar to have his way at the stoppages, and indeed Brooksby when given Ceglar a rest. I think probably all that can be done is to give a contest, rove to their ruck and try to use Gundry's athleticism to work off Ceglar away from the stoppages. I suspect we will have our work cut out for us given the Hawks tall timber.
Go Blues2s !