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Message: [QUOTE="Nerd, post: 3440438, member: 11778"] The obvious thing that is wrong with us is our defence and more specifically our line speed or should I say utter lack of it. The last two games highlight this perfectly. Both the Storm and Eels often leave the line early and move quickly to our ball runner and aren't penalised for it. They and other teams get away with this because they do it every tackle and every set of 6 which normalises it with the ref. Contrast this with our passive defence where we take one step then the whole line stops and waits for the attacker to run 8-9 m with a full head of steam where instead of a collision we grab the runner and attempt to slow the play the ball down but where in reality if they don't then offload to support they carry our defenders another 4-5 m and by the end of the set make 50-60 or more metres which leads to an attacking kick which has us trying to run the ball out from just near our try line. Their line speed keeps us to a 30 m gain for the set and us doing a kick from our own half which is taken by their back 3 near their 20 m line then rinse and repeat. The few times we do manage to get a team trapped near their try line and we attempt to lift our line speed the ref senses that we are doing something not normal and we give away a penalty or 6 again even though our line speed or leaving time is no different to our opposition. Yes this is bad officiating but our lack of line speed is our own worst enemy yet again. This passive defence has been happening not just this year but last year as well and whoever our defence coach is needs to go. A bulk of our preseason needs to happen without the football and with a lot of defensive drills designed around increased line speed and talk in defence. If certain players aren't fit enough to do this for extended periods then when the rest of the team does gym sessions etc the unfit players should be getting "some extra miles" in their legs with the fitness trainers. If these players can't or won't get fit enough it should be Intrust Cup time till they do. Sorry about the long rant but I'm over us being cannon fodder for other teams. [/QUOTE]

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