Our 2 wins this year

[latemail]

Were we to good for the panthers and sharks or did they have off days???

 

[thebigredv]

sack mcgregor!!!

 

[muzby]

Were we to good for the panthers and sharks or did they have off days???

neither..

we were too good for both of them.

 

[BennyV]

They definitely had off days - but the question is, did they have off days BECAUSE we played so well.

Hard to say. IMO, we rattled the Panthers, and we could have matched most teams that day with how we played.

Cronulla, I don't think so. I think they had plenty of opportunities to win it and unforced poor choices by Maloney mainly was the reason they didn't. We defended very well though.

 

[Crush]

Agree with Benny. Too good for Panthers and Sharks beat themselves

 

[Dragsters]

Parra did a better job in the middle than both the Pennies and the shonkies and that allowed their halves and backline to run riot.

Selecting our best 1 thru 7 is the only way a Dragons backline has any chance of taking full advantage of the packs great go-forward.

This must happen, or it will cost us victory sooner or later...

 

[ALSGI]

Good question.

If we win or lose tomorrow the question will still remain with an extra game to analyse pros and cons.

The successful teams each year have the abilty, belief and confidence to beat teams with superior performances and or failing performances with ability to force teams to beat themselves. They usualy have a good coach, half back, wingers, centres, forwards etc as well as a decent percentage of ref calls and hot cheer girls.

So far we're looking bad imo despite the 2 great wins, and it isn't the cheer girls I woory about.

Hope I'm wrong, and we march on.

 

[Crush]

Good question.

If we win or lose tomorrow the question will still remain with an extra game to analyse pros and cons.

The successful teams each year have the abilty, belief and confidence to beat teams with superior performances and or failing performances with ability to force teams to beat themselves. They usualy have a good coach, half back, wingers, centres, forwards etc as well as a decent percentage of ref calls and hot cheer girls.

So far we're looking bad imo despite the 2 great wins, and it isn't the cheer girls I woory about.

Hope I'm wrong, and we march on.

So far we are looking bad? Wow. I think that we are looking pretty good.
Your expectations are higher than mine perhaps.

 

[Belta]

Good question relating to consistency, and the hot and cold formula has been on show in quite a few teams so far, Parra were white hot against us, there next two performances have been error ridden and remarkably disjointed, Penrith has played well after there game against us, as has the Sharks. Makes you anxious of what the Warriors might bring tomorrow, hopefully not much...the one thing the Dragons have displayed is a good go forward, straight hard running...and strong defense..a good win tomorrow can only assist in eradicating any inconsistency demons

 

[giboz71]

We would have beaten most teams the way we played in Round 1. Our forwards were awesome and Duges and Widdop actually played as per their price tag. If we repeat that most weeks, we'll make the 8.

Against the Sharks, they were a little down on form but we defended great. And our forwards matched theirs.

 

[ALSGI]

So far we are looking bad? Wow. I think that we are looking pretty good.
Your expectations are higher than mine perhaps.

Crush
Yep agree with your point, my bad, could have put it better.
I should have said, when asked in the thread:
"Were we to good for the panthers and sharks or did they have off days???"

i don't think we were too good at all and am of the opinion that Panthers had a very off day, Sharks a bad day without taking anything away from the great performances of some of our guys.

I think we're looking bad in terms of being a serious threat to a Premiership, for all the reasons I stated.

Off course I think we're doing great now, and am pretty excited about tomorrow even polished the dragons rego plates on the cars today.

 

[MilanDragon]

Crush
Yep agree with your point, my bad, could have put it better.
I should have said, when asked in the thread:
"Were we to good for the panthers and sharks or did they have off days???"

i don't think we were too good at all and am of the opinion that Panthers had a very off day, Sharks a bad day without taking anything away from the great performances of some of our guys.

I think we're looking bad in terms of being a serious threat to a Premiership, for all the reasons I stated.

Off course I think we're doing great now, and am pretty excited about tomorrow even polished the dragons rego plates on the cars today.

At what point do we get credit for just being better than the other team on the day rather than them having an 'off' day? Or for example when we played Parra we had a very off day so is that the reason they won or was it just that they were better than us?

I know what you are saying but that's the whole point of a league competition, the teams that are most consistently good and have the least 'off days' will win.

The key is limiting your amount of bad days then winning the games when both teams are playing well.

 

[Old Timer]

The over arching question still remains if the forwards don't win their battle on the day which teams can our backs outplay or outscore?
Simple answer really, so any injuries to the pigs, any off days or any SOO representation and we are in big strife.
We must be truthful in our assessments here and see our wins for what they are and not get too carried away.
No doubt as was the case in 2015 if you have a limited amount of strings to your bow, good sides and good coaches will work you out.
I suspect again this year we may in fact lose some games by quite small margins due to good solid defence but to be honest in many of these games the score board might not be truly reflective of the fact we were never going to win them because, we simply don't have the ammunition to do so.

 

[SaintHarry]

Parra did a better job in the middle than both the Pennies and the shonkies and that allowed their halves and backline to run riot.

Selecting our best 1 thru 7 is the only way a Dragons backline has any chance of taking full advantage of the packs great go-forward.

This must happen, or it will cost us victory sooner or later...

We played like shit against parra not taking anything away from them but dropping the ball over 7 times would help .

 

[blacksafake]

A bit of both me thinks.

 

[possm]

We have a flawed strategy:
Don't change the 17 if players are injury free.
Don't play the utility back on the bench because he may play better than McCrone.
Play the same 'power game' each week even though player attrition is inevitable.
Always use a compressed defensive pattern even though opposition coaches are expecting this.

Against the Panthers we were fresh and wanted to prove ourselves. We were good and the Panthers took us too lightly.

Parramatta did their homework and we tried to use the same plan as that of the previous week. The Eels pulled our pants down.

The Sharks tried to match us in the forwards but made too many errors to win. We got of to a great start and held on well enough to win.

Against the Warriors, we would find it much easier if we changed our backline line-up, and ditched the compressed defensive structure. An accurate kicking game, change of halfback and some speed in our backline would reduce the effort required to achieve a win.

 

[kit66]

Our 2 wins this year should be celebrated. We beat two very good teams ( Top 4 hopefuls ) with good game plans and with an enthusiasm and teamwork I haven't seen in yonks.
We beat Penrith and Cronulla by shutting down their halves by running our big blokes at them constantly and by targeting their other danger men with great defence - Moylen for Penrith and Bird and Wade Graham for Cronulla were smashed nearly every time they got the ball. That was the foundation of those wins, the rest was holding the ball, good line defence and a dominant game from our pack.
Against Parra it all fell apart. We failed completely to shut down Norman and Gutherson , who played deeper and were protected gallantly by their forwards. Norman got on top and we panicked. Poor form from our backs and a horror start just added to our woes.A good long kicking game could have turned things around but that's something we lack atm.
But, to our credit, we picked ourselves up and went out 7 days later and beat the defending Premiers with a gutsy win on their turf.
No way were those wins flukes and I expect we'll win a lot more games than we did last year. Our draw is the best it's been in years as well.

 

[BrissyRedV]

A win is a win and I enjoy them nonetheless any way we can come across them especially seeing as I wasn't expecting many this season. The team created enough opportunities and took advantage and the opposition played as well as they were allowed to play which is what Parra did to us. The next 3 weeks are a big opportunity for us and could define our season.