Mr_Knightside
Juniors
- Messages
- 2,187
We were poor and we got what we deserved yesterday.
Realistically though we were bound to have a game like that sooner or later. We had been in terrific form over the previous 6 weeks but we have played the 3 best sides back-to-back-to-back so it was bound to catch up with us both physically and mentally. At least we’ve got the bye round now which will give the boys another rest so hopefully we’re more switched on for our next game.
While our handling was awful I actually thought we defended really well in the first half. Melbourne were basically camped on our line for most of that time and we turned them away for most of it, one of those tries was from a kick though so they only breached our defensive line once. Even in the second half the floodgates didn’t open until we were down to 12 men so I don’t think we were necessarily that horrible in D.
We had our opportunities as well, Fitz should have scored but dropped the ball with the line wide open and Hunt dropped it over the line at the end, but unfortunately we barely spent any time on the Melbourne 20m zone because we couldn’t get the ball out of our own half most of the game.
I must say I’m a bit concerned with the form of Ramien. He seems to be defending well but he’s had feet for hands over the last 4-5 weeks. I know he wasn’t getting much ball early in the year but since Mann has been at 5/8 he’s been getting a decent amount and whenever he looks like he’s going to crack the defence open he drops the ball or has it stripped out. Maybe he needs to work on his carrying technique.
Also the officiating was really poor in this game and there seemed to be double standards at play all afternoon. Regardless I still think we would have lost but maybe by 12 points rather than 30. Here’s just a few of the really bad calls that stood out to me.
- I cannot believe that Melbourne didn’t have a player penalised and sent to the bin after Lee picked up that loose ball and ran 80m with it. He was tackled and was trying to play the ball but it took forever and almost the whole Melbourne defensive line was able to get set before we could pass the ball, then Munster was ruled offside anyway and wasn’t binned. Given they then binned Lee later on I thought that was really harsh.
- While I agree with Barnett being on report for that crusher tackle didn’t Cam Smith do one about 5 mins before that to DSaf and it was deemed ok?
- Just in general the refs allowed Melbourne to lay all over us in the ruck and slow the play down as much as possible. Let pulls, facials, hand on the ball you name it.
- We were also pinged for about 5 forward passes in this game and there was only one that I thought was actually forward while the rest were flat or 50/50 at worst. Melbourne threw several worse than that weren’t picked up. In fact the refs generally let those 50/50 ones go most of the time so felt very harsh that we kept getting hammered for them.
Overall we had a really off day and we payed the price. That being said Melbourne in Melbourne is the toughest road trip in the NRL and you have to play basically a perfect game to beat them down there. The boys need to learn from it and be better. Once Origin is done we need to be firing from all cylinders so hopefully we can get through the next few weeks with minimal injury disruptions and push towards the finals.
Realistically though we were bound to have a game like that sooner or later. We had been in terrific form over the previous 6 weeks but we have played the 3 best sides back-to-back-to-back so it was bound to catch up with us both physically and mentally. At least we’ve got the bye round now which will give the boys another rest so hopefully we’re more switched on for our next game.
While our handling was awful I actually thought we defended really well in the first half. Melbourne were basically camped on our line for most of that time and we turned them away for most of it, one of those tries was from a kick though so they only breached our defensive line once. Even in the second half the floodgates didn’t open until we were down to 12 men so I don’t think we were necessarily that horrible in D.
We had our opportunities as well, Fitz should have scored but dropped the ball with the line wide open and Hunt dropped it over the line at the end, but unfortunately we barely spent any time on the Melbourne 20m zone because we couldn’t get the ball out of our own half most of the game.
I must say I’m a bit concerned with the form of Ramien. He seems to be defending well but he’s had feet for hands over the last 4-5 weeks. I know he wasn’t getting much ball early in the year but since Mann has been at 5/8 he’s been getting a decent amount and whenever he looks like he’s going to crack the defence open he drops the ball or has it stripped out. Maybe he needs to work on his carrying technique.
Also the officiating was really poor in this game and there seemed to be double standards at play all afternoon. Regardless I still think we would have lost but maybe by 12 points rather than 30. Here’s just a few of the really bad calls that stood out to me.
- I cannot believe that Melbourne didn’t have a player penalised and sent to the bin after Lee picked up that loose ball and ran 80m with it. He was tackled and was trying to play the ball but it took forever and almost the whole Melbourne defensive line was able to get set before we could pass the ball, then Munster was ruled offside anyway and wasn’t binned. Given they then binned Lee later on I thought that was really harsh.
- While I agree with Barnett being on report for that crusher tackle didn’t Cam Smith do one about 5 mins before that to DSaf and it was deemed ok?
- Just in general the refs allowed Melbourne to lay all over us in the ruck and slow the play down as much as possible. Let pulls, facials, hand on the ball you name it.
- We were also pinged for about 5 forward passes in this game and there was only one that I thought was actually forward while the rest were flat or 50/50 at worst. Melbourne threw several worse than that weren’t picked up. In fact the refs generally let those 50/50 ones go most of the time so felt very harsh that we kept getting hammered for them.
Overall we had a really off day and we payed the price. That being said Melbourne in Melbourne is the toughest road trip in the NRL and you have to play basically a perfect game to beat them down there. The boys need to learn from it and be better. Once Origin is done we need to be firing from all cylinders so hopefully we can get through the next few weeks with minimal injury disruptions and push towards the finals.
...... along with the chicken wings - Smith did 2 very good ones yesterday, one of which got Herman a beauty. 
