Drinkwater is the key. He was in great form in the middle of last year and then got shut-down in the finals. If they can get him firing again they go on a bit of a run.
I disagree mate.
In the prelim loss, the biggest problem for mine was the soft defence in the middle by the forwards especially on the goal line and 10m out, last tackle options where they had success early in the game by kicking high to Waqa Blake they then barely went his way on the last for the rest of the game. Instead they were kicking to Sivo............ who would you rather having to tackle on a kick chase? Blake has issues under the high ball, I don't know why they started kicking to the more destructive ball running winger, if it was to tire him out then it honesty backfired for mine and they only tired themselves out in D.
This also highlighted that sending the ball on the last to Townsend everytime who plays on the RH side exclusively, means he will generally then kick to the oppositions LH side, they needed Dearden to start to demand the ball on the last and provide a point of doubt in the defences mind as well as putting a kick into the opposite side of the field.
NQ were on top with the ball early in the 2nd half, making pretty good metres by playing direct and simple through the middle, they then let a few try's in from their own stupidity and started to panic and then started to look to go sideways and as a result their yardage was a lot less. Townsend, Dearden and Drinky needed to go back to what was working earlier and trust the process.
Winning the prelim was going to be a futile exercise as they were only going to get their asses handed to them by Penrith the next week....... especially with no Lolo due to suspension.