Need I say it was disappointing to watch. Like some who attended the Hunter Harvest, I taped the game and watched it at about 11pm - someone told me we lost though.
But I'm disappointed more in the fact the Roosters just overpowered us early and we never recovered. The first 20 minutes, the Knights just weren't on their game. Our forwards got hammered, our backs just couldn't find any space to move, we were forever coming out of our own territory, and our kick-chase was at lowly level.
Kurt Gidley, sorry to say, had an ordinary game and must have felt highly disappointed in his performance. After some very good performances from him in previous weeks, his kicking game let him down and the Knights just couldn't get the field position in order for them to rely on him to create something to score. Not finding touch on a penalty, and sending it straight to the fullback on many kicks must be disappointing for Kurt - he is a quality player who just couldn't manage to put together the right performance on the night.
Our forwards, with the exception of Buderus and Kennedy, were far too quiet. They were outmuscled early, and never recovered. Mistakes on our part, some strong runs from the Roosters, and a few penalties rubbed into the wounds just exacerbated the situation - we lost because we were outplayed.
You look for Perry, Parsons, Simpson, Kennedy etc to all make metres - they all showed glimpses of a good performance, but many of our forwards just couldn't manage to make the metres and get themselves in position to tackle effectively.
I tipped the Knights to prove a few people wrong last night - unfortunately I was wrong, and I'm the first to admit it. But, if anything, it goes to show how well the Roosters played - they outgunned and out-flanked us in all areas, and though the Knights were keen and fired up, they had all the wind knocked out of their sails by a menacing first 20 minutes that saw 22 points scored against us compared to just two on our scoresheet.
Our kicking and fifth-tackle options weren't their best last night, but even Johns couldn't have won us the game - full credit to the Roosters.