'13 | R1 | Sat | Bulldogs 12-24 Cowboys | Bluetongue

[natheel]

Lol Dogs halves are abysmal

They did well last year because they had one main play.. pass to Barba.

Looking forward to Eels v Dogs next week. We will be pumped after a good win! While Dogs will probably come out guns blazing trying to smash us. But 41% of their points scored last season was set up or scored by Ben, that is a HUGE loss. While Jarryd and Sandow combined well for us today (need to do it again)

Going to be a good match

 

[I Bleed Maroon]

This game proved the Bulldogs are going to struggle badly without Barba, but that was a foregone conclusion.

 

[Grapple]

Linnet and Thurston were outstanding for the Cowboys.

I thought we were rusty, and obviously missed Barba but Low in his replacement and most of the team were pretty good for the most part....but our structured attack went missing compared to the polished outfit last season. That'll hopefully come back with more game time. My only concern is that Keating possibly tried to create too much with Barba gone.

But how quick is Josh Morris?! What a chase down on Winterstein.

 

[W.Smith]

the Dogs may struggle with the no x factor style plays without Barba, last year they built their game around Kasiano, Pritchard and Graham heavily involved on offence playing that bang bang style short pass/decoys game

tonight they looked good when playing with width/expanse and when the Cows worked out what they were tossing up they countered with good defence and i thought the FNQ forced the Dogs into a traditional style game and without the size and offloads Kas, Frank and Graham provide they looked a little pedestrian

defence on TRex was awesome too, good line speed, wins at the ruck and the best one two punch off the ruck and either side of the ruck and looked to have everything covered, the Cows are a genuine contender and if they stay injury free they will at worst get to GF qualify weekend

 

[kia ora storm]

My two cents...Cowboys will make the GF IMO...Thurston won that game last night off the back of his own skill and the Dogs could not control him and along with Thurston, Scott, Bowen and co, they have the makings of a Premiership winning team.

As for the Dogs...Inu is back to his lazy best, their halves are non existent and Keating get's found out in the big games, Tony Williams needs to start running at angles and using his size to offload rather than running straight and hard every play.