Official Match Day Thread: Roosters v Manly

[The Lip]

Not sure what many expected from young to be honest, he was a great finisher for the knights, but his hands and bomb defusing weren’t the greatest, and I’m pretty sure he was their main meter eater, they used marzhew and gagai a lot for that.

Dom is there for his speed, and we need to give him the opportunities to optimise it.

wasn’t too many smart kicks to any of our tall timber yesterday.

We won't do bombs mate - plenty of little pop gun kicks but bombs not in our arsenal. I get it they want to make accuracy of where it lands the most important thing because we have such tall wingers we should be able to get over the top in a contest for the ball. Just didn't happen yesterday.

[ism22]

I know Souths have been poor but their left side could expose that side of ours big time Friday. The saving grace may be Walker definitely looks like he is playing injured

Keary will be out so... ick! Whadda you do there?

Guessing Sandon mighta played big minutes for a reason? I was wondering when Cheese would go back on.

[chopstiks]

those with the newborns are they up doing the 3am bottle feeds or what. This team were not prepared for Manlys game did you see how exhausted they all were, making wrong decision after wrong decision and gifting all possession over through tiredness. Souths will be licking their lips with double the rest.

Dom's first game too, ease up.

[Kelby]

Manly's edge forwards toyed with us all game.

[mattyh]

I thought cheese was good again , I thought he was one of our only attacking threats . teddy was good as well .

I love the guy but I noticed jwh didnt seem to be running with normal vigour, but ill put it doen to match fitness, exhaustion.

[Chook2]

Player stats from res grade
1. Conner Watson - 80min, 123mtr, 53 pcm, 50 tackles
2. Gus critchon - 80min, 183mtr, 72pcm
3. Egan butch - 80min, 180mtr, 75pcm

these guys might put some pressure on some forwards this week? Watson should get the 14 jersey soon

also Alex young made 180mtr, docker clay 140mtr and 2 tries and savala 3 tries at 7

[bondi.boy]

Manu won't be missed when he goes to Union if he keeps playing like he did in this game.

Have a look at the try Manly scored in the first half 18 mins before half time.
Their left winger scored in the corner.
Defending for us were Collins in front of the posts basically, and the only other Rooster between Collins and the sideline was Dom.
Dom v 3 Manly attacking players.
Dom lost, Manly scored.
Manu was the other side of the goal posts.

[QWERTY]

I thought cheese was good again , I thought he was one of our only attacking threats . teddy was good as well .

I love the guy but I noticed jwh didnt seem to be running with normal vigour, but ill put it doen to match fitness, exhaustion.

The Cheese should have come back on in the second half earlier.

[Carlos Parra]

We won't do bombs mate - plenty of little pop gun kicks but bombs not in our arsenal. I get it they want to make accuracy of where it lands the most important thing because we have such tall wingers we should be able to get over the top in a contest for the ball. Just didn't happen yesterday.

Frustrating isn't it?

[Rooster90]

Manu won't be missed when he goes to Union if he keeps playing like he did in this game.

Have a look at the try Manly scored in the first half 18 mins before half time.
Their left winger scored in the corner.
Defending for us were Collins in front of the posts basically, and the only other Rooster between Collins and the sideline was Dom.
Dom v 3 Manly attacking players.
Dom lost, Manly scored.
Manu was the other side of the goal posts.

I think it may have been the worst game I've ever seen him play
Keary to

It's remarkable we only lost by 7

[tloos1999]

Tbh if Billy Smith is fit, Young may be the odd one out. Plenty he needs to work on after that performance.

Ludicrous comment when the bloke inside on near double the money with triple the experience kept letting him get exposed. Manu was atrocious defensively.

[Steggles]

Ludicrous comment when the bloke inside on near double the money with triple the experience kept letting him get exposed. Manu was atrocious defensively.

Spot on. Joey Manu has been well below his best for some time, possibly since Mitchell caved his face in. Yes we see a glimpse of brilliance every so often, however he is more often than not ineffective in attack and defence when playing for us, like he’s going through the motions without any real intensity. We can blame the men inside of him for not getting him the ball in good positions, but he doesn’t really put his body on the line like other centres in the comp; too much sideways running. When Young took the intercept and passed to Teddy then back to Young, Manu was not too far off the play but didn’t bother to run and support. Teddy ran to support the length of the field just in case he was needed. That lack of intensity and involvement has been noticeable for some time.

I don’t think Suaalii is a centre nor does he have the natural attacking ability of Manu, but at least he has a real go and puts his body on the line time and time again. I said at the back end of last year that Billy Smith is the best centre at the club and nothing has changed my mind on that. I believe Smith will be available this week and it will be interesting what selections Robbo makes.

[Vasco]

We are still rebuilding.

Manu must share part of the blame, he was missing from his right centre position, leaving Dom to try to tackle the centre and the winger.

Manu was definitely off is game. His defence was well below par.

[ism22]

Manu was definitely off is game. His defence was well below par.

Any tech experts able to breakdown what happened? IMO Manly were not THAT good but they've got a world class half, a world class FB and a stack of forwards who are in terrific form.

My observation was that they steamrolled our forwards early on (had way more intensity),were singling out our little guys with their big guys (Keary got hit MULTIPLE) times when others shoulda been there with him - I dare say this was expected as Horo mentioned that exact situation with Olakau'atu being the big dawg).

Not bagging Manly but even still, I thought that our errors and penalties (some of which were dubious IMO but it went both ways) cost us the result. I feel as though Manly's approached the season with a new approach and will get schooled as time goes by (with this result as proof - even with their dominance they struggled to put us away). However, they put us off our game with their tactics and took the bikkies.

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Side note, was I the only one calling for us to go for the drop goal with 10 to go? We were right in front, scores were level and we had a few tackles up our sleeve. Meant nothing in hindsight but IMO we shoulda just done it as Manly weren't scoring more tries (despite their pressure), it woulda given us the ball back from a kick-off and it woulda closed off the possibility of a late drop goal contest (with the new rules being policed) deciding the result.

[The Lip]

Does anyone ever get to the end of Isms posts?