08-27-2024, 12:39 AM
(08-27-2024, 12:28 AM)Lods link Wrote:I only had De Koning in my final side...
Just to play Devil's advocate though.
If we play both rucks we lose Fogarty's pressure....but both Pittonet and DeKoning can apply pressure at the contest.
So pressure is not lost altogether.
It's lost in one area, but bolstered in another.
What one player brings as a strength has to be seen in terms of what you lose by playing them.
The cost of a decision isn't a case of losing everything in an area
You lose some, you gain some.
That's the key to team balance.
Working out the optimal combinations... and we all see that differently (as we've seen over the season), and the gap isn't a wide one...it's a marginal choice in many cases across the field.
And can change from game to game depending on current circumstances.
It would be interesting to see our pre-season teams up against our current sides.
We don't need pressure at the contest though. We have that in spades by our bulls. We need pressure (and speed) around the ground.
Other teams run away from us, run by us, run around us. Look at what Hawks did. We were traffic cones. Yes, we were injured, but that leads to less pressure....and it was clear of the effect of that on a large scale.
Its harder to see on a smaller scale (when we are fit, but lack the right balance) but the result is still the same.
Defensive 50 pressure is huge.
We beat the eagles because of it. With so many smalls, they didn't get a chance to breathe down back.
When we have Charlie, Harry and someone else (Silvagni, TDK, Kennedy) who are slower and cannot provide the same kind of speed and pressure, it hurts us. It hurts us more than losing an extra 5% of ruck contests might hurt us.
As i said, i didn't want to have this debate here.
Just wanted to highlight that the 2nd ruck literally took 'Mr. Pressure' out of our side....which is what i've said all along.