How many wins from first 5?

[Rooster_6]

How many wins would you realistically be happy with from our opening 5 rounds:

Rd1 - Broncos (N)
Rd2 - Sea Eagles (A)
Rd3 - Rabbitohs (H)
Rd4 - Panthers (H)
Rd5 - Bulldogs (A)

[Easts75]

If we won 3 I'd personally think that's flying

[Kentucky_Fried_Rooster]

I would expect 3 wins.
4 would be great
5 would be unexpected but would have us in a great position and mindset.

2 wins I could handle but would have a slight concern.
0 or 1 I would be very concerned on our season and don't want to rely on a end of season winning streak.

[milanja]

Obviously love 4 or 5, 3 would be a good start.

For me it depends on how we lose a game, you can sometimes have a good loss, where little things just didn’t go your way.

the Vegas game is a flip of the coin,will all the players from all 4 teams be fully focused without letting the excitement and expectations get to them, new climate, new facilities, plenty of distractions, if we lose in Vegas, I wouldn’t be overly disappointed.

[Waylander]

I don’t think it’s necessarily how many of the 5, but who we beat. If we beat the Bronco’s & Penrith but lose the other three, I’d be confident we can fix whatever went wrong in the other games and be a real force. If you reverse that, and we lost those 2 & win the other 3, There would still be serious questions about whether we can compete with the top tier teams.

Then, as mentioned, it’s how close those games are, and the way we compete. A loss by 1 or 2 against a top team is very different to a capitulation.

After the last handful of years, I’d normally be stoked with 3 from the first 5.

[Waylander]

On the Vegas game, I have a colleague who is in the lower ranks of the refs. He told me that the refs have been training on a field marked as an NFL field. He said he believes that they have decided to get the defensive line back 10 yards, not 10 metres, as the field markings would make 10m confusing.

He also said Sutton & Klein are the refs going over.

[Jacks Fur Coat]

I'd expect we'd drop one, possibly two. The Vegas result is a big one to bank 2 early points with the 4 teams then playing each other in that first month.

[dice]

I would be happy with 2-3 wins with Eagles and Bunnies games a flip of the coin. Having said that, the players have mentioned new trainer flogged them hard during the off season so they might start faster than they have in previous seasons.

[Thirteen]

Souths are a must.
Brisbane is a must. I’m not going all the way to Vegas for a loss.
Penrith is a must. We owe them.

[Jacks Fur Coat]

On the Vegas game, I have a colleague who is in the lower ranks of the refs. He told me that the refs have been training on a field marked as an NFL field. He said he believes that they have decided to get the defensive line back 10 yards, not 10 metres, as the field markings would make 10m confusing.

He also said Sutton & Klein are the refs going over.

Interesting.

I know those smaller dimensions for the game are being disregarded and all teams have to deal with it...but its a factor. Slightly smaller field width, smaller ingoals and now the 10.

Its going to be that little harder for teams to 'go around' their opponents for tries. Wonder if Coaches will employ the usual standard block/decoy plays to try and release the wingers. When you consider it's a game of inches with the wingers often getting in by a lip, it could play a role. Might have to find ways to go through rather than around. Attacking kick game might yield the most points. Could be low scoring affairs.

On the flipside, the NRL will want to showcase an exciting product, so possibly the refs will manage a free flowing game...maybe they'll stay out.

[Carlos Parra]

Realistically?

We win the 5th game against an improved Bulldogs.

[King Salvo]

The width will be a factor - 20 or so metres difference so a congested defence will make scoring that much harder as will defending possibly with players in each others pockets.

Average Rugby League Field - 110 to 122 metres long including the in goals and 68 metres wide

Average NFL Field is 110 to 120 metres long including the end zones and 48 to 49 metres wide

Allianz playing arena is 140 metres long and 79 metres wide

[Mickie Lane]

As many as possible.

[ism22]

IMO we'll win more than our share no matter what (noting that some years we play like shyte, so our share is deservedly quite low).

TBH I don't really give a stuff but at least a 60% win rate for the first 1/4 of season would be nice. What I don't like is when we get at least 3 losses in a row, most of them are shyte losses that make other teams look way better than they are (e.g. NQ and Cronulla) and it all becomes infectious.

Over the past few years I reckon there's been oddities where clumsy farkers like Souffs, the Warriors, NQ and Cronulla have been HIGHLY rated because they've made sure of the easier games (arguably they've been given more easy games too) and then luck their way to wins in 1 or 2 trickier games. Suddenly they're say #2 on the ladder for no reason other than the fact we've been inconsistent... whereas we're struggling to make the 8 despite being a 100x better club/team.

Difficult to pin-point it while being respectful. However I guess things like the Doggies in 2012, Warriors last year, Cows the year before and Cronulla in various other years have come to mind. That and Souffs beating us in 2022 by asking that pommie d!clhead to go around smacking our players in the melon (the ref was shytehouse for not ending it before the damage was done). In short, I don't wanna see clumsy farks like this sitting in the top-2 while we're battling... all because we've p!ssed away easy wins against teams that are going NOWHERE.

I don't want excellence early on... I wanna see CONSISTENCY!!! A lot of our losses come down to a lack of structure/consistency early on IMO. For example we'll go for ~10 games without scoring more than 1-2 tries!!! Faaaaark that.

Final note - I put Brisbane amongst my list of clumsy farks who I donmt wanna see beating us. In short:

- Carrigan, Flegler and Capewell are CONSISTENT. Not better than our forwards but like most QLD forwards (barring Big Pappi), they've ALWAYS got ticker. None of these big 3 have games that are less than 8/10z

- Pain Haas is over-rated. Big and strong sure... but in Origin he's a boring fark who just walks forward and waits to be dragged down (which takes forever but IMO he's way less effective than people think in the grand scheme of things). I say this when comparing him to Collins... who schools him at Origin level and can do so at club level too, which mah boys Terrell and Spencer by his side.

- Walsh is talented but he's too childish and lacks the steel to win big games. During the GF I'm pretty sure he snuck out at 3/4 time, inhaled some blow, told all the girls they were invited to his party to celebrate the premiership and then came back going 'W...T... FFFFFFF?!?!? Whadda you mean there's no 3/4 time whistle in the NRL and I have to spend 20 minutes defending my mad lead?!?!? This is beeeewll-shyyyyyte!!!! I just wanna get high and be celebrated as the best FB in the world!!!'

- Reynolds is just there for the money. Souffs are shyte but why would they release one of their few local juniors just like that? (Other than because they're shyte and have no pride/honour). He's ready to retire.

- Mam... is heavily over-rated.

- Cobbaaaaaaaw (only picked for the ring of his classic QLD bogan name), Oates (a SR-er on the wing who continues to get slower)... and then what? One game wonder Staggs and Tristan the little Sailor Boy? Their backline ain't that good compared with ours!

---

Rd1 - Broncos (N) - Should be a cinch
Rd2 - Sea Eagles (A) - Should be a cinch
Rd3 - Rabbitohs (H) - Should be a cinch
Rd4 - Panthers (H) - Tough day at the office
Rd5 - Bulldogs (A) - Should be a cinch

IMO we should win 4/5... if not 5/5.

[Mickie Lane]

IMO we'll win more than our share no matter what (noting that some years we play like shyte, so our share is deservedly quite low).

TBH I don't really give a stuff but at least a 60% win rate for the first 1/4 of season would be nice. What I don't like is when we get 4 or 5 consecutive losses and it becomes infectious.

Okay