General 2024/2025 Halves Discussion

Who should pair SJ in the halves in 2024?


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Might have to change the title of this thread to -who’s playing round one?
Personally I think Sj will be good to go but if he’s not… who’s everyone got?
I like metcalf next to Sj but can see sense in playing the two more experienced players- tmm and cht.
Ultimately since Sj is only likely to miss a couple of weeks at worst I think u just have to stick with whoever u see playing there the rest of the season so they can start building a combination on that left edge.
 
Like that NicheCache article pointed out the other day ... We , The Wahs , missed more tackles in season 23 than in seasons 22 or 21.
Everyone I believe will agree that we exceeded the past decade of previous seasons defensively.
In summary missed tackles only matter if they lead to tries. Or to a lesser extent opposition advantage. Like a large linebreak or an exceptionally quick ptb.
Its extremely nuanced. But stat's imo. Are mostly there to create an industry.
The eye test always wins.
 
Yes although our right edge was lethal, SJ was at another level in 2023, so possibly a little unfair to judge… however it was also the least effective edge on relative percentages in the entire comp.
It also appears according to that site that

1. Most teams have dominant right edges, except the titans. Rabbits are about 50/50 for all that's made of there dominant left edge.
2. Most trams concede evenly, except a few teams who have 'Problem' edges ( St.George)
 
Might have to change the title of this thread to -who’s playing round one?
Personally I think Sj will be good to go but if he’s not… who’s everyone got?
I like metcalf next to Sj but can see sense in playing the two more experienced players- tmm and cht.
Ultimately since Sj is only likely to miss a couple of weeks at worst I think u just have to stick with whoever u see playing there the rest of the season so they can start building a combination on that left edge.
I would have TMM and Metcalf and CHT 14 as cover if it goes tits up
 
Like that NicheCache article pointed out the other day ... We , The Wahs , missed more tackles in season 23 than in seasons 22 or 21.
Everyone I believe will agree that we exceeded the past decade of previous seasons defensively.
In summary missed tackles only matter if they lead to tries. Or to a lesser extent opposition advantage. Like a large linebreak or an exceptionally quick ptb.
Its extremely nuanced. But stat's imo. Are mostly there to create an industry.
The eye test always wins.
That is an interesting. Mainly as early on Webster mentioned how they got together and said what do they need to do to be successful. They broke defence down simply as tackling. I think his quote was so we need to be the best at tackling so we trained it relentlessly. The benefit probably was what we saw in 2023. Sure they missed tackles but they scrambled to make up for it and then hold out the opposition the next few tackles.

I would have expected them to have improved in the missed tackles. But I suppose each season is different as there are other factors like the style of play overall, speed of the game, different opposition.
 
That is an interesting. Mainly as early on Webster mentioned how they got together and said what do they need to do to be successful. They broke defence down simply as tackling. I think his quote was so we need to be the best at tackling so we trained it relentlessly. The benefit probably was what we saw in 2023. Sure they missed tackles but they scrambled to make up for it and then hold out the opposition the next few tackles.

I would have expected them to have improved in the missed tackles. But I suppose each season is different as there are other factors like the style of play overall, speed of the game, different opposition.
I don't remember that comment from Webster about being the best at tackling but I do recall an interview on This Warriors Life where he was asked what the most overrated stats are and I think he said missed tackles was one of them. He gave the example of Penrith not having the best missed tackle numbers but still being the best defensive team overall based on the opposition crossing their tryline fewer times than any others team. He qualified that by saying that you also shouldn't be the worst team in the comp for missed tackles because then you probably would be conceding a lot of tries. Hopefully I have remembered that all correctly, the interview was about a year ago.
 
I would have expected them to have improved in the missed tackles. But I suppose each season is different as there are other factors like the style of play overall
In terms of our placing against other teams, on averages, we went from 6th place to 12th which was our lowest & best position since 2017
 
Imagine if we could tackle even better one on one as well! Great tackling and great cover!

RTS, Capewell and probably CHT will improve us over those that left.
You are sure to miss a tackle just through circumstance.
No one is taking on payne hass 1 on 1 and taking him down with a slow ptb....
 
I absolutely agree, but I would add these players exist for all teams. Panthers don't win last year without Cleary. We are unacceptably short stocked at prop though.

If SJ misses the first two games then most likely we go 0-2 in the first two games
 
Good comments and reasons in this thread.
I could have chosen any of the three based on your comments.
I went with Metcalf not because I have a bias. But actually one of the comments made such good sense.
I almost went with TMM because he'd be a solid/reliable round 1 option as we would like to start the year off winning.
The reason I did not choose CHT is because I see him as the heir to the number 7 jersey. I'm sure the club see it that way too, hence Volkman leaving early.
I wouldn't want to make CHT 6 because I don't see either TMM or Metcalf playing 7 better than him, so why start a bad habit?
And as one commenter put it, Metcalf just needs more games.
Because it's Metcalf's last year I think it's the best decision to see if Metcalf's running game will benefit the team more than TMM's defence and sleight of hand.
I think a player we haven't seen enough of due to injury needs a chance to make their case for a re-sign. And if he gets hooked mid-season or earlier, it will probably be defence, and he will have to improve that up to standard to make it back in. THEN, we will see what he is made of.
Whereas if we start with TMM there's the chance he might just play solid all year, enough to not let Metcalf in, and we'd never know who was the best choice.
I think TMM has a low ceiling compared to the other two, and I want CHT at 7 next year.
 
Just a quick look at the last season played for each player, adjusted for minutes played per game.

Average tackles per game has TMM out in front on 21.1 with a tackle efficiency of 89.6%, followed by Metcalf with 18.0 tackles per game & a tackle efficiency of 85.9%, then CHT with an average 15.8 tackles per game & an 84.4% efficiency.

I’d still like to see some try cause & line break cause stats if they were around. However on the data we do have, Metcalf doesn’t stand out as a significantly worse defender than the other 2. I wonder how much is perception rather than reality?

I think they will give the gig to the best defender. Mr Brownstone has done the above analysis. I am going to examine what he has written closely and respond shortly. Our goal this year according to Webster is to improve from 3rd to 1st with points conceded. That is our focus he said in an interview. That means offence is not what we are tying to optomise on.
The above analysis says the best defenders are 1) TMM 2) Metcalf 3) CHT.
Metcalf not being last fails the eye test so I am going to get my microscope out shortly.
 
I think they will give the gig to the best defender. Mr Brownstone has done the above analysis. I am going to examine what he has written closely and respond shortly. Our goal this year according to Webster is to improve from 3rd to 1st with points conceded. That is our focus he said in an interview. That means offence is not what we are tying to optomise on.
The above analysis says the best defenders are 1) TMM 2) Metcalf 3) CHT.
Metcalf not being last fails the eye test so I am going to get my microscope out shortly.

I was able to replicate Mr Browstone's numbers almost to the penny.

I then looked careers overall rather than just their last year and didn't see any dramatic change from their rankings as defenders,

Last year played not adjusted for minutes played
GamesTacklesMissed TTackles/GameTackle %T attempts/game
CHT
17​
243​
45​
14.29412​
84.4%​
16.94118​
Metcalf
12​
207​
34​
17.25​
85.9%​
20.08333​
TMM
9​
180​
21​
20​
89.6%​
22.33333​
Overall Career
GamesTacklesMissed TTackles/GameTackle %T Attempts per game
CHT
54​
719​
143​
13.31481​
83.4%​
15.96296​
Metcalf
19​
247​
36​
13.000​
87.3%​
14.89474​
TMM
77​
1139​
189​
14.79221​
85.8%​
17.24675​


Overall Career other Halves
GamesTacklesMissed TTackles/GameTackle %T Attempts per game
SJ
252​
3668​
681​
14.55556​
84.3%​
17.25794​
Cherrry Evans
305​
6254​
654​
20.505​
90.5%​
22.64918​
D Brown
99​
2258​
173​
22.80808​
92.9%​
24.55556​
 
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