Was a very enjoyable replay to watch this morning!! Loved it.
Honestly that first half was just about as dominant as it gets. We were just all over them. Have something like almost 70% possession, made buggar all errors and boy did we execute in attack! I know some of the tries we scored were soft, but the attack was on fire and had it not been for our dominance to put the Warriors in that position, then some of those tries probably wouldn't have been scored. So, it was just great to see everyone switch on and really go at it. Not a bad player out there.
I still maintain my comments that I'm disappointed the score didn't get close to 60 in that second stanza, but I guess we can't complain too much. Our defence was tested a lot more in the second half but it stood tall for the most part so that was pretty impressive I thought.
My stand outs for the game were,
Mitchell: Very quiet for the first 20 minutes or so despite our attacking dominance. I was starting to think maybe something was up with him after last week too. But then all of a sudden, he just flicked a switch and went to that next level. He toyed with the Warriors as only he could. That first try he scored was just incredible, there was nothing on, but he just palmed off blokes left, right and center. Absolutely amazing. Freakish passes then for AJ and Izaac's tries, they were beautiful, and he capped it all off with that second try. 2 line breaks, 2 line break assists, 2 try assists. Those are great stats.
Thompson: Fantastic debut. He handled everything that came his way in both attack and defence pretty well. His carries were very strong, he looks athletic and very hard to handle. Great to see him pick up a try on debut and it was a try that someone like Jaxson wouldn't have scored. His other big highlight came with that try-saving tackle on Walsh which was amazing. Very good debut, I'd like to see more of him in first grade.
Once again, I'm going to give our whole pack a big wrap because once again, they were all exceptional. Every single one of them. It wasn't even a contest through the middle really as our forwards just completely rolled through them with relative ease. That can be seen in the stats as we ran for about 800m meters more than them. Pretty crazy stat and I'm sure it would have been even more crazy in terms of disparity at half time.
Tatola once again was exceptional, he is in career-best form and no doubt one of the most underrated props in the game. Starting to become a bit of a try scorer too haha. I loved the output of guys like DSF, Arrow, Keaon, Nicho and even Moale had a really good stint. Without a doubt thought the best player out there for us was Murray. Man, what a game from him. He tore the Warriors pack to shreds to start the game through the middle as he constantly sliced through, made meters and got quick play-the-balls. He had three try assists in the first 20 minutes for God sake!! That's insane haha. His effort was maintained all game as he ended up with 187 meters 2 line break assists, 3 try assists, along with 35 tackles and zero missed. What a player! What a forward pack we have!!
I'm a happy chappy today after that. Warriors are always one of my favourite teams to beat let alone thrash them!
There is some much bigger games coming up but for now let's enjoy the victory. A dominant win like that is exactly what we needed!
