I have re-watched some of the game, and I have a few concerns still going into the first game of the season.
First, the positives: scrum was solid mostly for the starting pack, apart from the great shove for the penalty try, we pinched a heap of their lineouts, our attack from broken play was few dangerous, our forwards ground out metres through the pick and drive, and our rolling maul was very strong.
The negatives:
- on attack, we stood way too deep. Hunt was the main cuplrit, but other forwards and backs were also too deep, meaning that we often ended up 5m behind the advantage line.
- too much kicking, Hunt especially, maybe because of the depth we played at we lost ground too much, but generally we kicked away too much ball. This was mainly off phase play off static ball, off front foot ball and set poeces we tended to be flatter. Surprising as we had a pair of non-kicking wingers.
- manning up on defence, we were caught short a lot. For instance, Crusaders had half their team on a short side for a couple phases before getting it that way, and the Reds never even re-acted.
