Living in ChCh I don't get to see Warriors live very often but would be interested from any body at the game yesterday on what they thought of SM giving those penalties away early in the first half.On telly just looked plain dumb but live may have told a different story of perhaps SM showing great leadership in terms of making a decision of perhaps thinking that 2 points or a chance to reset the defence is better than giving away for 4 or 6. What was it? Great leadership/vision or total stupidity...any comments gratefully received.
His off load early in the tackle count, in good field position, with nothing on and off a miserable inside run=not great leadership and not footy smart.
I actually rate Simon highly playing the loosey and think there is a front row transition just around the corner, but in the 12 he is a massive let down for me and can't wait for the arrival of Bukuya. Simon gives it his all every game but is not being done any favours being the Captain and playing 12. If there is one game that really stands out for me in regards to how much his game has suffered with the leadership role, it is the Sharks game from last year, firstly the decision to give us a 5 point lead in the wet WTF oh FFS Simon they have to kick off, remember how bad the Super League rules were when you had good teams playing bad teams?
let me digress for a moment, The good teams would score tries then kick off to the weakest player on the field and near get possession back straight away or they would defend the shit out of the other team who would then struggle like a MF to get out of their half, let alone into the oppositions half...So Unfair in club football it resulted in some atrocious results.
This is why we kick deep, to pin attacks with good defences.
going on, when Robson carves up his inside, his reaction at being carved up showed how far off the Captaincy he truly is, a petulant boy reaction,ffs rally your troops son don't sulk, even in the match winner he has a hand through mis-reads..It's not too hard to go find his mis-reads this year, the defensive line is the key to any good team, IMO Simon doesn't play the right well, I have no problems with him on the left or as loose forward.
Playing on the left side, he has nice timing on his right shoulder, the timing on his left shoulder is very average, -playing on the left if someone takes his inside Bam right shoulder and it is a hard shoulder, if they take his outside Simon has beautiful textbook technique and actually likes to stand wider and seems to trust the inside Man more, but that's fooling you, 2 things are happening he tries to set up his right shoulder for the Bam and is also cutting down the options and space of the centre, he does it confidently.
He can't play the same way on the right because he has very little confidence on his left shoulder, if he plays wide, they carve up his inside, if he plays close it drags the centre and winger in, I really do feel for Simon.
Loose forward allows a lot of leeway in how you position yourself in the line and gives you the ability to set up your natural shoulder, there are very very very few ambidextrous tacklers in the world.
I do believe in his 30s he will be a great Captain, but he was a boy when given the responsibility it holds and it can be a real head fuck at the worst of times because you take it more personally than everybody else except the Coach, when all is going swimmingly it can be an easy job, but when it's not there are some wicked mind games involved with yourself, even 2011 wasn't as great as some might let you believe, with there being some very dark moments during the season and on the way to the final.
The Captaincy has suffocated his game and the way he plays - He has the face and body of a terminator but doesn't have the correct licence to be using it and there is a mass of aggression building up in his facial wrinkle lines, he would become a very ugly monster at 13 and not the Captain, very Ugly..
