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I have been re-watching the Force games and have come to the conclusion that one of the main areas we seem to be weaker than the top end teams is at ruck time... We seem to be lacking a real ball thieving flanker.
This seems to be the root of a lot of our problems. Because we are not challenging as hard at the break down we are not slowing the ball down, which means our defense is on the back foot most of the game, which is why I think we give up what appear to be soft tries. And on attack without those flankers in there to clean out the defenders quickly it is causing us to get extremely untidy ball, quite often squirting out the side of the ruck or turning over...
I was looking forward to seeing Richard Brown, after such a great display at 8, in his regular role as a flanker, but alas once again we were struck down by injury. If you look at the other 3 Australian sides all have quick powerful flankers that are extremely adept at thieving the ball (Smith, Waugh and Croft), I think its definately an area we need to work on, if we can start contesting more opposition ball at the break down rather than relying on the balls being ripped free in tackles to create our turn-overs (Digby,Sharpie and Welborn have been great at this all year) I think it will go a long way towards us becoming a more consistant side for the whole 80 minutes. Just my humble opinion but I am interested to see what some of the other members think.