We need to hold onto the ball

Hello everyone, welcome to the 16th ‘Churchie’s Comment’ for the year in your favourite rugby league newspaper — The National.

Redcliffe, at their home ground, are always strong and Saturday was no different against the SP Hunters.
The Dolphins have a very big pack and some very exciting outside backs. They additionally defend really compressed which makes playing them even more difficult. Our game plan was to pass wide off the ruck and try and move their defence around and gain momentum to then challenge them. Our first half didn’t go to plan as we constantly turned over the ball early in our sets. We paid a heavy price as the Dolphins ran in four unanswered tries in a 15 minute window. During that period, we gave away three penalties and only touched the ball on a couple of occasions in which we dropped the ball and struggled to hold momentum. The Hunters then started to hold the ball better and finish some sets.
When we did that, we then held them scoreless for 55 minutes. We have constantly reminded the players that valuing the possession of the football more was an easier way to defend. Firstly, it limits the amount of time you have to defend and secondly you can’t put points on the scoreboard without the ball. The Hunters made 15 errors throughout the match and as coach I feel, 13 of these were unforced errors or attention-to-detail issues. This amount of turnovers will not get you wins in this competition. We essentially played ourselves out of the contest. The encouraging sign was that we started to hold the ball, apply some pressure on Redcliffe and managed to score three tries to get ourselves back into the game. Again, the options taken or individual plays let us down as we tried to chase points. We take some learnings out of this game and know that we have this week to improve our ball security as we take on the Townsville Blackhawks at Bycroft Oval on Saturday. The Digicel Cup kicks off this weekend after a delay. All of us at the Hunters want to wish the players, coaches and officials at each franchise a safe and successful season ahead. Until next week, stay safe, play safe and let’s all respect and be kind to each other.

Cheers,
Matt