The Good, The Bad and The Ugly report - Rd 15

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cf2 is back

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Apologies for no report - I'm on holiday in Fiji but managed to listen to Triple M's live call.

Without seeing any pictures can't do a full report any justice but from what I could hear.

THE GOOD:
The fact we were so close to beating the (to date) clearly best team in the comp. Sure their best player was missing, but in absolute fairness that was more than balanced by no less than 3 of our stars T Rex, Wolfman and Matai all missing plus Glenn Stewart off injured early. Love to get another crack at them with a full strength team in the finals.

THE BAD:
As mentioned by Sterlo on the Triple M call seems a couple of critical penalties really hurt us in the 2nd half. Not only the possession lost leading to one of their tries but obviously the penalty goal that decided the match. Without that penalty we could have easily forced golden point.

THE UGLY:
Glenn's injury which clearly not only affected the result but will obviously leave a big hole again for several weeks. Injuries are so critical to success and as ugly as it is to admit gotta wrap Melb for winning away without Slater.

Looking forward to being at the SFS on Sunday for the must win Roosters game.
 
cf2 is back said:
Apologies for no report - I'm on holiday in Fiji but managed to listen to Triple M's live call.

Without seeing any pictures can't do a full report any justice but from what I could hear.

THE GOOD:
The fact we were so close to beating the (to date) clearly best team in the comp. Sure their best player was missing, but in absolute fairness that was more than balanced by no less than 3 of our stars T Rex, Wolfman and Matai all missing plus Glenn Stewart off injured early. Love to get another crack at them with a full strength team in the finals.

THE BAD:
As mentioned by Sterlo on the Triple M call seems a couple of critical penalties really hurt us in the 2nd half. Not only the possession lost leading to one of their tries but obviously the penalty goal that decided the match. Without that penalty we could have easily forced golden point.

THE UGLY:
Glenn's injury which clearly not only affected the result but will obviously leave a big hole again for several weeks. Injuries are so critical to success and as ugly as it is to admit gotta wrap Melb for winning away without Slater.

Looking forward to being at the SFS on Sunday for the must win Roosters game.



Really slack sloppy report cf2, call yourself a forum reporter? Being on hols is no excuse. Anyhow, more seriously. We lost to a very drilled and ultra professional outfit, even though I hate to say it.
 
We had them at halftime with a great 20-minute blitz, but without Gift we rarely had the spark. I have written plenty about our inability to defuse bombs, which is our real weakness, but we held our own in all other aspects, gaining more line breaks, more metres, completing more sets, having to make fewer tackles and matching them on tries. We just didn't kick as many goals.
We can only hope we get back all our injured stars. Only then will we have a realistic chance to go back-to-back.
 
The Who said:
We had them at halftime with a great 20-minute blitz, but without Gift we rarely had the spark. I have written plenty about our inability to defuse bombs, which is our real weakness, but we held our own in all other aspects, gaining more line breaks, more metres, completing more sets, having to make fewer tackles and matching them on tries. We just didn't kick as many goals.
We can only hope we get back all our injured stars. Only then will we have a realistic chance to go back-to-back.

Yep true mate. The one telling stat we did lose was kick metres. DCE's territory kicking was well below average last night & at one stage even Gift had a go at a clearing kick.
 
Good point. Cronk is a class act. I think he is better than Thurston these days. Certainly he can dictate with his kicking. Melbourne also diffuse a bomb well. I don't think they dropped any last night.
DCE was roughed up last night. It was the first time I've seen him hurt, and it happened several times. He still played quite well, but he is not doing the freakish things of last season.
 
Last year we lost the first match to the Storm in Melbourne and I saw then, that we would get them at the end of the year. I feel, after seeing the game on Monday, we will do it again. They weren't that good, and we were down on troops. Matai would have made a huge difference with his aggression and strong running. Our tries were clever, there's lucky, and a result of our errors. Fix that, and get the troops back, and we're specials.
 
Showed the drizzle doing their victory song on Seven news, said they left the door open so our boys could hear it better. Thats the sort of thing that deserves a large dolop of karma come the finals.
 
Some feeble defence cost us. There were 2 very soft tries that they scored that we stop 19 times out of 20. It wasn't our night.
 
Utility Player said:
Showed the drizzle doing their victory song on Seven news, said they left the door open so our boys could hear it better. Thats the sort of thing that deserves a large dolop of karma come the finals.

absolutely. Will just fire the boys up even more for next time I reckon.
 
Can't agree, if we were ever going to beat them it was last night. We had everything to play for and they didn't. Apart from a 20 min burst in the first half we were severely outplayed, out enthused and out muscled. Our attack is disjointed and hesitant, our defense the same in parts during nearly every game we have played. No premiership contender will be losing games to the likes of Parra,Penrith and Titans on their home ground nor being lucky to only just beat the ****house Raiders on their home turf either. Last night affirmed we don't have the drive to go all the way this year too much disruption, players leaving,contract negotiations,boardroom bickering AGAIN. Des knew what was coming thats why, with the lure of dollars, he jumped ship.
 
mickqld said:
Can't agree, if we were ever going to beat them it was last night.
How wrong can you be?

Anyway, back to serious analysis ...
From my vantage point a couple of things were glaringly obvious. Storm's kicking game was tremendous, repeatedly finding space.
Smith orchestrated the win for Melbourne, he is a remarkable player.

A couple of other things I noticed ... Smith especially and all other Storm players get away with murder in 'the wrestle', it is a blight. Think of 2 extra seconds delay in every tackle, that has to be 5-10 minutes of playijng time us paying fans are robbed of each game. Why they aren't penalised more is a mystery to me.

Several times I thought Manly looked the better side, but on the night Storm were more regimented, disciplined, possibly more attention to detail (such as defusing attacking kicks).

Positive note: DCE and Foran are both clever and ambitious - they would have learned plenty from the master class put on by Smith and Cronk.
 

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