North Queensland got the win. Two points in the bag, but I have serious misgivings over the performance.
There just doesn't seem to be an adequate game plan going into these games without Thurston. Payne and Bowen are seemingly always in two minds over which direction to take the team, and Thompson is left without a focused role. When you couple this some atrocious defence and you get a side that is limping to victories against very weak sides and will get belted by anyone who shows up with an attitude to win.
What I see in the side at the present time is a lot of selfishness. Wingers are seeing a paucity of the football. This is resulting from centres, backrowers and even the halves deciding they will take the line on as opposed to putting the ball through hands. They can't all see themselves as heros.
We saw both ends of the spectrum last night of course in two distinct plays. When we finally showed a passing game the result was an electric passage which resulted in KFFL streaking away down the sideline, he then displayed tremendous vision to put the ball on the toe which lead to the try. Fabulous stuff! But then juxtapose that with Tonga's effort on his try when he clearly would have been better served by passing on to KFFL, you then get a sense of the greediness which some of the players possess. Tonga is not the only one guilty of this charge.
At any rate this needs to change if we are to beat Penrith next week. They had us pretty figured out the last time we met and I doubt their game plan will change much. Simply put the side needs to loosen things up and get the ball to the players who can do real damage.
