Match Discussion: Round 8 vs North Qld @ Queensland Country Bank Stadium, Townsville / Wulgurukaba

[Apey]

I couldn't believe when I saw the stats that the Cowboys only made 50m more metres than us? I feel like they absolutely dominated the field position tonight.

 

[macavity]

Another loss on goal kicking. That’s three now.

 

[Yosh]

I couldn't believe when I saw the stats that the Cowboys only made 50m more metres than us? I feel like they absolutely dominated the field position tonight.

I think Gagai made 2826291 metres with the ball tonight. He is winding back the clock!!

 

[Zoidberg]

Another loss on goal kicking. That’s three now.

Hastings was kicking for us early in the year and was good. By the sounds of it he has a leg injury which is keeping him from goal kicking.
I wonder if we can help his injury by resting him a few weeks (Ponga and Gamble halves) to get him right.

 

[Nuke]

The elephant in the room is back. Feel for Gamble. We are so much better with him on the park.

I hate to think or say it, but I agree with this.

We seemed disjointed, less structured but also at the same time less reactive to what they see in front of them. It could be any number of factors contributing to that, but given previous years games / gameplay, that does seem to be a key factor.

No disrespect to KP at all, but I was enjoying watching the games where Hastings and Gamble were our halves.

This game tonight had an icky negative vibe about it from kickoff.

 

[Yosh]

With Gamble at six, every one of our players were in motion. With KP at six, everyone seems to be waiting around. Perhaps waiting for KP to do something or perhaps they aren't on the same wavelength as KP. It needs to be sorted asap.

 

[Woody90]

I said before the game that I was pretty sure we were going to have some teething problems bringing Ponga back into the side.

Its a tough one. I was enjoying watching Hastings and Gamble as well but it was also obvious watching this game that KP is still by far the most dangerous player we have. We somehow have to make it work as we’re too invested in him. Not sure what the solution is though.

Hopefully things will click with more time together. I don’t think the disjointed attack tonight was purely Ponga’s inclusion. We looked poor from the kick off before he even came on. Im hoping they were just flat after the Penrith game but my concern is that it’s all starting from dummy half and that’s not something we’re going to be able to fix at training without recruiting a quality #9.

 

[perverse]

I said before the game that I was pretty sure we were going to have some teething problems bringing Ponga back into the side.

Its a tough one. I was enjoying watching Hastings and Gamble as well but it was also obvious watching this game that KP is still by far the most dangerous player we have. We somehow have to make it work as we’re too invested in him. Not sure what the solution is though.

Hopefully things will click with more time together. I don’t think the disjointed attack tonight was purely Ponga’s inclusion. We looked poor from the kick off before he even came on. Im hoping they were just flat after the Penrith game but my concern is that it’s all starting from dummy half and that’s not something we’re going to be able to fix at training without recruiting a quality #9.

You are on the money on all counts. Agree 100%.

 

[slotmachine]

We somehow have to make it work

I had really hoped they were just going to get him to play the same role as gamble, but twice as good cause KP has more talent in his little toe.

Unfortunately listening to the press conference AOB said things like he wants KP popping up on both sides of the ruck, he has a license to roam over the park and that we looked better with him touching the ball as many times a set at possible.

Last night looked like a typical 2022 knights performance and I fear we're in for another one next week if they've thrown what was working ok in the bin.

 

[perverse]

I had really hoped they were just going to get him to play the same role as gamble, but twice as good cause KP has more talent in his little toe.

Unfortunately listening to the press conference AOB said things like he wants KP popping up on both sides of the ruck, he has a license to roam over the park and that we looked better with him touching the ball as many times a set at possible.

Last night looked like a typical 2022 knights performance and I fear we're in for another one next week if they've thrown what was working ok in the bin.

Honestly, in retrospect I would have Kalyn play Millers role in attack and have Hastings and Gamble just do what they were doing before, but with 13 on Gambles back instead. Miller can do whatever the f**k he likes... just run off hips all day. Maybe just make less errors to start with.

In structured play/shape... I think Miller is probably the most replacable, and 2nd/3rd off the ruck is a role KP knows very well anyway.

And Crossland just needs to be shot out of a cannon.

 

[Woody90]

Honestly, in retrospect I would have Kalyn play Millers role in attack and have Hastings and Gamble just do what they were doing before, but with 13 on Gambles back instead. Miller can do whatever the f**k he likes... just run off hips all day. Maybe just make less errors to start with.

In structured play/shape... I think Miller is probably the most replacable, and 2nd/3rd off the ruck is a role KP knows very well anyway.

And Crossland just needs to be shot out of a cannon.

Miller’s job should literally be to hang around the ball and supporting any breaks/offloads. There’s where his energy is suited. It was highly frustrating from a whole team perspective watching Best and Friz’s breaks last night with nobody there to back them up. That’s a fullback’s job. They need to show him hours of footage of Tedesco playing.

 

[Zoidberg]

I really thought we were going to snatch a win when we got that final set last night. Our attack has been pretty good this year and everything was set up for some Ponga magic in his return game.
Why can’t we have nice things?

 

[Woody90]

I had really hoped they were just going to get him to play the same role as gamble, but twice as good cause KP has more talent in his little toe.

Unfortunately listening to the press conference AOB said things like he wants KP popping up on both sides of the ruck, he has a license to roam over the park and that we looked better with him touching the ball as many times a set at possible.

Last night looked like a typical 2022 knights performance and I fear we're in for another one next week if they've thrown what was working ok in the bin.

To be honest we’re still a developing team, and I guess we can’t realistically expect they’re going to keep improving every single week without a few bad games in between. While I suspected that we’d have some teething problems in attack bringing Ponga back in, we had a lot of issues last night that were team issues that went well beyond one player including the errors, poor kick chase and line speed and to be honest it probably started in the second half of the Panthers game. I’m not sure what triggered it, maybe just fatigue, but in his post match AOB made a comment about maybe too many back slaps which worries me as that has been a consistent issue in the side for a long time - they play some good games and then the intensity and attention to detail drops. Time will tell if this year is different or not.

I think it’s probably a bit early after one game (or 1.5 if we count the second half of Penrith) to say that we’ve thrown everything we’ve been working on in the bin. Next week will be struggle with short turn around from NQ and head coach (understandably) most likely funeral planning but at a minimum the errors and line speed in defence need to improve so they don’t become part of the DNA again.

Time will tell how we work the with Hastings/Ponga/Gamble/Miller, but I think Ponga coming back in is probably hiding from the bigger issue than the halves which is #9. I don’t want to harp on about him too much it doesn’t matter whether we play Hastings/Gamble or Hastings/Ponga, our attack isn’t going to work with Crossland at #9. Even all the opposition fans on the game day thread can see that’s our biggest issue.

I actually see this hooking issue being in a way career defining for AOB. Even if we can’t sign a new #9 which we desperately need, at a minimum he needs to move Mann there in the interim. If he keeps persisting with Crossland playing like this he had might as well sign his own resignation letter. Crossland may have almost fooled us for a couple of games, but it was blantantly obvious last night he’s not up to standard as a hooker (or tbh anywhere). I just don’t understand the coach’s obsession with him. I wonder if it has something to do with Joey.

 

[alexwilliams_66692007]

The boys looked really gassed last night. I think we badly need the bye.

Kinda glad we aren't going to magic round now lol

 

[Apey]

Yeah I can't work out if our fitness is genuinely poor or if it's just because how much we're shooting ourselves in the foot during the game.

 

[slotmachine]

They looked shit from the kickoff

 

[Knight Tales]

If you watch ESL games the goal kickers are all usually top notch and strike the ball beautifully. A lot of them are wingers. Some clubs have two or three of them. Marc Sneyd is my favourite from Salford. His goal kicks are like poetry in motion a very clever halfback and could easily have made it in the NRL or Rugby as scrum half. .

 

[Mr_Knightside]

I think people are being a tad harsh. We didn’t play great but going up to North QLD is a really tough road trip and we got the cowboys at the wrong time, they really needed a win to get their season back on track.

We are definitely killing ourselves with errors at the moment, but that’s totally fixable. We have more talent in the team than we probably thought during the pre season so that’s a positive. Our outside backs are looking really strong and our organisation is a lot better with Hastings running the show. KP looked dangerous in that second half but didn’t get as much ball as I would have liked.

There’s also a fair argument to say that with a better goal kicker we would have beaten both the Sea Eagles and Panthers and at least pushed this game into golden point too. We’re clearly a much tougher team than last year and that’s something to form the basis of what we can work on moving forward.

We have lost the last 2 games by a combined total of 3 points so it’s not as bad as we think.

 

[Apey]

It's not crisis stations (any more than it already was losing Brailey), but it's just frustrating. Especially when you're dumb and change your tip to the Knights.

 

[Jono078]

We have lost the last 2 games by a combined total of 3 points so it’s not as bad as we think.

It's not bad, but we can't get to the end of the season and say we lost 12 games by a combined 20 points. We have to start collecting some competition points.

I do think we're looking a bit fatigued. We've been in some big close games every single week and have made the most tackles in the comp by continuing to put ourselves under that pressure.

I really hope we can get the 2-points agains the Eels next week because it won't be a great feeling going into the BYE on a 3-game losing streak after how we've started this season.