BY DAN

Canberra are not a perfect team. They are a good team, but like any team they have things to work on. A problem they’ve been working on all year has been the tenuousness of defensive connection on their right hand side.

We are not alone in noticing it. Anyone with eyes can see the challenge. Of the tries that the people’s heroes have conceded, practically half have been down that edge. Jamal Fogarty, Zac Hosking and Matt Timoko are 2nd, 3rd and 6th respectively in one-on-one tackles for the Raiders, reflecting how often traffic is sent to them (they’re also 5th, 7th and 3rd in misses).

Fixing this requires identifying the cause, and while most are tempted to put the blame squarely at Timoko’s feet, this is an overly simplistic explanation. To be sure Timoko is not a lockdown defender. The first try against the Dragons was a cold miss on Mathew Feagai, and it wasn’t the first time it’s happened this season.

The sins of our brother are not his alone. For starters much of the pressure put on the right side of the defence start in the middle. So often in the Dragons game the unathletic halves of St George were able to casually stride side-to-side in search of a hole without any pressure from the defensive line. I presume this is a deliberate strategy. Moving as a line and allowing the edge defenders to pounce outside-in stops the team from being vulnerable to cut-back lines from backrowers. But it does put pressure on the ability of the edge defenders to handle multiple attackers whenever shifts head their way.

To this end the personnel have some troubling limitations. Matty Timoko isn’t always perfect in contact. That’s an obvious thing. Xavier Savage too often turns his back on the play (as he did on the Feagai try), unable to help on his inside shoulder. These are things that can be fixed with time and training.

But one problem that is unlikely to be fixed is Jamal Fogarty’s relative athleticism. It’s a tough gig being an older halfback in this game. Teams fixate on building their shots towards putting Fogarty having to cover big spaces. That means hitting the near the opposite (left) post, setting up close to the line to drag middle defenders there, and ask Fog and Mokes to defend an expanse with plenty of attackers shaping around it.

You’ve seen the result even if you’ve only ever clocked the result. You’ll recognise this as Timoko hovering at the defensive line looking increasingly nervous. Waiting as long as he can, desperately, to see if Fogarty will make the gap up before Timoko commits to the line runners on his inside shoulder. That’s why the he so often seems at sea, and often why he’s off balance when a well-timed and powered run comes to his outside shoulder.

The fault isn’t terminal. Teams go at this weaekness with such consistency that the movements of the defensive improve each week. For every try scored there’s half a dozen well worked movements handled by both Mokes and Fog. For whatever reason it seems like Fogarty gets more intent or able to get inside-out the longer the games go, meaning that early issues dissipate as games progress. I’m not sure if that’s because Canberra shades that way the longer the game goes, because of their relative fitness compared to other clubs, or because Fogarty makes more effort to get there, or if he is picking up the attacking cues.

There’s not really an easy short-term fix between now and the finals other than doing the same stuff better. It would be insane to make personnel changes, abandoning connections built over a year and upsetting what has worked in so many other areas to fix a weakness that is not mortal. Increased efforts from the middle to reduce the space for ball players will make them vulnerable to other changes, so it becomes a choice of yin over yang.

Next year the problem gets solved with the introduction of Ethan Sanders on the left, and the move of Ethan Strange to the right. I’m not worried about Strange’s lateral agility, more exciting what he might open in Timoko’s game (and how left-edge defences league wide will hate coming against two bruising runners). But for now it’s something that we’ll have to keep an eye on as the season gets hotter.

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