Very Important GAME DAY. Mighties vs Melbourne Drizzle. Win to enter the GF.

[Someone2]

Parra fan here. Thought that was a gutsy effort from the Sharks. Not many teams have put themselves in a winning position in a final against the Storm, particularly at AAMI Park.

The Panthers Storm dominance will die off eventually and the Sharks definitely look next in line with a few more additions to their squad. All the best for 2026!

Don’t troll them

sharks won’t make the 8 next year

 

[eddiesmith]

I do feel sorry for the poor sharks fan who was behind me. His wife is a mad Storm fan, she never shuts up and knows nothing. Poor bloke putting up with that every day.

 

[bad boy bubby]

I had the "advantage" of watching the game after the effect.
There is a load of horse shit in this thread from the usual suspects.
If you could not see that the Storm middles beat our middles in the centre allowing their spine to take advantage, honestly.
We played very good.
Storm played great, the best I've seen them this season and they needed to.
Two things in the game of inches.
Wilton rushing in to Hughes and missing allowed a try.
Trindall doing a stupid strip when we were 6 points behind and allowed them to go to 8 points in front.
Our defence was still great.
Our players played very well.
Storm were just too good.
Sometimes you need to take a step away and see it for what it really is.

 

[Surely]

I’m still waiting for the why the spine were outplayed.

Because our forwards were absent

 

[2012....Sharks Year]

Pretty decent effort overall but lost the big moments and couldn’t get a break with the bunker calls. Brails was off from the get go. Haven’t seen 3 of his passes hit the ground all season. That try saver on Brit was the moment. He scores that 9 times out of 10. Nicho’s and AFB’s dropped balls were crucial as was Tricky’s ball strip. Actually thought Noodles was one of our best along with TTF. Will Warwick was exceptional under the high ball which pretty much took Ronnie out of the game.

 

[Weaponhead]

The Sharks played tough and hung in but had to start fast and didn't. Melbournes big players ran with way too much freedom. Taking dummies from Munster and not putting him on the ground. Hughes brushing past Tieg and Jesse C. Brailey and AFB weren't in the game at all in the first half when they needed to be big.

The Nikora and Kennedy missed chances were huge moments. Needed a try to change the game and bring energy to the Sharks and fear to Melbourne. Melbourne were very comfortable in the lead and were happy to grind. They controlled the game.

Take outs
Cronulla are getting closer but aren't quite at the elite level.
Elite rep players in key positions are needed to ice big moments in big games. We dont have those rare players.
The defensive resolve in this finals campaign has been a step forward. Previous Sharks teams would have lost by 20 under that pressure.

 

[2012....Sharks Year]

The Sharks played tough and hung in but had to start fast and didn't. Melbournes big players ran with way too much freedom. Taking dummies from Munster and not putting him on the ground. Hughes brushing past Tieg and Jesse C. Brailey and AFB weren't in the game at all in the first half when they needed to be big.

The Nikora and Kennedy missed chances were huge moments. Needed a try to change the game and bring energy to the Sharks and fear to Melbourne. Melbourne were very comfortable in the lead and were happy to grind. They controlled the game.

Take outs
Cronulla are getting closer but aren't quite at the elite level.
Elite rep players in key positions are needed to ice big moments in big games. We dont have those rare players.
The defensive resolve in this finals campaign has been a step forward. Previous Sharks teams would have lost by 20 under that pressure.

Good summary mate

 

[Craigshark]

pretty disappointing result all things given. I thought for as dominated as we were for the first 50-60 minutes, we hung in there and when we took the 2, despite blowing those Nikora and Kennedy chances, I felt and the teams body language looked like they felt like they were a chance. They were just waiting for an opportunity. What killed them was the dumbest play I have seen all season, along with Hazelton’s against the Tigers in golden point. Trindall’s strip. wtf was he thinking?

Melbourne went 8 points up here and you could just tell they knew that was going to be too much. We started chasing with structure and that never works for us. Why we didn’t play the offload game and try something else a bit earlier before the last 20 seconds of the game I’m not sure.

 

[Craigshark]

Klein was also pretty f**ked. Melbourne laid through the ruck all night. Halves constantly having to play off slow play the balls. Yet he pinged us multiple times on the 3rd and 4th tackle in sets for the same thing. How our game has gotten to a point where the AFB “knock on” is a loose carry is a load of shit too. 4 blokes on you, 1 with his hands around the ball clearly putting pressure on the ball to force it out, but we are all led to believe by the dickheads in the bunker that they have no intentions of stripping it and it is a loose carry.

 

[2012....Sharks Year]

I had the "advantage" of watching the game after the effect.
There is a load of horse shit in this thread from the usual suspects.
If you could not see that the Storm middles beat our middles in the centre allowing their spine to take advantage, honestly.
We played very good.
Storm played great, the best I've seen them this season and they needed to.
Two things in the game of inches.
Wilton rushing in to Hughes and missing allowed a try.
Trindall doing a stupid strip when we were 6 points behind and allowed them to go to 8 points in front.
Our defence was still great.
Our players played very well.
Storm were just too good.
Sometimes you need to take a step away and see it for what it really is.

Agree that the Storm played a hell of a lot better than they have for most of the season and needed to or we would have got them. That ex tigers prop was dominant…like AFB has been for us. Reckon Klein might have done himself out a grand final by blowing the pea out of the whistle. Not saying he made bad decisions but made the game pretty disjointed. Gutted with the outcome but made some pretty good progress in this last month or so. Proves the theory that top 4 is crucial to giving any side the best chance to win the comp.

 

[Chimp]

Disappointing, but ultimately beaten by the better team, with better key players. We had a crack, the effort was there, we just weren’t good enough - I can live with that.

Few takeaways for me (most of which have been mentioned already);
- Storm started the game so much faster than us. The week iff clearly helped, but they also are just a quicker team
- The won the collision/wrestle, as they do. They made their tackles, held us down, look clumsy and took forever to clear the ruck and generally get away with it. When they have the ball, they deny the line, find their front and get a quick ptb - we get penalised artificially trying to slow them down. All goes back to winning the collision.
- Their spine, first and foremost are all an individual attacking threat with ball in hand. All 4 are quick, strong and a running threat. Our 2 halves in particular are slow and weak, neither have the mong strength of Munster or the speed/velocity of Paps or Hughes.
- Their spine is full of tickery. Trick shots they practiced on the training paddock, set moves designed very specifically to exploit weakness they’ve identified around what they know their opposition do defensively. I’ve said it many times, we don’t ever really have a trickshot. It’s like our playmakers are not natural ball players.

Could easily have a long whinge about Klein and the bunker nobhead (especially as Hazo got knocked out by a shooting defender and a head clash, and no penalty. This week, it’s a penalty against Trindall), but the reality is, we finished where we were deserved.

I hate the Storm, but I can’t help but be impressed by them, year after year. I’d rather they win it than the Panthers or Broncs.

Finally, how do we improve…. We need a Munster, a Hughes or a Pappy. Kennedy appears to be the obvious one we’d replace given contract status - but in reality, I’m quite happy with Kennedy, and would much rather upgrade our 6 or 7 - the problem is there isn’t anyone. We need and out and out gun.

I also really hope we can move Ramien on this off season - stick a fork in him, he’s done.

 

[Cheese sandwich]

pretty disappointing result all things given. I thought for as dominated as we were for the first 50-60 minutes, we hung in there and when we took the 2, despite blowing those Nikora and Kennedy chances, I felt and the teams body language looked like they felt like they were a chance. They were just waiting for an opportunity. What killed them was the dumbest play I have seen all season, along with Hazelton’s against the Tigers in golden point. Trindall’s strip. wtf was he thinking?

Melbourne went 8 points up here and you could just tell they knew that was going to be too much. We started chasing with structure and that never works for us. Why we didn’t play the offload game and try something else a bit earlier before the last 20 seconds of the game I’m not sure.

Good, someone else that thought AFB's knock on was a strip too. Stefano has his hand around the ball and it magically comes loose, he knew what he was doing, it becomes a loose carry because it was yanked out by the storm.

 

[Bookie]

None of our players are “fast”.
Relative to their positions Nikora and Colquhuon have good oomph but in terms of pure velocity every other team has us covered.
I remember earlier in the year they had some GPS tracker speeds of all the wingers and Ronnie was up there but I feel like he was in a Optus black hole and they created the time for him erroneously

 

[Cheese sandwich]

And the trindall head clash penalty was bullshit too

 

[Cheese sandwich]

None of our players are “fast”.
Relative to their positions Nikora and Colquhuon have good oomph but in terms of pure velocity every other team has us covered.
I remember earlier in the year they had some GPS tracker speeds of all the wingers and Ronnie was up there but I feel like he was in a Optus black hole and they created the time for him erroneously

It's that off the mark speed that's crucial, look how much Paps disjointed our defence even if he didn't get through the line because you end up with defenders clinging on to his legs and markers out of position.

 

[Craigshark]

Good, someone else that thought AFB's knock on was a strip too. Stefano has his hand around the ball and it magically comes loose, he knew what he was doing, it becomes a loose carry because it was yanked out by the storm.

definitely.. it’s happening multiple times a game. Teams know they can get away with it because for some reason we have this expectation that players should hold the ball with 4 100kg players all over them with their hands all over the ball.

I agree about the trindall head clash too.. how can we have a different ruling only a week on after an almost identical play?

it was hard to tell at the ground, but was the howarth no touch definite? That looked like it could have been ruled inconclusive like the majority of those calls have all year..

at the end of the day, after being bashed in the middle, copping some shit calls, missing some opportunities, we hung in there and I really thought we were coming to get them at 16-10. The team looked like they believed they could too. The trindall strip broke them.

 

[Craigshark]

Also, not sure if it was mentioned, but Brailey looked like he rolled his ankle in the warm up. Was noticeably limping.

 

[Cheese sandwich]

Also, not sure if it was mentioned, but Brailey looked like he rolled his ankle in the warm up. Was noticeably limping.

Ennis mentioned something about his ankle in the first few minutes

 

[Cheese sandwich]

definitely.. it’s happening multiple times a game. Teams know they can get away with it because for some reason we have this expectation that players should hold the ball with 4 100kg players all over them with their hands all over the ball.

I agree about the trindall head clash too.. how can we have a different ruling only a week on after an almost identical play?

it was hard to tell at the ground, but was the howarth no touch definite? That looked like it could have been ruled inconclusive like the majority of those calls have all year..

at the end of the day, after being bashed in the middle, copping some shit calls, missing some opportunities, we hung in there and I really thought we were coming to get them at 16-10. The team looked like they believed they could too. The trindall strip broke them.

We've moved from hands all over the ball to just making a tackle no stripping action. Of course Melbourne of all teams will make an artform of exploiting that. Chris Butler is a cretin

 

[Stake Removed]

Shut up wanker.

Go f*CK yourself, as it would be only person who would, brave on a keyboard