The good, the bad and the ugly report - rd 18

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cf2 is back

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THE GOOD:
Sunday afternoon footy, perfect sunshine, and a massive 19,000 packed into Brookie. Does it get any better? Actually it does when you beat Souths from 22-16 down.

1st half:
They say origin really lifts players and that could not be more evident in the performances of Glenn Stewart and Watmough in the last month. Both were on fire from the get go, and were ably supported by the rest of the starting pack plus big Joe and George storming off the bench. What should have been a significant HT lead was cut back by not one but two very dubious tries. Merritt's dive into the corner was as good as winger dives get, but I don't buy the ridiculous one finger on the ball is a try theory, you've got to have some level of control and downward pressure. Did he have that? Nope he dropped it. Then there was their 2nd try that also looked extremely doubtful (both Ch 9 and 2GB said no try), but even if you give that the benefit of the doubt the score should have been 16-4 at HT.

2nd half:
I really expected us to blow the game away in the first 15 minutes but surprisingly we did just the opposite gifting a sloppy Souths attack 2 tries with even sloppier defence. Trailing 22-16, many teams (including the Manly of last season) might have fallen away and lost the game, but as we all know Manly 2011 are simply never beaten. Just when you thought our season hero Foran might have been a little shy of his best, he single handedly took the game by the scruff of the neck, scoring two totally against the odds tries in the space of 4 minutes to turn the game on it's head and send the Rabbits scurrying back to their burrow. On both occasions there was absolutely nothing doing, but Foran's unbelievable will to win saw him literally smash through the wall of defence to somehow plant the ball down. I don't want to count any early chickens but that had Grand Final material written all over it. Once we re claimed the lead the Bunnies were shot, and Brent Kite made sure of it with his fantastic determined run in the 71st minute turning a nothing play into the try of the match. After beating several tackles Kitey got a superb pass away allowing Oldfield to show us the sensational pace he possesses leaving the defence for dead and in turn drawing the perfect split second drawing pass for Robbo to fly down the wing to score. How good was it to see a true running footy try in the era of way too many cross field bomb tries. That was game over, but just for pure entertainment value a brilliant final back line move and a superb DCE grubber saw Wolfman put the final icing on the cake.

In terms of the individual performances, again we were very strong across the park. Brett looks more and more confident with every game (and how exciting is that, not to mention his incredible record of 59 tries from 60 Brookie games). Robbo, Wolfie, Oldfield and Lyon all put in excellent performances, and as mentioned Foran's two sensational solo against the odds tries cemented the game. Although DCE was generally sound in both attack and defence, if I had to nit pick his kicking game wasn't great today, several times coming up with somewhat pointless options and a couple of errors, but I suspect the wind made kicking accuracy a lot harder than it looked, and ultimately it was no great damage.

In the forwards Kitey stepped up for the injured Kingy with a fantastic determined display particularly in the 2nd half, and was ably assisted by big George. Watmough was sensational all day and time and again straightened our sideways attack with barnstorming runs straight up the guts. Big Joe looked to be in Disneyland after a 2nd half collision but somehow made a miraculous late return, and Mauro and Buhrer did their jobs soundly. Considering he played the full 80 in the Origin only 4 days ago, and carried an injury into todays game, Glenn was a deserved man of the match with his non stop display in both attack and defence. Every time he got his hands on the ball there was panic in the Souths defence.

A really determined win and a great reward for such a fantastic home crowd on a perfect winters day. Even Des must have cracked a smile in the dressing room after that one.

THE BAD:
I could single out the two early 2nd half tries we conceded, but in reality whilsy Sutton's was a rare defensive lapse, Merritt's was pure Inglis brilliance. (That said it just me or is Inglis positively the laziest most egotistical player going around in the NRL? Apart from that moment he spent most of the game walking!). If there was any real bad today it was those idiot refs who seemed to have little idea of the game or how to make a decent decision, and who seemed to think it was somehow ok for Souths to lie over every tackle, with the incredibly annoying Crocker the main culprit. Speaking of Crocker does it not seem really odd that he made just 4 runs in the entire match? Curious.

THE UGLY:
Our ground announcer. The guy has to go, he is a complete embarrassment on every level. No mate 19,000 of us don't need to be patronised with your banal instructions on how and when to cheer on the team. To all those over on the hill who say they can't hear him thank your lucky stars, up in the Jane Try stand we are all cringing every time he opens his big mouth. And on top of that he had the PA up way too high today. The mistake of mixing up Glenn and Brett Stewart is surely the final red card. I still don't know what happened with the legendry voice of Brookie Grant Goldman losing the gig (does anyone know the real story?) but please let's get him back.

Another great day at Brookie, can we go undefeated at home in 2011? This team sure can.


PS. Apologies for missing the Saints game, I was slammed at work for days, but hey at least I missed having to report on a loss.
 
Agree with everything you said, as always. Take out killers bad day with the boot, wolfmans bombed try and the few bad ref decisions and we really had them easily covered. The score could have have easily been 42-16. The knights are going to be another good test for us next week.
 
Great reading. Mander is a log of immense proportions. Merritt dropped that ball in the corner cold, dead set cold. Benefit of the doubt? Na.

Glenn for mine was and has been all season, legendary. He never gives up, never stops and even had the energy to square up at one stage when their was some biff brewing. I think the wind played havoc with the kicking all day, Sandow missed an easy conversion from virtually in front and the clearing kicks from both sides didn't have their usual penetration or accuracy.
I will also come out and say it - we are GF contenders. We can beat Saints and the cheats.
Now - please lets dump the ground announcer. Nothing further on this needs to be said, just send him on his way.
 
Glad the ground announcer was brought up. It is just way too loud. When I got home i watched the game again after recording it and at times when the commentators were speaking they were being drowned out with the announcer booming in the background. Someone needs to get a grip of the volume. Maybe Im just getting old...
 
Well doen CF2 - I thought Mauro had a great game as well. Took the ball up with gusto everytime, For mine Foran/Kite/Gift had blinders. We were down a bit but a win is a win.
 
disagree slightly.thought we looked a tired team at times against a basically reserve grade pack minus taylor,burgess,asotasi,stuart,geddes etc but the great thing about this year as opposed to last year is that we find a way back into games when the momentum is against us.stewie and choc backing up and rodney/kite back after long layoffs explains the forwards looking a little tired at certian stages of the game.thought kite was very good at back end and rodney solid.buerher looked dangerous.choc and stewart powered on despite fatigue.look forward to a fresh pack next week.drugcastle will be very competitive.

how good is sunday arvo football-there needs to be a lot more of it.swap the second saturday night game for another sunday fixture in my book.

anyone know anything re princess's injury.
 
report on king was cartlidge.

i thought that was Joe G's worst game for us so far, he struggled to get into marker and onside all game
 
Daniel said:
report on king was cartlidge.

i thought that was Joe G's worst game for us so far, he struggled to get into marker and onside all game

I agree he looked his age today and was guilty of a couple of defensive lapses. However, given his form so far this year we will excuse one "dusty" peformance.
 
Wolfman's drop was ridiculous. He's a winger ffs, and it was just a simple catch and run to the line. It could have cost us. However, I thought we had their measure all game, even when we were behind. It's not as if we had any of the ball in the first fifteen minutes of the second half, and when we did we punished them. It says it all with Souffs that Crockof****e is their captain. A total idiot and grub. And Cf2 you didn't mention that Sandow played very well for us in their defensive line.
We'll have to concentrate for the full 80 in Newcastle. (is that an obvious?)
 
Agreed about having their measure. Even when we were behind I didn't feel at all worried I always felt that with a little possession we would get field position and from that I had no doubt we would score, my only concern was how badly the ref's would screw up and cost us a try or give them one.

As for Sandow, he didn't seem like he wanted to put his body on the line at all, and I don't think he even tried to put one shot on.

Credit to Foran for not trying to run over the top of him twice. the second time he took on a backrower instead :)
 
I loved the way Snake held the ball over the little tosser's head and then sauntered threw and touched down. Sandow has moved on already.
 
DSM5 said:
I loved the way Snake held the ball over the little tosser's head and then sauntered threw and touched down. Sandow has moved on already.

Yeah that was great everyone fell for the dummy, two of their players ran into each other, hilarious.

Brett tries things that you would normally leave for training and gets away with it
 
cf2 is back said:
Merritt's dive into the corner was as good as winger dives get, but I don't buy the ridiculous one finger on the ball is a try theory, you've got to have some level of control and downward pressure. Did he have that? Nope he dropped it.
THE UGLY:
Our ground announcer. The guy has to go, he is a complete embarrassment on every level. No mate 19,000 of us don't need to be patronised with your banal instructions on how and when to cheer on the team. To all those over on the hill who say they can't hear him thank your lucky stars, up in the Jane Try stand we are all cringing every time he opens his big mouth. And on top of that he had the PA up way too high today. The mistake of mixing up Glenn and Brett Stewart is surely the final red card. I still don't know what happened with the legendry voice of Brookie Grant Goldman losing the gig (does anyone know the real story?) but please let's get him back.

The rule actually states that the player must have downward pressure AND be in control of the ball. He definitely was not in control.

I watched the game at home on Foxtel and you could hear the Ground Announcer drowning out the commentators and sounded like a deadset knobhead.
 
Team P W L PD Pts
3 3 0 48 6
4 3 1 28 6
3 2 1 10 6
4 2 2 39 4
3 2 1 28 4
3 2 1 15 4
3 2 1 14 4
2 1 1 13 4
2 1 1 6 4
3 2 1 -3 4
3 1 2 0 2
3 1 2 -5 2
3 1 2 -15 2
3 1 2 -22 2
3 1 2 -36 2
2 0 2 -56 2
3 0 3 -64 0
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