Much improved peformance on past weeks

[Rooster_6]

I just thought we were really unlucky tonight, we pretty much dominated them in every department except the scoreboard. Unlucky that Mini & SKD blessed us with their blunders in the same game, usually they have the common courtesy to do it in separate games. In all seriousness though I thought;

- Our go forward was a lot better, Kennedy has backed up his performance against the Eels with another good one, making metres after contact with every hit up. Moa is back and that's probably and understatement, he's BACK! LOD was very impressive I thought especially in the early exchanges and FPN has been good off the bench all season for us and that hasn't changed.

- The slight structure change of SBW to lock in attack and Guerra to lock in defence worked wonders. SBW looked the best he has all year imo, I know that's a big statement given some of his performances this year but he looked a threat every time he had the ball. It meant that our props had to up their workrate through the middle but they more than stepped up I thought(Kennedy 140m, O'donnell 107m, Nuuausala 150m & Moa 112m).

Just like after Round 1 the panic merchants are out; even Roboo hasn't escaped criticism but on the performance alone I reckon we looked good. Some definite positives to take out of that on both individual/team development imo.

Scanning this forum though I'm probably on my own...

[Chook Norris]

Our defence hasn't quite shown signs of improvement since going backwards in the past few weeks. Thought we could fix it after the Parra game. Imo, that's the biggest worry right now

[Guest]

I just thought we were really unlucky tonight, we pretty much dominated them in every department except the scoreboard. Unlucky that Mini & SKD blessed us with their blunders in the same game, usually they have the common courtesy to do it in separate games. In all seriousness though I thought;

- Our go forward was a lot better, Kennedy has backed up his performance against the Eels with another good one, making metres after contact with every hit up. Moa is back and that's probably and understatement, he's BACK! LOD was very impressive I thought especially in the early exchanges and FPN has been good off the bench all season for us and that hasn't changed.

- The slight structure change of SBW to lock in attack and Guerra to lock in defence worked wonders. SBW looked the best he has all year imo, I know that's a big statement given some of his performances this year but he looked a threat every time he had the ball. It meant that our props had to up their workrate through the middle but they more than stepped up I thought(Kennedy 140m, O'donnell 107m, Nuuausala 150m & Moa 112m).

Just like after Round 1 the panic merchants are out; even Roboo hasn't escaped criticism but on the performance alone I reckon we looked good. Some definite positives to take out of that on both individual/team development imo.

Scanning this forum though I'm probably on my own...

[Tom Verlaine's Ghost]

After a promising start to the season it all seems to be unravelling now. We probably only need 5 more wins, though, to scrape into the finals, so it's still an improvement on the last two seasons.

[Roostarz]

Moa was outstanding. 112 metres in 25 minutes, not to mention that try assist and him putting Lillyman on his arse twice. Made more metres than LOD in half the time. Once he's fully fit and we have JWH back we will be massively improved.

If you'd have asked if I'd take 3 wins out of 5 against Manly, Storm, Cowboys away, Warriors and Eels without JWH and Moa I'd probably have taken it. Of course it's a ridiculous way to look at it but oh well. Melbourne went on a run of losses and crap form this time last season but they showed as long as you make the top 4 and hit some good form post Origin leading into the finals you can go far. Not saying we'll win but if we can do that who knows!

We are still 3rd place, 3 points ahead of fourth and 4 ahead of fifth and lets be honest, Manly have been in worse form than us, even Souths haven't been at their best the last 3 games.

[Rooster_6]

Our defence hasn't quite shown signs of improvement since going backwards in the past few weeks. Thought we could fix it after the Parra game. Imo, that's the biggest worry right now

Our edge defence has been poor but our middle is still standing solid and that's way more important imo.

It's definitely the first real test for the team but geez there's some people on here with thin skin on here (not directed at you).

With the amount of video work that gets done these days eventually teams were going to figure out what's working well against us and what our weaknesses are. Up to Robbo and his staff now to identify that and counter it. I thought playing SBW at lock in attack worked really well tonight as teams can't just gang up on him in defence like they were when he was on the fringes. His ball playing has been surprisingly good since returning to league so I definitely think the ability to roam suits him better than I ever thought it would.

I think people are looking at it all wrong, this isn't the end of a good start to the season, this is just the part where we re-inventent areas of our game that aren't working and polish up those that are. I think tonight showed that, there's still a lot of promise in that performance. We'll be right.

[rooster_booster]

The middle was poor, I'm not sure what you were looking at. LOD, MK, FPN just can't dominate like we need them to. We are sorely missing JWH and last night was just shades of the bad old years.

[Rooster_6]

The middle was poor, I'm not sure what you were looking at. LOD, MK, FPN just can't dominate like we need them to. We are sorely missing JWH and last night was just shades of the bad old years.

Define 'dominating' because I'm sure you've got some disillusioned theory on how they should be creating points and barging over for numerous tries between them because 'the top few percent of props in the game do it'. As a rotation they were very good tonight... short of raping them I'm not sure how you couldn't say they were dominant? they all bent the line last night and made good metres on every carry. Some of FPN's carries were ridiculous he was making 15+ metres.

[bondi-boy]

I just thought we were really unlucky tonight, we pretty much dominated them in every department except the scoreboard. Unlucky that Mini & SKD blessed us with their blunders in the same game, usually they have the common courtesy to do it in separate games. In all seriousness though I thought;

- Our go forward was a lot better, Kennedy has backed up his performance against the Eels with another good one, making metres after contact with every hit up. Moa is back and that's probably and understatement, he's BACK! LOD was very impressive I thought especially in the early exchanges and FPN has been good off the bench all season for us and that hasn't changed.

- The slight structure change of SBW to lock in attack and Guerra to lock in defence worked wonders. SBW looked the best he has all year imo, I know that's a big statement given some of his performances this year but he looked a threat every time he had the ball. It meant that our props had to up their workrate through the middle but they more than stepped up I thought(Kennedy 140m, O'donnell 107m, Nuuausala 150m & Moa 112m).

Just like after Round 1 the panic merchants are out; even Roboo hasn't escaped criticism but on the performance alone I reckon we looked good. Some definite positives to take out of that on both individual/team development imo.

Scanning this forum though I'm probably on my own...

It was a better performance than against the Eels, but still too many dropped balls, simple mistakes and running around in circles in attack though.

Had SKD not been carrying the ball in that waving around arm of his halfway to Heaven we might have won the match.
When will he ever learn?

Tupou did the same thing and lost the ball.

[Hawkeye]

The middle was poor, I'm not sure what you were looking at. LOD, MK, FPN just can't dominate like we need them to. We are sorely missing JWH and last night was just shades of the bad old years.

Bit hard on FPN, thought he was our best metre eater ....can tell his contract is up for renewal !

[bondi-boy]

Our edge defence has been poor but our middle is still standing solid and that's way more important imo.

It's definitely the first real test for the team but geez there's some people on here with thin skin on here (not directed at you).

With the amount of video work that gets done these days eventually teams were going to figure out what's working well against us and what our weaknesses are. Up to Robbo and his staff now to identify that and counter it. I thought playing SBW at lock in attack worked really well tonight as teams can't just gang up on him in defence like they were when he was on the fringes. His ball playing has been surprisingly good since returning to league so I definitely think the ability to roam suits him better than I ever thought it would.

I think people are looking at it all wrong, this isn't the end of a good start to the season, this is just the part where we re-inventent areas of our game that aren't working and polish up those that are. I think tonight showed that, there's still a lot of promise in that performance. We'll be right.

The frist thing we could do would be pass the ball out to the backs when there's a 2 and 3 man overlap instead of wasting tackles trying to barge thru the forwards all the time then drop the ball.

[bondi-boy]

Bit hard on FPN, thought he was our best metre eater ....can tell his contract is up for renewal !

He plays like that most of the time.
No way I'd be letting him go anywhere.

[roosterproud]

good read again 6

there definate personal improvers last night. i liked maubs and jake the most and fpn definatly played his best last night. almost like a playing for a contract stlyed performance.

i had a concern for boyd. towards the 2nd third of the first half , his left shoulder got hit in a tackle and the pain on the guys face was enormous. i hope he is ok.

the refs helped the bros in the first half then put the wistles away in the second.

next week if we lose boyd, we will be drawing on a few from the jets. but jets jets will need all hands on deck as they are playing the ladder leaders in crunulla/cheats team.

so replacements for pearce, bbq, slojenko, and a possible boyd.

[Guest]

The middle was poor, I'm not sure what you were looking at. LOD, MK, FPN just can't dominate like we need them to. We are sorely missing JWH and last night was just shades of the bad old years.

LOL, FPN had a blinder last night! He took the ball up like a rampaging bull! The loss certainly couldn't be attributed to his performance - he was one of the best on the ground.

We definitely miss JWH, but with Moa back, JWH back shortly and FPN playing for his footballing career (i.e. highly motivated), our 'middle' will sort itself out.

[roosterproud]

LOL, FPN had a blinder last night! He took the ball up like a rampaging bull! The loss certainly couldn't be attributed to his performance - he was one of the best on the ground.

We definitely miss JWH, but with Moa back, JWH back shortly and FPN playing for his footballing career (i.e. highly motivated), our 'middle' will sort itself out.

we knows what needed out wide. a few higher kicks for topou and no more ball playing for mini. job done