Monday, April 26, 2004
Monday Rant: Smith stuffs up interchange
Brian Smith should look back on yesterday's game and accept that he monumentally screwed up his interchange and in the end cost Parra victory.
Parramatta's bench provided almost nothing against the Sharks. Not that any of the interchange players played woefully, but they had very little opportunity as Smith seemed reluctant to make any changes to a side which, admittedly, was playing well.
However, Smith's preference to keep his strike players on the field backfired big time. Parramatta was unable to score enough points to skip away from the Shark's despite dominating and looking the much better team for most of the game.
By the final fifteen minutes, Parramatta was tiring and the Sharks were coming home strong. As it turned out, they came home too strong.
Let's examine Smith's interchange choices. We have no argument with Shane Muspratt in the absence of Luke O'Dwyer as he gives the team versatility and he didn't let the team down when he was on the field. He can cover a lot of positions and should give Smith the ability to choose impact bench players. However, that's not what we got on Saturday.
Chris Armit is simply not a interchange player. He has enormous potential and has played well when starting, but he's not effective as an bench player. He doesn't yet have the confidence to come onto the park and get heavily involved. He's not a big impact player and so if he isn't lightening the load of the rest of the fowards, he's not contributing much to the team.
Justin Tsoulos did make an impact (albeit not always a good one with some silly passes) when he came on, however in the second half, he was kept out of the game until the final ten minutes. Tsoulos' weakness is his mobility and when you have an opposition who is desperate to put points on the board, that is not the time to throw in your big, slow men. However, as the likes of Stapleton, Cayless and Peek had already done an enormous amount of work, Smith didn't have much choice. In overtime, Tsoulos was unable to come across and plug a gap up the middle of the ruck and the Sharks scored the try that won them the game.
Which brings up to David Vaeliki - a selection Smith will now be ruing. Vaeliki only came into the fray mid-way through the second half and as such his contribution was minimal. He wasn't able to take any of the workload off our tiring forwards, yet neither did he add any extra spark. In fact, the only thing Vaeliki was ever likely to do was damage the rib injury that kept him out of the New Zealand game the night before. As it turned out, it wouldn't be the ribs that would trouble him, rather a season-ending archilles injury.
The annoying aspect of this is that the previous week, Fui Fui Moi Moi showed exactly what you want from an interchange player. In ten minutes he turned the course of the game. Parramatta didn't have any one on the bench on Saturday who could do that. There was no James Webster style player, who might come on and make a break from dummy half, no rampaging forward who could get the opposition back on their heels. Mal Kaufusi might have fit the bill here. Worse still there was no forward Smith could trust with significant amount of game time just to take the load of the starting pack. Surely, Chris Muckert might have been a better option in this regard.
1Eyed Eel has enormous respect for Brian Smith but on Saturday, we think he screwed up royally.
Parramatta's bench provided almost nothing against the Sharks. Not that any of the interchange players played woefully, but they had very little opportunity as Smith seemed reluctant to make any changes to a side which, admittedly, was playing well.
However, Smith's preference to keep his strike players on the field backfired big time. Parramatta was unable to score enough points to skip away from the Shark's despite dominating and looking the much better team for most of the game.
By the final fifteen minutes, Parramatta was tiring and the Sharks were coming home strong. As it turned out, they came home too strong.
Let's examine Smith's interchange choices. We have no argument with Shane Muspratt in the absence of Luke O'Dwyer as he gives the team versatility and he didn't let the team down when he was on the field. He can cover a lot of positions and should give Smith the ability to choose impact bench players. However, that's not what we got on Saturday.
Chris Armit is simply not a interchange player. He has enormous potential and has played well when starting, but he's not effective as an bench player. He doesn't yet have the confidence to come onto the park and get heavily involved. He's not a big impact player and so if he isn't lightening the load of the rest of the fowards, he's not contributing much to the team.
Justin Tsoulos did make an impact (albeit not always a good one with some silly passes) when he came on, however in the second half, he was kept out of the game until the final ten minutes. Tsoulos' weakness is his mobility and when you have an opposition who is desperate to put points on the board, that is not the time to throw in your big, slow men. However, as the likes of Stapleton, Cayless and Peek had already done an enormous amount of work, Smith didn't have much choice. In overtime, Tsoulos was unable to come across and plug a gap up the middle of the ruck and the Sharks scored the try that won them the game.
Which brings up to David Vaeliki - a selection Smith will now be ruing. Vaeliki only came into the fray mid-way through the second half and as such his contribution was minimal. He wasn't able to take any of the workload off our tiring forwards, yet neither did he add any extra spark. In fact, the only thing Vaeliki was ever likely to do was damage the rib injury that kept him out of the New Zealand game the night before. As it turned out, it wouldn't be the ribs that would trouble him, rather a season-ending archilles injury.
The annoying aspect of this is that the previous week, Fui Fui Moi Moi showed exactly what you want from an interchange player. In ten minutes he turned the course of the game. Parramatta didn't have any one on the bench on Saturday who could do that. There was no James Webster style player, who might come on and make a break from dummy half, no rampaging forward who could get the opposition back on their heels. Mal Kaufusi might have fit the bill here. Worse still there was no forward Smith could trust with significant amount of game time just to take the load of the starting pack. Surely, Chris Muckert might have been a better option in this regard.
1Eyed Eel has enormous respect for Brian Smith but on Saturday, we think he screwed up royally.
