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Sheens gets it wrong, but still wins

10th September, 2011
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Roar Guru
10th September, 2011
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1453 Reads

Wests Tigers coach Tim Sheens took a giant gamble and ‘got out of jail’ on Friday night, when his team won the first Qualy Final against the Dragons.

As a coach, Sheens did almost everything wrong, and the fact that the Tigers were still able to overcome a poor selection, a very slow start and a poor kicking game, speaks volumes about their undeniable claims to this year’s premiership.

Conversely, it is not a good sign for the lacklustre Dragons, who had the game presented to them on a platter.

Sheens decided not to play his outstanding left centre Chris Lawrence, preferring to keep him in ‘cotton wool’ for another week, but then decided to play Matt Utai in his place and mark the Dragons star centre Mark Gasnier.

Even my 11-year old knows that Utai is a poor defender and has bad hands and would be no match for the Gasnier chimmy chimmy side step. Surely the reliable Mitch Brown would have been a better call.

Utai ran out when he should have run in and allowed Dragon pivot, Soward to run through a huge gap to set up Nightingale’s try. And yes, at the last count, he also missed Gasnier four times.

He topped the missed tackle count for the game on six and the Tigers’ can thank the footy gods that the Dragons pushed most of the attack away from Utai.

The brilliant Gasnier tragically, hardly touched the ball.

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The concern for the Tigers is that they did not play the first 40 minutes like it was a major game. Their coach sent them out with dull footy on their minds.

The Dragons, as usual, played their boring type footy, only making two errors and maintaining an amazing 56% of the first half possession.

Normally when a team only has 44% of the ball and plays dull and carries a non-tackling centre, they do not win the game.

It was a massive bonus for the Tigers to only be down 12-6 at half-time and they were good enough to come out in the right frame of mind to turn things around. It took until half-time before Tim Sheens got it right.

The Tigers got it wrong and still won.

Top on Sheen’s to-do list every morning over the next week will be to check the fitness of Chris Lawrence. He may not be so lucky next time.

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