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Message: [QUOTE="BroncsFan, post: 3486849, member: 9052"] I do recall that play and thought we had a good one in Mam when he threw it, but it was the below passages from the panthers game that I was thinking of in terms of missed opportunities. To'o was continually infield and leaving space outside him, whilst Oates was holding his touchline... Oates is possibly a bit behind on the play below, but he's keeping himself behind Herbie for Mam to go out the back. To'o is ready to shoot out on Herbie or start sliding off him to Oates, but a floater out to Oates sees him in miles of space and only the fullback to beat in cover. Mam ends up taking the tackle with a bit of a meek run. [ATTACH type="full" width="662px" alt="1679060014329.png"]21385[/ATTACH] 15 seconds later Mam gets a 4v3, but he's got the speed to be outside Martin so it's basically a 4v2... the easy play is just going to Herbie as To'o and Crichton are both on the back foot and it becomes a simple draw and pass for Herbie to put Oates over. Instead he takes it to the line and kicks in behind. We do get a goal line drop out, but it's 3rd tackle and he had a 4v2 against a retreating defence, so going to Herbie or getting it out to Oates is the killer play there. The kick was actually one of the harder plays, because he takes it into the line and puts it on his left foot as the defence is turning to chase it. Even at the point of kicking Oates is possibly in position for a bullet cut out pass from Ezra to get him over untouched. [ATTACH type="full" width="660px" alt="1679060216864.png"]21386[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" width="661px" alt="1679060309934.png"]21387[/ATTACH] A minute or so later he's got the same situation as the first again, except To'o is further infield and he's also got Cobbo there. Cleary has committed so it's a 3v2 outside Capewell. A simple pass is going to Cobbo on a stock standard sweep play and seeing how he goes against Crichton and To'o. He could also go straight to Herbie who will be going straight at To'o... or a floater all the way out to Oates. At the point he decides to run, Oates has about 10m of space in front of him to work with if Mam puts the floater over the top. Instead he takes a meek run into the line. [ATTACH type="full" width="658px" alt="1679061611937.png"]21389[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" width="660px" alt="1679061883303.png"]21390[/ATTACH] It could be said that in the wet he was keeping it away from the sideline, but in those situations panthers weren't sliding in defence they were marking up on Capewell/Cobbo and Herbie ready to shoot out, and planning for Edwards to cover across to take care of Oates if they went that way. These ones stick out to me, because it was literally 3 opportunities for a long pass within about 2mins of game play and he went meek run, last second kick to the ingoal and meek run. I would just like to see him taking advantage of those situations and picking the right pass. Otherwise teams will know the long ball threat isn't there and close in on the Walsh, Herbie and co to cut down Ezra's options. But who knows... maybe it was just because it was wet... or maybe he was worried about the panthers intercept risk... but it just feels like sometimes he should be passing and he doesn't or sometimes he forces passes when he shouldn't (like flat short balls to his edge forward). I'm not trying to rag on Ezra, because he's got a lot of good facets about his play (running, support play, strong defence, short kicking, etc.)... I'm just thinking the next step in his development is his ball playing and picking the killer pass. If he gets that into his game more then his running game opens up further because the pass becomes a threat to defences as well. So far this year it looks like he'll be getting a fair few opportunities to see good ball positions, so I'm hoping to start seeing it more and more in his game. [/QUOTE]

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