The win we needed to have

[Guest]

We have those "the loss we needed to have" threads, but today was the win we needed to have.

While it's great and entertaining to see our team pile on the points, I think this game will change the season for us. It wasn't pretty, it was probably the ugliest win, but the gutsiest too.

It showed that we can stick it out, work for each other and that we do have heart (which I am sure we have doubted after last season and after Rounds 3 and 5).

If we are going to threaten for the Top 8, we need to win those close gritty games.

I have thought we have been a bit like the Tigers this year. When we win, we win with ease and have this attacking flamboyance. But if you haven't noticed, yeah the Tigers are good to watch, but there is a reason why they just miss out on the finals each year, that's because they cannot win games like today.

Today showed that we can get in a real dog fight and come out the other side. Regardless of the stupidity of the officials.

While this win won't build up our +/- it will build character!

We screamed at them watching the game, yelling out "how stupid", "hold the ball", but in the end, those stupid errors made me more amazed that we actually won and we actually defended.

Now the whole great attack and great defence will come together into the same game for us in time, like we see the Dragons, Storm and Eagles doing now. But it's great to watch our team grow from inept, heartless losers to fighting (in the good sense), courageous winners.

What a difference an off season makes.

[Guest]

+1 - I agree with this post 100%.

Last year after the hundred dropped balls (in the first set from kick off, how very 2009!) and penalties going against us (deserved and undeserved), and with our one try scoring chance fluffed in the in-goal, the team would have simply dropped their heads and wilted. Eight - nil against us at half time would have turned into Thirty - nil by the 60 minute mark.

It shows that Smith has managed to get the mental preparation right I think, much better than Freddy ever could (or Sticky for that matter), in that they can recover from a craptacular start and correct the attitude. It was fascinating to watch the first ten minutes of the second half, I was waiting for the balls to start popping out of the hands and the tries flow to Wests straight off the scrum, but instead they knuckled down and "ground out the win". Once we had that great set of six that led up to the FPN try I was fairly confident that we'd jag the victory.

I also think that set of six showed me too what Smith keeps seeing in Kouparitsis. Pretty much that try belongs to him. I also thought Myles was a hero for playing busted (why he was not selected for Australia I just don't know), Ryles was excellent up the middle, Perrett and SKD were good in defence and Anasta did a good job in the second half of getting the aggression of the team up and setting the attitude dials to 11.

[BUDDY]

Although I agree that it was a scrappy game, I was impressed with how the boys defended. A few things we need to rememeber.

- not too many teams have kept the Tigers to zero in a half of football, especially in the second half when the forwards are usually tired. They had plenty of ball in our 20M zone but couldn't crack our line.

- We had Guerra out for the whole second half. Plus they had two free interchanges which were a joke (Myles and Anasta going on report) and of course two cheap penalties deep in our half as a result. This on a hot day where attrition would play a big part.

- Our main attacking weapon was out injured and Carney didn't handle half back as well as we hoped.

I can't remember the last time we scored a grinding win like that.

It was also good to see Smithy starting with Ryles and JWH. The rotation was so much better yesterday.

[Guest]

The game i been waiting for all this season - good, close and hard ugly win, hopefully a few more

[Guest]

I think one of the most important thing to come out of this game is the fact that Carney is not ready to play in the halves just yet despite of what many people on this forum think. He has not played FG for such a long period of time and putting him the 5/8 position would just make him an easy target for forward oppositions as demonstrated in the Tigers game (I saw a couple of times the Tigers forwards just running directly at Carney and he barely hanged on when tackling). Playing at fullback he is better protected and when he does get into the "groove" (quoted from Smith) he will be lethal and can win a couple of games for us. There is no doubt he is destined to play 5/8, he just needs time to find his feet in FG. For now Anasta is our short term solution and he is not doing as bad as a lot of people make him out to be.