by Dip Tue Jun 06, 2017 1:45 pm
There are missed tackles, and there are missed tackles. Matt Gillett for example is 7th in missed tackles this year, but that is because he tries to come out of the line at the right time and smash players in a momentum changing tackle. Often the attacker either bounces off him or puts on a step, but in either case gets cleaned up by the defensive line a metre later. Same with Lockyer. He was never a great one on one front on defender, so he used to position himself in such a way that he didn't often have to make one on one tackles, and the attackers were instead "herded" to the inside defender, who would be someone like Tonie Carroll (and it does rely on having the right style defender inside you). In a 400 game career, he didn't really miss that many tackles that lead to line breaks or tries.
Mitchell Moses is not one of those guys, he just badly misses tackles. Over time you can improve your defence (like Jarrod Crocker or Corey Norman have), so he either needs to do this in a hurry, or do what Lockyer did, and get himself in the right position, and have a guy like Ma'u as his protector. Or become a guy like JT, who isn't the best defender in the world (although not as bad as many would have you believe), but be good enough in attack and organisation to be worth 2 tries more a game to your team.