Don't get to see many Tigers games live but went along to Manuka today and what you do see is alot of what goes on behind the play which is missed when watching on the TV. What it shows me is we have alot of lazy players who make minimal effort to receive the ball and no effort whatsoever to cover their immediate opposition player. The other thing i noticed was how much pointing and positioning of each other they seem to do and that alone makes me think most of the team has no clue what they are doing and where they should be positioned at any point during the game. To me there is no gameplan that is natural to the players, its very stilted and you can almost hear them thinking about whether they are in the right position or where they should go with the next kick or handball when in possession. Quite frankly the way we play is the most boring, defensive style of the game i think i have ever had the displeasure of having to watch.
Then we get to the individual skill levels of our players, sorry but in that team i don't think i can name one player that more often than not executes their skill, Rance maybe. Short passes going over heads, dropping short, and even the most basic of skills which is handballing to a teammate on the move we cannot execute, either looped too high or too low or behind them. GWS were so far beyond our skill level today it was like our side were being introduced to the game for the very first time.
Its sad to think that these players are the same players that Hardwick believed or still believes for that matter are the best group of players he has had at his disposal since he started coaching the side. If that's true then we must have been the worst side in history before he got here because from what i saw today i would not be proud to say i coached that team, and i use the term "team" extremely loosely because they do not play as a team. About the only thing they do as a team that i could see was as they trudged off at the end of each quarter they are really good at congratulating each other on another poor effort.
Finally after reading quite alot of views on B Ellis i decided to focus on him today and I must say i haven't seen a more ineffectual player for a long time. Again he seems to be telling everyone else where they should be but all he seems to do is jog up and down the wing and never really looks to take possession of the ball. Not sure he even really understands the basics of the game, when he did finally get possessions they was so rushed that each time they were either skied kicks or poorly executed ones resulting in turnovers. I really think he needs to be moved on, yes he is young but he is just not showing anything at the moment and is yet another passenger on the list although we had extra large numbers of them today.
