With the way momentum works I think Woolf has worked out it's better to take over around the 20 minute mark and have your worst forwards on the field in the first 20, then snowball momentum the rest of the game and if you're down an average of 6 points (I know it's been worse than that) it's worth it to have your best players on the park for all/most of the final 60 minutes of the match.
Obviously in an ideal world we replace Flegler ASAP, use his money to retain other talent and find another forward to take that spot and potentially Knowles is replaced as well and one of Plath or Donoghoe can start and the other plays the 20-80min period but having both on the field is optimal and we can't have them both play 80 minutes but it may make more sense to keep things the way they are and just find other forwards who can do the job medium term and go hard in the first 20-25 and keep the bench the same as it's the best bench in the NRL.
If Donoghue is good to go we're going to give the Roosters a game and we could very well beat them. They've had 3 bad performances now in the last 5 games and aren't being scrutinised that hard over that because they've won two of them barely
I could very much see us trailing 10-0 after 20 minutes and then winning the game yet again this week.
People thought the short dropout was dumb when possession became more important until they didn't, the analytics crew saw it first and now the short dropout is the default and the long dropout is situational
There is a legitimate chance Woolf sees the opening 20 minutes when players are at their freshest and the fewest points are scored as the least key of the four 20 minute periods in the game and has correctly adjusted before other clubs have
Obviously if we could have Flegler and Knowles off the field for the entire game and have two better forwards on the park he'd be doing that but he's working with the side he has and it's going very well overall. I don't have any specific information that what I hypothesised above is accurate, but as a successful sports bettor (including but not limited to NRL) it actually makes a lot of sense that if you're going to have a bad 20 minute period and three good 20 minute periods, it is actually best the way the game is momentum snowball based now to have the 'bad' period be the first 20 minutes - i'm not a pure analytics guy, so I don't have data to back that up, but it is a logical hypothesis, I think, and it's paid dividends a lot this year with our side trailing early then being tied or taking a lead into the half, but having the momentum behind us going into half time and coming out and putting teams away with our best forwards on the park in the second half
Can't wait for this weekend, PHINS UP
