Oh, breathing. Good suggestion.
Sorry didn't see your response.
Was taking from one of your previous answer around choosing to play a certain style in the weather was risky that I was missing the forecast.
btw i just looked through our game.
There were lots of changes to your team due to unfortunate(programmatic*) injuries to your team during the match. This is what happened.
31" -
Greg Alexander - taken off ribs injury
Nathan Fien on the bench moves to 7 as a direct replacement as Fien has 7 as a secondary position.
56" -
Nathan Fien Shoulder Stinger injury - played on but less effective.
62" -
CNK - Shoulder injury - taken off
You did not have a fullback on the bench, so cascading positional checks were done to keep your team as optimal as possible.
Ngamu moved from 6 to fullback
Fien moves from halfback to 6
Your bench was full of forwards at this point, and halfback still to be filled. The least bad option from all the resuffles was to get
Barnett into 7.
Barnett was the best player on the bench, and was fully rested as well after his early stint and coming off at 35"
So actually
Barnett did play 7 for the last 18 mins for you. If he didnt, it would have been the likes of Horo, Paleaaesina, Paasi etc. Or to atleast to position 1 or 6 if not at halfback. When
Barnett did goto halfback, because his kicking was shit, Fien took over most of the kicking but he was also operating at a lower effectiveness (secondary position, playing through injury).
Barnett did take 4 kicks (7.5m on average) on some plays during the 18 mins where Fien was already tied up/not in position.
So it was rather unfortunate(programmatically correct though*), that you had injuries to your spine players. Bit of a gutsy call to not play Hohaia (i still dont get why even after your explanation but that is for your own debrief), as its rather weird/random that you had spine/backs injured during the game. You had cover on the bench for 1, but you unfortunately (*) had your spine players taken out of the game somehow(*).
On the positives, the reshuffles did not cost you, you were already out of the game well before then, and have no players out injured as a result. I had to have a look at your interchange bench strategy, and i dont know if others are doing this and still winning but setting Auto for all players is a lazy way of coaching and probably not the right tactic. Probably spend a bit of time going through the FAQs when you get a chance.
But anyway to the point, the weather, your defence strategy did not lose you the game in that fashion. It was a series of unfortunate injuries, bad team selection, bad interchange strategy combination. And a better, and well coached opposition may also have had something to do with it.
* in jest, i just like rubbing salt when the flesh wound is exposed.
