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NRL Rd 20 2025 - General Non-Warriors Thread

Blair

Coach
Messages
12,008
Coates soars threw the air to potentially break Manly hearts.

Never count Melbourne out. 16-all. Seven mins left...

Whoa, last minute 'contact' on kicker Brooks by Grant. Penalty in front. Goal! 18-16, Manly. 90 seconds left!...final! Massive boos from the home crowd. Penrose Warrior's not one of them. 😉
 
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11,068
Hope you enjoyed that one Penrose

Abort the experiment, over 25 years in and you still can’t produce a Melbourne crowd that has absolutely any clue about Rugby League.

Brooks didn’t even need to milk that one it was so blatant. Nice touch of karma for Hughes embarrassing attempt to milk one in the first half when he kicked Ben Trbojevic in the back. Leiero showed what type of bloke he is when you can actually get Jake to square up to you, nice karma again that his shit pass killed them off. I thought I’d softened up a bit to Melbourne now, but na, they still have plenty of shit in their club

I love my effort players, and even though he didn’t get the result, that play from Garrick where he chased well over 100m at full tit to nearly deny Coates was outstanding
 
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Blair

Coach
Messages
12,008
Geezus Christ I enjoyed that.
Wait till you're at a final and the Warriors do them.

Plus, the dumb stuff elsewhere. So, up by two, with two minutes to go, Gutho goes for the short drop-out, instead of kicking it to the sh*thouse. I'm glad I'm not a Dragons fan tonight.
 
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10,486
My favourite play of the night was when the biggest grub in the game, NAS, cost his side a try for a blatant elbow to the head, then gave it the John Cena 'you can't see me' hand gesture. Despite, you know, everyone having seen it, including the Bunker who ruled the try out.

Didn't stop the Melbourne crowd booing though. And me cheering like it was 08 all over again.

Beaver is right, that crowd has NFI. If (when, please!) they become a rubbish club, they'll get 20 people there.
 
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10,486
Feels like Melbourne will get it in the long run, but very pleasantly surprised by this performance so far. No frills undermanned pack really holding their own and defending hard

Ben Trbojevic is having a stormer of a game
He was immense, Burbo. I tell you who was massive, too, who I thought was past it - SST. He was massive. Whisper it, but Lodge played really well too. There were a bunch of Manly players who really got up for it.

Fair play to Melbourne, they put on a hell of a game day show. And getting to the ground is so piss easy
 
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11,068
He was immense, Burbo. I tell you who was massive, too, who I thought was past it - SST. He was massive. Whisper it, but Lodge played really well too. There were a bunch of Manly players who really got up for it.

Fair play to Melbourne, they put on a hell of a game day show. And getting to the ground is so piss easy
SST has been awesome all year, in a better side he would be spoken about as a buy of the year contender

Don’t think there was a bad player out there for
manly, especially considering Talau sat on the bench for 80mins and Simpkin only got 6mins

Tom showed his class with a few touches, Brooks options were good, Jake tackled everything that moved. Hopoate pretty much faultless

Does Koula look as explosive live and he does on TV ? Feels like he could break a game open at any point
 

TheDMC

Bench
Messages
3,486
Great win by Manly, lovely. The Dragons were absolutely dudded by the Bunker and should've taken the two points off Canterbury, which would have meant two great results for the warriors.
 

Meth

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
36,955
Love that Manly won. Don't love how they won. It's not lost on me that we won one like that against Manly last year, but I've never grown to love that penalty, especially as a game decider.

meh- it's not as if the rules aren't clear.
 
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10,486
SST has been awesome all year, in a better side he would be spoken about as a buy of the year contender

Don’t think there was a bad player out there for
manly, especially considering Talau sat on the bench for 80mins and Simpkin only got 6mins

Tom showed his class with a few touches, Brooks options were good, Jake tackled everything that moved. Hopoate pretty much faultless

Does Koula look as explosive live and he does on TV ? Feels like he could break a game open at any point
Yeah Koula was the one I was going to mention. Exactly that - he could make his marker look foolish at any time, with enough space. For both tries down the left it was the case that he got space and torched his opposite (Anderson?) That's a solid defensive structure that he broke down instantaneously. Only 22 years old, he could be anything that kid, as we saw in the Dogs final last year.

I watched Brooks for a while, he's a really vanilla player. Seems to do most of his stuff before the line and whilst he might be a serviceable organiser, doesn't particularly have a good kicking game and you'd have to have a real dynamic 7 next to him to make it work. Purely on ability - ignoring his name is Luke Brooks and all the ridiculous hype Joey hoisted onto him - he'd have to be one of the lesser 6s in the comp. I will admit I don't watch Manly week to week, however.
 
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10,486
Speaking of Joey...


I find this to be one of the weirdest takes I've ever read, and why we should be wary of thinking an Immortal's word is gospel. He's happy for Ponga to walk away from the last two years of a $1.4m+ a year contract, Newcastle basing their future around him, because Joey thinks they won't win a premiership and 'deserves to be on the world stage that union offers'??? WTF? So he can play in Saudi in front of a bunch of Sheikhs?

Thankfully his brother is a bit more reasoned.
 

TheDMC

Bench
Messages
3,486
You know Joey is the originated of the “he could be anything” ridiculous label. Can you Please never use it :)
 
Messages
11,068
Yeah Koula was the one I was going to mention. Exactly that - he could make his marker look foolish at any time, with enough space. For both tries down the left it was the case that he got space and torched his opposite (Anderson?) That's a solid defensive structure that he broke down instantaneously. Only 22 years old, he could be anything that kid, as we saw in the Dogs final last year.

I watched Brooks for a while, he's a really vanilla player. Seems to do most of his stuff before the line and whilst he might be a serviceable organiser, doesn't particularly have a good kicking game and you'd have to have a real dynamic 7 next to him to make it work. Purely on ability - ignoring his name is Luke Brooks and all the ridiculous hype Joey hoisted onto him - he'd have to be one of the lesser 6s in the comp. I will admit I don't watch Manly week to week, however.
The 2nd of his tries, Tom was looming inside Brooks as well so I think that may have caught the attention of the defence. They reckon rugby are extremely keen to get him so will be interesting to see what his future holds. He could be an elite 1 as well

Brooks main strength is his running game, 1 of the better 6s in that regard. He took his options nicely last night, used Burbo well and threw perfect seeds for the last 2 tries

Heard a whisper Paseka may be on track for a return late in the season, for me he is the most crucial player in the Manly squad so he would be a huge in, with Olakau’atu a couple of weeks away from returning as well
 
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