Post-Game Discussion Knights v Manly [Round 13, 2023]

[Cliffy's Jockstrap]

I need to think some more about this game I reckon but we were close.....put on even one of our Big Three and I reckon we win that game. But that doesn't get us 2 points back.

I have come around to really thinking Cooper J is not a first grader, that much I feel clear about.

Another game that got away!

 

[EOL now nesting on the GC]

But we had an experienced half in Foz.

Really missed that today. There was no direction in our attack.

Indeed we did. But we decided to let him go and sign the likes of johns and Arthur. FFS.

 

[EOL now nesting on the GC]

Humphreys played Flegg today and Fainu was the BWSE half

Given yhe zero upside on Johns I'd put Finau in at 7 for the experience.

 

[LeonardCohen]

Agree, however I think our forwards have looked better without Aloiai...

His last month of footy (before the injury) was disappointing.

Totally agree. In saying that, he is a step up on Condon who didn't dent the line once today and we could have used Aloiai on the bench with Jake A starting and Cooper Johns at Blacktown.

 

[Highflier]

Not unexpected we lose but still disappointing esp when you take into account incompetent ref an clunker
-Fowards all did pretty well esp Paseka,Fainu Sipley and Captain Croker
-Schu not bad ,but he was pretty much first receiver towards the end there where his strength is space and 2nd receiver ,and he needed some runners of which there were few,a couple of bad kicks but he had to do everything himself today ,but with Jakob after today we will have a bit more choice and the Schu wont be the only focus
-Johns- (break glass only in case of extreme emergency i.e no 1/2s in the cupboard) ,
-Jakob with more game time and training will be 100% better than Johns
-Weeks --again I think just needs time and some experience in 1st grade -the tackle where he let go of the winger ? was not good but he did bring Bradmen down again after he ran over him saving a try.
-If pressed I would have Gordy in at 14 ,Jacob at 7 ,give Weeks another go at 1 (we didn't lose today because of Weekes,he needs to gain some confidence )
-NCs ruck speed was much faster than ours ,and I think Gordy can help with that .I will have to watch again but there was a passage where I think it was Jakob who was dummy half and the forwards got a real roll on (might have been when Spiley did his big run) ,in any case we need work there ,Croker is great but we need a bit more finesse in that position for 20 or 30 mins per game
-Koula should not have been binned, got spooked by Johns bad D a few times,still a work in progress
Anyways Go Manly

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

He definitely needs better structure to assist him. Either DCE or even Jake first off the ruck.

Which goes to another point.

When will DCE decide he has had enough interstate football? It’s now time for him (post 2023) to put the club that has been paying him $1m+ per season, over eight seasons, ahead of his state.

Give someone else a go at interstate level.

With DCE and Turbo playing (Jake would be a bonus), the Noughtcastle Knewts wouldn’t have touched Manly.

 

[Bomb Voyage]

I hate this team.

 

[tookey]

Poorly coached do they actually train or just do weights and sit around listening to Seibold talk crsp

Defence was pathetic and attack non extent

 

[ALinda]

It was strange game because as good as the effort was from the forwards, there were too many ridiculous penalties that gifted the Knights field position and that proved the difference. We were fatigued to the point that the Knights were able to shift the ball against our retreating defensive line on many occasions.

Poor refereeing didn't help.

Agree, but in my view, the poor refereeing and officiating cost us. Even with our depleted and young team, if the game had been refereed fair and square, we could have won it. Add the ridiculous sin-binning and Ponga being such an over-the-top protected species (and him milking it for all it's worth), a Manly win was impossible.

I foolishly changed my tip at the last minute and went with my heart...should've known better.

 

[rj90]

I just want to know how the fuk Ponga stays on the field. If he’s hit in the head, then he needs to go off for a HIA, especially with his history.

If he’s not hit in the head, then Koula stays on the field.

You can’t have it both ways.

Ponga’s head did bounce off the ground when he hit the deck, and in any other game would have been sent for a HIA.

Long story short, fuk Ponga

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

Straight Eye for the Gagai…..has to be said…again….what an effing grub.

Dane Grubgai.

 

[Cliffy's Jockstrap]

Think I've seen enough today to conclude Cooper Johns is not yet a 1G halfback, Jake Arthur is our backup halfback going forward. His development is going to be interesting to watch.

Garrick should once again be our backup fullback. He is by far the best option currently available.

On the plus side I thought Samuela Fainu had a very good game and is coming into 1G just as well as we hoped he might.

 

[LeonardCohen]

I need to think some more about this game I reckon but we were close.....put on even one of our Big Three and I reckon we win that game. But that doesn't get us 2 points back.

I have come around to really thinking Cooper J is not a first grader, that much I feel clear about.

Another game that got away!

Were we that close though? two of our tries were intercepts and Knights scored 6 tries but missed a ton of goals.

 

[LeonardCohen]

Think I've seen enough today to conclude Cooper Johns is not yet a 1G halfback, Jake Arthur is our backup halfback going forward. His development is going to be interesting to watch.

Garrick should once again be our backup fullback. He is by far the best option currently available.

On the plus side I thought Samuela Fainu had a very good game and is coming into 1G just as well as we hoped he might.

Fainu was excellent today. He is going to be a super player. He actually has some handy ball skills that we haven't seen yet but once he gets comfortable in FG, there are more strings to his bow.

 

[weagle]

Ref loved the sound of his whistle way too much. Even though the count ended up close to even most of their penalties were leg ups during the period our pack was dominating. Thought we earned the right to hold down a lot longer than ref let us.

The bloke in the bunker was clearly using a magic 8 ball to make his decisions that coincidentally all landed knights way.

Koula has a magic shoulder that can hit someone high forcefully to go to the bin while at the same time not forcefully to cause an hia.

Newcastle pretty much full strength so they are a joke of a team who aren't playing finals barely got past a depleted Manly. Ponga the biggest myth in rugby league.

Thought other than a certain player who may have been mentioned a few times in the game thread performance from everyone was good. Though Koula been a bit of a disappointment so far this year. Schuster just needs to up his percentage of great kicks to rubbish kicks. Ended up being a lot more disappointed with the loss than I thought I would as we really could of and should have got the points today

 

[Cliffy's Jockstrap]

Were we that close though? two of our tries were intercepts and Knights scored 6 tries but missed a ton of goals.

Yeah fair observation @LeonardCohen. I still think if we had one of the Big Three on field just to steady and direct us that we win key moments and hopefully the game....but maybe the score did flatter us slightly.

 

[Hotspur2014]

That was one of the strangest games I have ever seen !
*Ref and bunker the worst ever - some decisions were absolute joke and the six agains ( Newcastle had 4 in one minute) totally fuked the game
*Cooper Johns was obviously playing for Newcastle his old man’s team (was their best & fairest by a mile)
*Our backline defence especially right side was pathetic and sadly Weekes, Johns & Koala just missed too many tackles for 1st grade players). All the hype over Weekes and Koala certainly was deflated today !
*Our forwards tried hard especially Paseka, Sipley, Croker just to see the backs fuk up.
*Schuster had a good first half but was all over the shop in the 2nd half ( ran out of steam mainly due to lack of game time this year I say)
*With a full strength team we win by 13+ even against 14 of them.
*In saying all the above we stayed in the game for a long time and did a lot better than most of the predictions on here.
*We have the bye again next week and a certain 2 points ( or they might take those 2 points off us also 🤪, but honestly why even get 2 pts for a bye anyway, just make it zero pts for all teams because currently it just fuks up the ladder).
Rant over…..but I still hate losing !!!!!

 

[ALinda]

I thought the forwards adequately made up for Jake's absence but the backs failed to make up for Tom and DCE - they might have been able to overcome the loss of one, but the absence of both of them was too much.

 

[Remy]

Huge gut punch, really needed those 2 points heading to the bye. Just frustrating with how winnable that game was, we put ourselves in the position to win and the effort was there for us being underdogs and having so many troops out and yet we fell short due to some absolute handbrakes in our spine (Weeks and Cooper) and some very dodgy calls. Can't believe some fans having a go at Schuster, he literally had to create nearly all our opportunities in the first half. He's a 22 year old five eight that had to play as the dominant playmaker because Cooper Johns didn't want to help out and Weekes went MIA.

 

[jbb/james]

Quite liked the effort. The unity seemed there as there
froggy as captain was the highlight without doubt
and fainu ensuring Tuilagi loses his spot is a step forward. He is adjusting to grade very well.
I thought when oku, sam and lawman out there together we looked ok
keppies best in a while and seemed most likely in the late stages,
paseka and sipley just doing what they do in 23 well
defence at times was special