What do we need to win a comp next year ?

[RoosterBooster]

Comps are won on fine margins and sometimes luck when it comes to injuries and suspensions.

we will challenge again next year but where do we need improve so we go all the way ?

For me its being able to play for 80mins more consistently

Love to hear your thoughts

[IRoosterManI]

a year with decent injury luck would be nice... look at the riff, they are 100% fit while we are constantly under strength.. I never seen a run like this when it comes to injuries. at full strength we win today and imo pretty comfortably but when you are missing Manu, lose Teddy early, then Toops, then Angus... like..what chance do you have? even if we had come back to win today we would have been ****ed next week with a bunch of outs... our luck in the last few years has been terrible.

[top_joe]

We only had 15mins last week at being roughly at full strength. That is a big factor.

Losing SST is a big loss, but thing we just need some better depth in the wings/centres.

[milanja]

Cronk.


we lack real direction in general game play.

we had them down to 11 men twice today, and we were headless.

or a season where we don’t lose so many players to injury.

[BenCumminsIsACheat]

We need rugby league to go back to the way it was. A contest decided by the 26 players on the field.

[zac]

better luck with injuries - we've got a coach who has a track record of winning comps and a team that's good enough. even today i think we win if we had manu to fill in at the back

[ism22]

We need to start stronger IMO. Our shyte start meant we had to go on an ~8 game winning streak right at the end just to qualify for the finals in a pretty shyte position.

As a result there were far too many injuries, nobody was rested and 3 injuries during our single finals game completely destroyed our chances against a lesser team.

Our shyte start is what killed us IMO. If Manu was available + Toops wasnMt playing injured then he goes to FB, Crichton goes to centre and we still win. Instead we had Sua'ali'i at FB, Hutcho/Butch as centres and Naiqama/Momirovski as wingers (with Crichton + Butch unavailable for the forwards and JWH / Rads sent off for absolutely nothing).

We played our best with the cards we were dealt and still lost. Sometimes life's a shyte like that! We made our own bed by playing so poorly early on in the season though. Had we beat the Bulldogs, Dragons and Knights early on then we'd have finished second. No excuses there - we sucked and took too long to gel!

[Eggspert]

At the moment I'm just hoping we finally win a Rd 1 game then see what happens after that.

[elo]

Get in the top 4 early and stay there, period.

[j.w.pepper]

As per last season, injuries killed us, not much we can do about that. Proud of the game we played today, next season we just need to cul the inefficient players (we all know who they are) and keep a quality 18.

[Tommy Smith]

a year with decent injury luck would be nice... look at the riff, they are 100% fit while we are constantly under strength.. I never seen a run like this when it comes to injuries. at full strength we win today and imo pretty comfortably but when you are missing Manu, lose Teddy early, then Toops, then Angus... like..what chance do you have? even if we had come back to win today we would have been ****ed next week with a bunch of outs... our luck in the last few years has been terrible.

This.

We've been busted for 3 years now. Shocking luck.

At full strength I think out best beats Penrith but as usual we never got to see it.

We had about 20 min vs the Storm where we looked like Premiers followed by 2 1/2 games of pure injury carnage.

We just need a bit of luck and some of the Riffs juice.

[Rooster_6]

3 big tickets and none have really changed since the start of the season.

- Leadership, we missed leadership on the field today. Friend and Cordner were such underrated leaders, their game never changed regardless of the level of opposition or the external noise that would be going on in a game/around a game. We have struggled time and time again whenever there’s been some emotion in a game to settle and play footy, exposed again in week 1 of the finals. Teddy has grown in this area but needs a couple more to go with him. I worry that Brandon Smith may just be more fuel to the fire.

- Three-quarter depth. Happy with the first choice options but we have absolutely no depth. Matt Ikuvalu used to get some stick on here but he was light years ahead of every depth option we’ve used this year.

- Halves combo of Walker & Keary, feels like one has to take a back seat so the other can excel. Really need to identify what their partnership will look like early on next year was not a fan of Walker running plays 1 and 5 and Keary running plays 2,3 & 4 that we saw back end of the season. Appreciate it was was a temporary fix to a less than ideal situation but would like to see some more freedom given to Sammy Walker, felt like he was snatching at his plays too much as he was starved of opportunities.

I did say our 2nd rowers would be a big issue to solve this year but I’m happy with what I saw from Crichton at the back end of the season, Nat Butcher is a solid 2nd choice option, I still think Tupouniua has a lot to offer and Wong looks very promising coming through the grades so I’m confident we’ve got enough options to make it work next year.

[Easts75]

Luck with injuries obviously

A decent quality centre/winger as back up...not Naiqama or Hutch standard. Paulo may be this but not sure??

Who will be our second choice 9 ? Can't be Watson, he is horrific as a 9 and kills us.

[nayfo]

Better depth and SPEED!!!!!

We lack a real speedster. Teddy, Toops and Suallii are quick enough but we need an Ado Carr like speedster

[Rocky Rhodes]

Pray for a miracle and get Cronk out of Retirement hehe. We lack a true game manager....Walker can put on some brilliant plays but he is not a composed game manager.