We Are Now Contenders (As of Round 11)

[betcats]

I would be willing to bet. It was his ongoing ankle injury that caused his frustration. His body not allowing him to do what he required of it.

I hope that is it.

 

[Pomoz]

Broncos just showed the good teams how to beat us. Attack Jimmy, run at him all game. Its nothing new but the guy is already one of the worst defenders and most penalised players in the game. You increase his defensive workload you get more linebreaks, more penalties and if in his current form he will probably throw an intercept cause he is tired and frustrated.

Hook doesn't have the coaching nous to effectively hide Maloney. He needs to be next to Yeo for one, he has much better lateral movement then kiks. Defending next to Kikau makes it to easy to get Jimmy one on one which is not good for us.

Also ive never seen Maloney lose cool like he did on Friday, he is normally always smiling and laughing no matter how the game is going. It was almost like he carried some sort of frustration into the game?? More smoke IMO.

Don't agree, if it was easy to neutralise Maloney he would never of had the career he has had. He had a bad game, can we stop digging the corpse up and kicking it around again?

 

[betcats]

Don't agree, if it was easy to neutralise Maloney he would never of had the career he has had. He had a bad game, can we stop digging the corpse up and kicking it around again?

His defence and penalties have been an issue his entire career it’s nothing new as I said. He is by far our biggest weakness in defence, on top of that he is prone to losing his cool and giving away dumb f**k penalties or rushing up into no mans land like he did on their second try on Friday. Attacking Maloney consistently will lead to good things for opposing teams, no team hads gone at him this year like Brisbane.

Mate you’re still talking absolute rubbish about Moylan but I cant bag maloney for that rubbish game?

His last two games for penrith have been woeful actually.

 

[TheFrog]

His last two games for penrith have been woeful actually.

He hasn't really played well since Origin 2, over a month ago. So either he's carrying injury or it's mental fatigue. Could be a bit of both. He's a champion, he'll snap out of it. I know that has been said of Thurston as well, and he hasn't come good, but Jimmy has played well much more recently.

 

[betcats]

He hasn't really played well since Origin 2, over a month ago. So either he's carrying injury or it's mental fatigue. Could be a bit of both. He's a champion, he'll snap out of it. I know that has been said of Thurston as well, and he hasn't come good, but Jimmy has played well much more recently.

Like I said in another thread he certainly has it in to turn it around, I’m not writing him off. This is what frustrates me with his performances recently, it’s just seems like he is off mentally. We paid him to be an experienced leader for our young team. If he makes mistakes along the lines of bad kicks and passes I can deal with that bit when he is just making bad decisions that really pisses me off.

Physically he doesn’t look affected by an injury, he was moving freely on Friday imo.

 

[Kilkenny]

Like I said in another thread he certainly has it in to turn it around, I’m not writing him off. This is what frustrates me with his performances recently, it’s just seems like he is off mentally. We paid him to be an experienced leader for our young team. If he makes mistakes along the lines of bad kicks and passes I can deal with that bit when he is just making bad decisions that really pisses me off.

Physically he doesn’t look affected by an injury, he was moving freely on Friday imo.

James Maloney is carrying an injury and there is no doubt he is suffering the hangover from origin.

The best time to pass judgement on James Maloney or any other player is at season's end based on what there contributions were during the whole season.

He has not been great in recent games and neither have we as a team but while no one likes to offer excuses we certainly are entitled to provide one given our huge misfortune this season.

Forgive me if I get the feeling you want to see him fail.

 

[betcats]

James Maloney is carrying an injury and there is no doubt he is suffering the hangover from origin.

The best time to pass judgement on James Maloney or any other player is at season's end based on what there contributions were during the whole season.

He has not been great in recent games and neither have we as a team but while no one likes to offer excuses we certainly are entitled to provide one given our huge misfortune this season.

Forgive me if I get the feeling you want to see him fail.

No not all. My comments about him when he was playing well were just as positive as my recent ones are negative. Of course I want him to play well, but I’m no going to sugarcoat it, he was god awful last week. I hold him to higher standard then any of our recent players he is a current origin and kangaroos half and we are paying him like one.

He may be carrying an injury but that shouldn’t effect his decision making to such a degree. Like I’ve said a couple times this week I can live with him throwing intercepts and missing tackles but he was on tilt after twenty minutes last week and it went through the team.

 

[Whino]

As I said 2 months ago we are done for 2018.
Pretenders.

 

[tripster]

As I said 2 months ago we are done for 2018.
Pretenders.

Unfortunately this is the truth. Basically we have played 4 good games the whole year - against the Cowboys, Tigers, Dragons and Warriors.

All of the rest of our wins have been ordinary or involved comebacks from a few moments of individual brilliance.

 

[Exsilium]

When I first read this thread I had a giggle.

It’s similar to the threads you see on the regular down in the Dragons forum.

Fortunately we didn’t follow the trend of adding threads every time something changed. Imagine the below.

“We are contenders”
“We are pretenders”
“Hooks gotta go”
“Ciraldo is the answer”
“In Gus we trust”
“Who do we blame now?

 

[Panfa]

Our biggest problem at the moment is our 1 and 9 fix them and we will be a much better team

 

[tripster]

For mine Gus is now a big part of the problem. I don’t say that lightly given what he has done for the club but the evidence is starting to build.

I am also not saying he hasn’t done anything good at all. To the contrary. He turned things around from the dark Elliott days and has helped turn the club from cellar dwellers into a competitive side. He was also once a good coach, and he has an eye for junior talent and is a good analyst of the game.

But I think he has shown increasingly a propensity to make bad management decisions. These include:

- hiring Corey Payne (who plainly wasn’t capable) and then needing to fire him shortly thereafter;
- sacking Ivan and then trying to rehire him
- extending Hook for two seasons and then sacking him 4 weeks out from the finals without him even working any of the 2 years he was extended for (and costing the club something like $1 million in the process). That’s a huge amount of money that could have been spent on assistant coaches and a myriad of other things to improve the club’s performance
- carrying on in the media about Hook’s sacking and being unable to put his ego to one side in the best interests of the club.

That’s before we even get to whether or not anything Hook has since said is true.

If he was the CEO of a company that was answerable to its shareholders he would have been sacked by the board on the back of those decisions.

However, he has got himself into a position where he is more powerful than the board, and is effectively unsackable. That’s been proven by the fact he said in the media, effectively, that the Chairman was the one responsible for the Ivan debacle and basically blamed the Chairman of the board. Then somehow within days his contract is extended for 5 more years.

The danger of this is that he is in a position where his decisions aren’t questioned. That’s not healthy for any organisation. No one is infallible and good organisations operate well because they have checks and balances (and also have regular renewal in the senior executive ranks).

I will hope for the best, but it seems to be likely that we will be heading into the off season without a new coach, and I’d say a good chance that things will be worse next year rather than better.

 

[kinghippo]

Please change the name of this thread to
we are now pretenders as of round 18

 

[Fangs]

No?

Why change the title when it's correct? You revisionist scum.

 

[mxlegend99]

When I first read this thread I had a giggle.

It’s similar to the threads you see on the regular down in the Dragons forum.

Fortunately we didn’t follow the trend of adding threads every time something changed. Imagine the below.

“We are contenders”
“We are pretenders”
“Hooks gotta go”
“Ciraldo is the answer”
“In Gus we trust”
“Who do we blame now?

Hooks fingerprints are still all over this team. We suck because Hook refused to cooperate with the rest of the club. But thats also Goulds fault for not sacking him a year ago.

 

[franklin2323]

As I said 2 months ago we are done for 2018.
Pretenders.

Look at the top sides we were and are no where near. It is another case of overhyping our players

Storm: have 3 300 gamers. Stacks or Origin and Comp winners. Bellamy and the next best up and coming coach in the box.

Roosters. Have a 300 game multiple Comp winner at half. A comp winner next too him. NSW Captain and another former captain in the squad. The coach won a comp and has another ex head coach in Jason Taylor in him.

Souths: rookie coach but the core of the side that won the comp. David Furner a former NRL coach next too him.

Sharks: comp winning coach with another ex NRL coach in Dymock next to him. A few 300 gamers in the pack. Experience across the park including 2 ex captain at their old clubs.

Broncs speak for themselves..

Meanwhile we have a rookie coach with an assistant that 10 weeks ago was playing.

Fifita admitted Dymock fired him up at halftime. He ended up scoring the match winner.... Meanwhile 10 mins in Katoa was clearly struggling yet it took 45 more mins to change him.

So while Gus and Brandy help at training. In the crunch of games we need more

 

[OldPanther]

Look at the top sides we were and are no where near. It is another case of overhyping our players

Storm: have 3 300 gamers. Stacks or Origin and Comp winners. Bellamy and the next best up and coming coach in the box.

Roosters. Have a 300 game multiple Comp winner at half. A comp winner next too him. NSW Captain and another former captain in the squad. The coach won a comp and has another ex head coach in Jason Taylor in him.

Souths: rookie coach but the core of the side that won the comp. David Furner a former NRL coach next too him.

Sharks: comp winning coach with another ex NRL coach in Dymock next to him. A few 300 gamers in the pack. Experience across the park including 2 ex captain at their old clubs.

Broncs speak for themselves..

Meanwhile we have a rookie coach with an assistant that 10 weeks ago was playing.

Fifita admitted Dymock fired him up at halftime. He ended up scoring the match winner.... Meanwhile 10 mins in Katoa was clearly struggling yet it took 45 more mins to change him.

So while Gus and Brandy help at training. In the crunch of games we need more

I agree with what you've said.

The only point that is off is the Storm assistant. The only difference between him and Ciraldo is that one is Bellamy's assistant which makes people over rate them.

 

[franklin2323]

I agree with what you've said.

The only point that is off is the Storm assistant. The only difference between him and Ciraldo is that one is Bellamy's assistant which makes people over rate them.

Maybe so but Bellamy has any coach covered point is he has great support around

 

[Abacus]

Meanwhile 10 mins in Katoa was clearly struggling yet it took 45 more mins to change him.

In particular this. Coaches need to learn there's nothing wrong with dragging a player if they're going shit. No need to wait for when they're scheduled to be interchanged.

 

[OldPanther]

In particular this. Coaches need to learn there's nothing wrong with dragging a player if they're going shit. No need to wait for when they're scheduled to be interchanged.

Last night GF winning and rep prop Fifita was hooked and told he wasn't doing the job. He was fired up about it but he scored a try and did his job when he came back on.