Well that truly sucked.
Folks with IQs too low to make funny comments will crow about it, but I honestly don't think we could have done a lot more than we did. Penrith were literally that good. Which sucks because 3/4 of their team and fans are total pieces of shit.
Like, we started with plenty of intensity and we tried to do what we did in the reg season, but they just burned it out of us with their linespeed and power.
We defended great for the whole first half with less than 40% of the footy but they were still good enough to take advantage of just about our only three lapses. We could have been down literally 36-0.
We made some mistakes in attack but the game was at miracale stations against an absolute wall by the time we even got a sniff.
I think the Bunker f**ked us on all but one or two calls, roughly, but it was 18-0 before any of that started and it cost us nothing.
Brown catches Edwards out with an early kick but he still makes his ground. Mahoney puts Simonsson away with the cleverest kick he's ever made and Edwards eats him alive.
I don't think any 2022 team gets near them tonight.
End of the day we were basically never in the fight which most of us predicted as most likely.
I'm happy as a fan that we never quit, IMO. I liked that we tried some shit and that we recognised we needed to unsettle them if we were a chance. But they were just too good. I don't think we had a specifically bad player but every black jersey was better than their opposite. I don't think any of our boys left anything out there.
We probably need to reassess our backline structure moving forward. Dunster would probs be there full strength for his size and strength, but we have to do better than Blake who is fading badly. Simonsson is a backup. We need a quality hooker. Next year is probably out of the question with the players leaving but if we keep the core together the stuff about the window closing is premature. We probably need a succession plan for Gutho, who is still good enough esp as a passing fullback but losing speed all the time.
Anyway, lucky I have a bottle of cheap rotgut whiskey for the rest of the f**ken night.
