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Message: [QUOTE="Super Freak, post: 2684499, member: 8536"] I thought I would share this. Craig Bellamy on coaching against Lockyer. I was asked about coaching against Locky the other day and whether he was always the bloke I focused on stopping when my teams were playing against him. He was and still is. He will be till the day he finally does hang them up. I have had the opportunity to coach some exceptional players, but I don't think I have ever seen someone who can read the game as quickly as Locky. From my earliest meetings with him when I started working at the Broncos, I couldn't believe how well he knew the game. Some of that stuff is obviously learned, but the instincts and ability to read a game the way he can - I think some of that you are born with. I guess the best comparison I can make is to a musician. When I see a sheet of music I see a bunch of lines and dots on a page. A great musician sees the same sheet and they see a song. I think when Locky looks at a defensive line or watches a game, he sees things very differently to the average person. Because of that he knows when to pass or when to go. As a coach, I always found him a difficult bloke to plan for, because you want to cut down the time he has the ball in his hands. If you give him too much time and space, he will pick the right option every time. Every single time. And he will cut you to shreds. I know there have been a few times over the years at Melbourne where we have tried to change a couple of things with our defensive structures because we were playing against Darren that week. And when you haven't practiced something enough, it gets exposed under match conditions - as often happened with these plans. Locky was just so hard to handle because he was one of the very, very few guys who was equally as dangerous running the ball himself as he was passing and kicking. The number of players that got caught grasping at thin air after shooting out of the line trying to pressure Darren . . . That was where you had to find the right balance, because he was so good on his feet, when you forced him to run he would beat you one-on-one, which would immediately created an overlap he could exploit. Preparing for that '06 Grand Final, he was our big concern. He had a big pack of old hard-heads in front of him and the thing that struck us was the way he learned to work off the back of them, just picking his moment when to kick. Sometimes he'd shoot into dummy-half and just speed things up when he felt it necessary. He just seemed in total command of the tempo the game was being played at. Trying to prevent him from taking control was something we spoke about in the week. But it is one thing to talk about it. It is another thing trying to get out there and actually try to contain Darren Lockyer's impact on a game. Unfortunately we couldn't and in the end he was probably the difference between the two teams. Watching that field goal sail through - and it never looked like missing - I just remember that sinking feeling which hit me straightaway. When I saw him lining it up, I initially felt a sense of relief. I thought it was a good result we had forced him into a Hail Mary field goal attempt. There was no way he would slot it from over 40 metres out. Not with how heavy his legs would have been feeling after 73 minutes of the hardest football imaginable. The thing is, when I looked down and realised who it was who did it, I wasn't surprised or angry. It's the sort of thing he does. That final 10 minutes of the game - that is where Locky comes into his own. [/QUOTE]

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