have we lost the hunger?

[Jacks Fur Coat]

I'm usually one of the last people to push the panic button regarding our chances.

But last nights game has me questioning whether we have the desire to do what's needed to go btb this year. It was always going to be the challenge for Robbo to keep us hungry enough.

There were troubling signs last night..we looked unable to compete with a team who may not even play finals footy this year.

Sbw was MIA and this caused Maloney's responsibilities and workload to multiply. He tried...as did guerra and jenko...as did Jake and mini who turn up every game. The rest?...well below standard.

I'm almost hoping we get players picked for origin ...even if borderline deserved.. Just to get some fresh blood and enthusiasm back in our game.

[ROC181]

No maybe they are just mentally fatigued especially the World Cup players. They reached the pinnacle of the game and mentally their not up to going through it again.

[stsae]

Cowplods had 60-40 possession rate. They made only 4 errors to our 13. They won the penalties 8-3. Amazingly they missed 12 tackles to our 13.

When's the last time someone got 7 tries put on them and only missed 13 tackles???

IMO if we'd lost the hunger we'd have missed 50 tackles.

$BW and Baloney are still that far out of form it's not funny.

Last year the tight games, the games where everyone played badly, those two usually came up with something special to get us the result.

IMO that's what's missing this season. $BW and Baloneys form.

The Plods were perfect we were woeful. We still have the ability we just need to execute. If we are in the 8 we will surely be the team no one wants to play. Cos when we produce its beautiful and almost impossible to beat.

I guess there's a good reason no ones won two straight for over 20 years.

It ain't farking easy.

[Guest]

Personally i think we have lost the hunger. Our only forward who ran for over 50 metres was Guerra (70).

And that wasnt because we were working it out of our own end all night, it was because our forwards weren putting thier hand up. JWH ran the ball for 6 hit ups, Moa only ran for 3. FPN came on and ran the ball four times for 24 metres. 6 metres per run! At least JWH and Moa were making roughly ten metres per run.

In comparison, Matt Scott made 198 metres from 24 runs. What a machine.

The boys just didnt have the heart last night. Not writing the season off, not at all. But this week from hell needs to be forgotten ASAP, and marked off as a dark spot on hopefully an otherwise good year.

[stsae]

Personally i think we have lost the hunger. Our only forward who ran for over 50 metres was Guerra (70).

And that wasnt because we were working it out of our own end all night, it was because our forwards weren putting thier hand up. JWH ran the ball for 6 hit ups, Moa only ran for 3. FPN came on and ran the ball four times for 24 metres. 6 metres per run! At least JWH and Moa were making roughly ten metres per run.

In comparison, Matt Scott made 198 metres from 24 runs. What a machine.

The boys just didnt have the heart last night. Not writing the season off, not at all. But this week from hell needs to be forgotten ASAP, and marked off as a dark spot on hopefully an otherwise good year.

60-40 possession rates, 8-3 penalty counts and 4-13 error rates usually means one team runs for massive metres and one team runs for minimal metres.

To have only missed 13 tackles against those sorts of stats surely counts for something mate???

Afterall the old adage is "defence is attitude".

Maybe we were just outplayed by the better side who played an almost perfect game???

One thing I know is, the GF won't be played in Townsville.

[Vasco]

I agree with most if that but we haven't really played a good solid game too often this season.

[milanja]

Pretty amazing, but we have matched our losses last year, parra have matched their wins. We are one win from second.
Weird season so far and nothing is out of reach yet.

Although back to back hasn't been done for over 20 years, it was done pretty frequently before that. Brisbane, raiders, dogs, parra, chooks, manly, souths, dragons. And each decade since the start of rugby league had at least one back to back winner up until (if we count broncos) 97,98 wins. Might be that rules didn't change yearly up til then.

[Guest]

60-40 possession rates, 8-3 penalty counts and 4-13 error rates usually means one team runs for massive metres and one team runs for minimal metres.

To have only missed 13 tackles against those sorts of stats surely counts for something mate???

Afterall the old adage is "defence is attitude".

Maybe we were just outplayed by the better side who played an almost perfect game???

One thing I know is, the GF won't be played in Townsville.

I know, and its a lot harder to aim up each week when almost every team plays their best game against you (Souffs round 1, Manly round 4, Whatsamatta round 6, and now the Cowgirls this week).

But to have 3, 4 or 5 runs across 80 minutes of football isnt good enough IMO.

It is good to see we defended our arses off as usual though. Friend 60 tackles, amazing.

Let's move the GF to Darwin.

[Guest]

Eels will win it in 014..

[Guest]

I think we have. Hunger, intensity, focus. The worry for me isn't so much the tries, but how much we were dominated in the middle (which we have all year). We haven't got the desperation and intensity in defence we did last year.

[Vasco]

We were always going to show a lot more hunger last year.

New coach, new attitude and all that stuff.

Complacency has to creep in at some stage after winning a comp.

[bondi-boy]

Have we lost the hunger?

Seems we have.

The solution;

. All players to wear headgear
. All players to wear those skins/bike pants things under their shorts.
. Shoulder pads optional

Then play like the Dogs are doing...compete, compete, compete...high completion rate and few mistakes...and run onto the ball at pace...for 80 minutes!


"Hold on to the bloody ball" - Bozo Fulton [today on 2GB]

[Guest]

Nothing like wearing a headgear to make you wanna win the Grand Final.

[Game Fowl]

It certainly appears that a few are playing comfortably at the moment , even though the Cow Pokes had everything go their way some of our boys were out muscled nd out enthused.

[bondi-boy]

It certainly appears that a few are playing comfortably at the moment , even though the Cow Pokes had everything go their way some of our boys were out muscled nd out enthused.

Hope our players are not being overtrained on gym equipment and heavy weight machines...with nothing left for match days...as the accusations were a couple of years ago.

"High-performance" ain't working.


Had the Cowboys game been played in daylight today...IMO Tupou would not have lost sight of the ball in the lights or whatever, and the result of the match could well have been different.