Tatola: Hasn’t really been talked about by many but he deserves praise for his performance as I thought he was great. Very powerful, especially in the part of the game we were going well, he was charging down the field quite nicely. One of the only forwards who genuinely ran hard and he kept pumping those legs every time he went to the line for extra meters. Looking at his stats he ran for 115 meters which is good. Very solid defensively too.
Cook: Man, he started the game on fire!! The first time we’ve really seen his running game in a while and it looked so, so dangerous. He jumped out of dummy half numerous times in that first half which put Manly in two minds while making good meters in the process. Great to see, very potent. Great try assist for our first try as he dumped out of dummy half off a quick play the ball which made three Manly players sit on their heels, mainly Garrick. This created the space for Kennar to run into and Cooky delivered a perfect pass to send him over. Great stuff. Awesome try saver on Turbo too!! After a great first half, I was disappointed to see him do absolutely nothing in the second. He went completely into his shell. He actually got pretty sloppy and arm-grabby in defence too. His effort on Brooks when he scored was just inexcusable.
Keppie: Not an awful lot to write home about, but that’s not to say he had a bad game in his official debut for the club. I was still impressed. Loved his aggression, particularly when he laid out Koula early on with that massive hit. Then the rest of the game was solid with his carries. Well done Keep!
Koloamatangi: I can’t say well done to Keaon as he was honestly one of our most disappointing on the night. His stats read okay, but I thought he was very average after watching the game twice. He doesn’t run hard anymore; he just dawdles into the line or tries to do stupid steppy shit which often resulted in him being stopped in his tracks. I think there was many only one run where I genuinely said, “Good carry Keaon!” The rest were weak and lazy. Also, a terrible tackle attempt on Olakau’atu when he scored. Didn’t put his body on the line at all and just slid straight off in a really poor effort. For such a big man, he played well under his weight. Very disappointing.
Arrow: I thought Jai was also pretty quiet in this one, I don’t have too much to say about him at all which says it all for him really. He did seem to struggle with injury a bit though.
Murray: A great performance as we have come to expect from Captain Cam. He’s one of the only forwards who really gave it their all and worked their asses off. He ran so sharply and so hard, constantly poked his nose through. You heard the crowd go “ohhh,” on many of his runs which is a sign that they were pretty strong. For a somewhat smaller guy, it always amazes me how much he punches above his weight. Plenty of clean up work around the ruck as always too. He worked himself to an absolute stand still and was just such a leader yet again. Failed to stop Croker’s try in probably the only downer of his night. An interesting point that I can’t believe no one has discussed though was him on an edge! He moved out there when Liva came on which is actually pretty big news. I like it though and while he didn’t have a lot of joy there in this game, that won’t always be the case.
Havili: Liva’s performance didn’t really stand out to me too much after first watch live but watching the replay, man, he stood out massively!! He was actually incredible!! Came on in the lock position and his impact off the bench was incredible! Really strong carries and I noted that he didn’t get put on his back at all, not even once which is crazy. His ball playing was exceptional too as he popped up through the middle so often and he’d do a two pass, often to another forward and this worked particularly well. He formed a good one-two punch with Tom which gave us a lot of momentum. Good stuff Liva! As good as Duncan is, I’d find it hard to leave Liva out of that role for Round 2 the way he played the other day.
Host: Nothing to say except very underwhelming. He only had four runs. Pretty poor.
Moale: Davvy was also pretty poor to be deadest honest. I expected big things, but it fell flat for him. His carries weren’t that strong, he got monstered a couple of times and made that error which started our collapse. You just can’t afford to do that after points.
Burgess: Tommy was strong. Really strong. Love his first touch! Brown came at him hard off the line and Tom actually put on a bit of footwork and stepped straight past him!! From that point on he was very strong. Plenty of barnstorming runs and constantly carried defenders with him. His kick off returns were menacing. Great way individually to start his final year at the club.
Conclusion
Look, a bit of a weird one when you really take a step back and look at it. It was like two different teams out there wearing the red and green. The one that played for the first 50 minutes was pretty good, they put in a performance to be proud of and something to really build off. The second team that played the last 30 were just diabolical and looked like the 2023 Rabbitohs.
I will say that I am a little concerned, despite playing well in patches. We really have our work cut out for us now and the pressure is on heading into Round 2. We have a week to respond and fix up plenty of stuff. Hopefully we can do it.
It’s Round 1, let’s not throw our toys out of the cot. I admit to being a bit worried but it’s a long Season. Enjoy the ride.
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