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  • 1 week ago
On the Loose Carry NRL Podcast, Rugby League Coach Lee Addison dissects the NSW Blues attack from State of Origin game 1. Catch the full episode on the Zero Tackle YouTube and Podcast feeds!
Transcript
00:00Coach's Corner, another man who puts in the hours, Mr. Lee Addison.
00:03What do we have?
00:04We're still talking origin.
00:05Well, the glasses are already on because I've had some notes to read
00:08while I've been talking.
00:09I had all them stats before on the players' union.
00:11I had to have the specs on.
00:13Look, I've been critical of Laurie Daly's coaching.
00:15I've been critical of Nathan Cleary in rep football.
00:20I've got some more evidence, I think.
00:22If you look at the way a team plays, I think it's fair.
00:25Tell me if anybody disagrees with me that if the attack isn't clicking,
00:30the first two people you look at are the coach and the halfback.
00:33Anybody disagree?
00:35Okay, thank you.
00:36Now, the game changed with the send-off.
00:41What also changed was New South Wales' adaptation to how they play.
00:46So I'm going to share my screen.
00:49This one everybody's going to have to concentrate quite significantly
00:52because they're very subtle changes I'm discussing.
00:54Okay, so there's three ways you can coach football or play football.
01:00You can play very structured like robots and follow some coaching instructions
01:05to the letter and you do this on play one, this on play two, this on play three.
01:10You can play free.
01:12The second option is you can just play free, look up, count numbers, play.
01:16But I think the wise way is the third one where you do a comfortable mix of both.
01:21And right now in the National Ping-Pong Ruby League, the rooks are so fast
01:25that you probably need to put slightly more emphasis on looking up and playing
01:29on the back of a little bit of structure.
01:32So I'm going to look at New South Wales when the game was nil-nil
01:36and we're going to look at their attack.
01:38First of all, you can throw a net over all those players.
01:41They're all bunched up.
01:42Nobody's looking up to attack anywhere in the Queensland defensive line.
01:47I want you to start looking at the way numbers are tracking,
01:50but I also want you to start looking at how the eyes and the head
01:56of the New South Wales players are all looking towards the ball.
02:00Now, I've just frozen the tape there and can you see that Queensland
02:03have got one player still trying to track back into the defensive line?
02:06So that means they only have nine in the defensive line.
02:10So at some point around this halfway line, there's some space in the Queensland
02:15defensive line.
02:17The same space, let me tell you, that was available when they had one man sent off
02:20a bit later and they played completely differently.
02:24So my argument here is that New South Wales are following a structure too much
02:29and they're a bit nervous.
02:31Now, I've slowed this down here because count the numbers in the Queensland
02:35defensive line, I think you'll actually find there's eight players in the screen
02:41from a Queensland perspective, which means there's only five not in the screen.
02:46And simple mathematics suggests that New South Wales should have played
02:50down the screen as we look, not up.
02:52And they're just too busy following the structure.
02:55This is despite all the metrics in the game saying that there's more points,
03:00et cetera, they were sticking to structure and they're obviously trying to turn
03:04the Queensland defenders back inside.
03:06Well, that's all good.
03:07But I tell you what, there's no worse tackler in Rugby League than Greengrass
03:10and Fresh Air.
03:11And there was plenty of that in the Queensland defensive line.
03:15Here we have another example where they're trying to shift that,
03:18yet they've actually moved the Queensland defence to where they want to move
03:22the ball.
03:23And it's easier to read than a children's novel.
03:26And the Queensland defence is very much able to read it.
03:30And then look at this play.
03:31Now, though, there's three, essentially three markers.
03:35There's one dead Marine, but there's two people not even at marker.
03:39This is prime attacking territory for New South Wales.
03:44The Queensland line is going to be short defensively.
03:47The Queensland line isn't even set.
03:49But they're not even gone back with 10, as you can see in the screen.
03:53And New South Wales just take another carry.
03:57And this is why I criticise Laurie Daly.
04:00This is why I criticise Nathan Cleary.
04:03Although thou shalt not criticise Nathan Cleary,
04:05because he played well against 12 men a little bit later.
04:09Here's another example.
04:11And they're coming from their own half.
04:13And this time, they're 20 points to six down.
04:15And they probably need to do something pretty quick.
04:18That is a great play the ball from Brian Toto.
04:22And there's no shape in the New South Wales attack.
04:26They're not even looking to attack.
04:27They're not even looking to count the numbers in the Queensland defensive line.
04:32They've even got a good rook there.
04:34But they're just focusing on playing through the middle,
04:36despite the fact that the game is trending towards
04:39looking up around the halfway line and playing against some numbers.
04:43Here's yet another example.
04:46Soon we're going to go to the period where Queensland were going to go down to 12.
04:52Once again, New South Wales very bunched up.
04:55New South Wales only looking to do one thing,
04:58and that's head towards the middle of the field,
05:00head towards their spots,
05:02despite the fact that the Queensland defence is in sixes and sevens
05:06and struggling to recalibrate.
05:07When they do go wide and have a look,
05:10they just turn the ball,
05:12or sorry, they don't turn it back inside,
05:13but instead of going for the overlap,
05:15instead of attacking that overlap,
05:17that was just a carry straight into the defensive line.
05:19There's no adventure at all.
05:21Anyway, Queensland get a player sent off,
05:23and all of a sudden they start playing free-spirited football.
05:27Look at this.
05:28So everything I've just been calling for
05:30is now starting to happen.
05:32They've just attacked from around the halfway line.
05:35They didn't have to wait for Queensland to lose a player.
05:38Queensland were regularly losing a player in their defensive line
05:42because of the speed of the game,
05:44because of the speed of the rooks.
05:46Laurie Daly is still coaching a very old-fashioned style of football.
05:51Nathan Cleary is straight-jacketed as well.
05:54As soon as there was 12 men in the Queensland defensive team,
05:58sorry, not in the line,
06:01New South Wales were liberated.
06:03They took the shackles off, and look what happened.
06:06So all I'll say is
06:09Laurie Daly really has to change his tactics in Game 2 and Game 3,
06:14or else they are going to lose.
06:15They're going to lose.
06:16They're in a straight-jacket.
06:18They need to get out of that straight-jacket.
06:20There's more attacking talent in that New South Wales side
06:23than is being allowed to flourish right now.
06:34They're only gonna land this way in cod dato.
06:34They are right when they were injured.
06:34They're not a FER training call.
06:35They're going to lose.
06:35They're only Dame-1 vs.
06:35They're going to losing their right-jacket.
06:35They're going to lose.
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