Knights vs Raiders @ EAS Game Thread

[roopy]

details of mullens injury anyone? how long are we looking without him?

Smith said could be longer than 5 or 6 weeks depending on scans.

 

[League_God]

thanks roopy, dont mean to be annoying but how long till finals? lol

 

[Karmawave]

Just excellent commitment and spirit.

What a tough win without your main playmaker ( and Gids ).

Rogers, say what you like, is just all guts out there tonight. His second half kick/chase/tackle was just inspirational and lifted the entire side. He got us home, because we looked in bigtime trouble before that massive 5 minute burst of effort Rogers put in which culminated in the field goal.

Some real good efforts out there.

But Canberra? What can you say - they were awful.

The Raiders have probably made the two biggest NRL blunders in recent times.

1. The day they signed Campese to a long term contract.

2. The day some idiot decided a tackle machine like Alan Tongue was all of a sudden a ' BALL PLAYER '.

:lol: @ Campese.

:lol: @ Alan Tongue trying to be a ball player.

 

[roopy]

thanks roopy, dont mean to be annoying but how long till finals? lol

8 more rounds, including the bye next week - so we may have him back 2 or 3 weeks before the finals, or maybe not till the finals.

 

[cram]

Karma, you are spot on Canberra were terrible...absolutely horrible...but well done Knights....lots of things did not go our way but we hung in and done well.

 

[Alex28]

Say what you want about Rogers kicking, but there were a couple of key kicks in goal that were excellent. Great second half.

Good win by the boys!

 

[Serc]

I'll second that Alex

Sure Canberra were an inept rabble, but its nights like tonight that remind me of the stories you used to hear of our club in the early days, tough wins built on defence.

 

[Spike]

Lucky for us Raiders played like spastics.

That's how they normally play

 

[ramble_on]

I'm surely no expert but I didn't see Canberra as being all that woeful all night... they had poor last play options for sure but they pressured our line for most of the night, made good metres every set and defended extremely well when we were coming off our line (most of the game)... and we were certainly not gifted the game by the refs...

to me it looked like we played f**king good football against all the odds....

 

[roopy]

I'm surely no expert but I didn't see Canberra as being all that woeful all night... they had poor last play options for sure but they pressured our line for most of the night, made good metres every set and defended extremely well when we were coming off our line (most of the game)... and we were certainly not gifted the game by the refs...

to me it looked like we played f**king good football against all the odds....

I agree. As Smith said post match, every players showed up in defence for the whole game.

 

[Pika]

Wont know with Mullo until scans.

 

[Yosh]

Wouldnt say Canberra were terrible they threw everything they had at us and more and we smashed em!~!~!~

Also as a long term Benny Rogers hater he was f**king fantastic out there. He took control first to kick chases, kicks were pretty good and yeah was great out there, pretty much earnt his pay with this one game if you ask me. Very good effort from the boys and Faas has to be the forward of the year go forward comes with Faas and Wicks is improving steadily. Not sure if set play or not but him coming in deep onto 2nd man plays and hitting the line at speed was good to see, didnt break the line but nearly did here and there. Great performance and MacDougall has to play this wednesday if NSW are to have a chance of winning!

 

[Serc]

Some stats from the game:

McDonnell 200m (17 runs, of which 7 were kick returns and they added up to 87m)
Taia 152m (18 runs, 13 hitups for 131m)
Sau 99m
Mad Dog 93m

Mark T next best in the forwards for hitups, 10 for 67m

Tackle breaks
McDonnell 8
Aku 5
Taia 5
Mad Dog 5

Also 697 in kick metres for Rogers, highest I've seen by any of our kickers in quite a while.

Tackles
De Gois 45
Hilder 37 (missed 0, 1 ineffective)
Simmo 29 (missed 1)

 

[Yosh]

Taia did make a mad run I must say would have been one of the best if he managed to score or offload for someone to score...

Macdonnell is much much better than I thought he would be, definately more solid then Wes back there very good to see! Wish him the best, maybe he'll find himself a nice club next year as really there is no space in our squad is there?

 

[woodgers]

My post in gameday for what it's worth:

I had one of those nights where I was only slightly unhappy with my team and just had to hold my hands up and say we were beaten by a better team. The Knights were great I thought, really impressive especially considering the Mullen injury and the entire start.

I realise that the Raiders season is pretty much gone now but we've had some real positives with blooding young players. However i'd love to see my side moving more towards how the Knights play in the future. They have been mighty impressive this year every time i've seen them, a real dark horse. They can adapt to a forwards dogfight or partake in a game where the ball is thrown around like crazy. As much as I dislike Brian Smith, I take my hat off to him.

I'll put it on record as saying that my team can't do anything in this comp so i'd like to see the Knights give it a shake. Not that I particularly like or dislike the Knights, I just like the way they play their footy. Good luck Newcastle.

 

[EdLondon]

Great game to watch with guts and determination but I was watching through very thick beer goggles at a friends party. Rogers went to half so who went to 5/8? Was it shared around? I thought I saw Taia there a fair bit.

 

[knights_86]

Bit of Rogers bashing on here early on but to be thrown into the main playmaker's role pretty much from the start I thought he did a fantastic job. Sure some of his kicks went down dugan's throat but quite a lot found space or the in goal too. For a part time kicker, he produced a kicking game worthy of a regular halfback considering our field position in the second half. His booming kick on tackle 3 inside our 20 typified his decisiveness and effort in the second half. We've all bagged him at stages this season, and rightfully so, but credit where it's due folks, and hats off to Rogers. McDonnell was impressive too.. (as proven with the stats Serc mentioned).. He seemed comfortable at fullback and was elusive. The forwards once again were tremendous. Defence across the park, especially goal line, really won us the again. Considering the circumstances, I think that's one or our best wins this season and we should be proud of the boys.

 

[perverse]

Just excellent commitment and spirit.

What a tough win without your main playmaker ( and Gids ).

Rogers, say what you like, is just all guts out there tonight. His second half kick/chase/tackle was just inspirational and lifted the entire side. He got us home, because we looked in bigtime trouble before that massive 5 minute burst of effort Rogers put in which culminated in the field goal.

Some real good efforts out there.

But Canberra? What can you say - they were awful.

The Raiders have probably made the two biggest NRL blunders in recent times.

1. The day they signed Campese to a long term contract.

2. The day some idiot decided a tackle machine like Alan Tongue was all of a sudden a ' BALL PLAYER '.

:lol: @ Campese.

:lol: @ Alan Tongue trying to be a ball player.

lol.. you've changed your tune regarding campese.

 

[Karmawave]

lol.. you've changed your tune regarding campese.

?

Never been a big fan, but feel a bit sorry for him sometimes as some criticism has been unfair.

If you recall I said if Wallace/Campese were the NSW halves we lose 3-0, because neither are at that level.

Last night, he did NOTHING.

 

[otori]

The Raiders just couldn't organise last night and you'd have to be questioning the organisation of Herbert and Campese over their team. It must've been three times in the second half alone that on tackle five in an attacking position, they'd give the ball to a forward from dummy half and expect him to barge over when the play clearly wasn't on. It happens once it's a mistake but it makes you wonder whether the player is calling for the bloody pill.

Happy with the second half effort and as said, Rogers kicking game was good under the circumstances. My mate's dad was really impressed with the length of kicks where he was booting them from our twenty down to their thirty and sometimes twenty. We're lucky that Rogers turned up last night and managed to not put a foot wrong.