Charity Shield

[hardbaby]

The team is pedestrian, crumsy, disinterested and downright wooden spoon material. QUOTE]

It's a typo but a good one. Crumsy. Both clumsy and crumby. Good if you are a clown or a piece of bread. Not good if you are a football team.

 

[Drain the Dragon]

Guess what, just checked the 2013 competition ladder, and all teams are still even on zero points.
I'm waiting until we start playing for 2 points before laying into the coach and the squad.
I think that's fair enough. Some forumers have already consigned us to the scrapheap without a ball in the season being kicked.....makes you wonder why the trials are even played at all now. 2 trial losses and we're crap apparently.

 

[happyG]

Hard to believe now that this time just 2 years ago we were the best rugby league team in the world - bar none. How did we fall so far, so fast? What happened to Bennett's claim that he'd put the systems in place to enable long term consistency in our performances???

he can put them place, probably did, but someone competent needed to take over. unfortunately, as nice a bloke price is, he is not going to win us a comp.

 

[BrissyRedV]

Guess what, just checked the 2013 competition ladder, and all teams are still even on zero points.
I'm waiting until we start playing for 2 points before laying into the coach and the squad.
I think that's fair enough. Some forumers have already consigned us to the scrapheap without a ball in the season being kicked.....makes you wonder why the trials are even played at all now. 2 trial losses and we're crap apparently.

Agreed. We need to give ol' Steve a fair go. 1 bad season and 2 trial games and we asking for heads? Sure we weren't as sharp as Souths but we have had a lot more player movement in key positions then them and from what I was seeing we were starting to show some good signs during that 2nd half. If I put it this way, if it wasn't for the last Souths try off the poor offload from DeBelin we win the 2nd half 10 - 6 which IMO isn't bad againest a team tipped to finish top 4. Sure we were shit in the first half but that is more down to the basics than anything structurally or defensively wrong.

 

[Mr Red]

Hard to believe now that this time just 2 years ago we were the best rugby league team in the world - bar none. How did we fall so far, so fast? What happened to Bennett's claim that he'd put the systems in place to enable long term consistency in our performances???

Price has chosen to ignore those systems and "be his own man".

 

[Mr Red]

Guess what, just checked the 2013 competition ladder, and all teams are still even on zero points
I'm waiting until we start playing for 2 points before laying into the coach and the squad.
I think that's fair enough. Some forumers have already consigned us to the scrapheap without a ball in the season being kicked.....makes you wonder why the trials are even played at all now. 2 trial losses and we're crap apparently.

its not the losses that are the problem, as you said they are only trials... the concern is that there are already the same signs in the way we play that were evident all last season..

- lack of aggression or intensity
- playing the game at half the speed of the oppositon
- our forwards getting rolled easily the first 20 minutes
- not real signs of any inventive set plays or attacking moves
- some guys seeming disinterested

not worry about errors, or the losses... more the other factors mentioned. very concerning seeing guys look sluggish already.. at the very least they should be enthusiastic and show intensity for the start of the season

 

[gypsy]

Bennett realised he was a one trick pony. As other teams adapted to our one dimensional game plans, Bennett realised it was best to leave.

 

[Old_Timer]

its not the losses that are the problem, as you said they are only trials... the concern is that there are already the same signs in the way we play that were evident all last season..

- lack of aggression or intensity
- playing the game at half the speed of the oppositon
- our forwards getting rolled easily the first 20 minutes
- not real signs of any inventive set plays or attacking moves
- some guys seeming disinterested

not worry about errors, or the losses... more the other factors mentioned. very concerning seeing guys look sluggish already.. at the very least they should be enthusiastic and show intensity for the start of the season

Spot on Mr Red. If what has been dished up so far and we are not even out of the blocks in the footy marathon, we are in deep trouble.

 

[Drain the Dragon]

Agreed. We need to give ol' Steve a fair go. 1 bad season and 2 trial games and we asking for heads? Sure we weren't as sharp as Souths but we have had a lot more player movement in key positions then them and from what I was seeing we were starting to show some good signs during that 2nd half. If I put it this way, if it wasn't for the last Souths try off the poor offload from DeBelin we win the 2nd half 10 - 6 which IMO isn't bad againest a team tipped to finish top 4. Sure we were shit in the first half but that is more down to the basics than anything structurally or defensively wrong.

YES. I'm sometimes accused of being too optimistic but in this case it's more a case of being fair before jumping in to criticise. We can all see that the side is rebuilding and not the machine we were under Bennett, but fair crack, give these guys an opportunity to succeed or fail in the season proper . A little patience from the supporters wouldnt hurt either. There were some signs in the trials that were positive, but all I'm seeing is negativity. Beaten before we start.....

 

[happyG]

There were some signs in the trials that were positive

jack de bellin.

 

[64 Dragon]

Hard to believe now that this time just 2 years ago we were the best rugby league team in the world - bar none. How did we fall so far, so fast? What happened to Bennett's claim that he'd put the systems in place to enable long term consistency in our performances???

He was lying!!!!!!!!

 

[redbreed]

its not the losses that are the problem, as you said they are only trials... the concern is that there are already the same signs in the way we play that were evident all last season..

- lack of aggression or intensity
- playing the game at half the speed of the oppositon
- our forwards getting rolled easily the first 20 minutes
- not real signs of any inventive set plays or attacking moves
- some guys seeming disinterested

not worry about errors, or the losses... more the other factors mentioned. very concerning seeing guys look sluggish already.. at the very least they should be enthusiastic and show intensity for the start of the season

They are my key concerns as well. I hope it might be a case of they really did get flogged in preseason and he might be tappering the workload for the start of the season. He might be just seeing how they play under fatigue. Wishful thinking I know but if he has done this its not a bad tactic.

 

[Fire]

We went OK.

Pros - Rein and King were great. The forwards we great. Morris and Nighty were in vintage form. Matt Prior killed it.

Cons - Soward has to spark. Beale looked a little light, maybe he needs to put 5kg back on. Me old mate Fieny has to go to the Cutters. I love him but age has caught up with him.

I'm not worrying until we've played a few of those games were the NRL gives you 2 competition points for getting a win.

 

[Johnny-b-Goode]

We went OK.

Pros - Rein and King were great. The forwards we great. Morris and Nighty were in vintage form. Matt Prior killed it.

Cons - Soward has to spark. Beale looked a little light, maybe he needs to put 5kg back on. Me old mate Fieny has to go to the Cutters. I love him but age has caught up with him.

I'm not worrying until we've played a few of those games were the NRL gives you 2 competition points for getting a win.

Agree 100% ... + I love your sig... Craig field, he was the worst nrl player ever... And now is a bit of a joke after the game as well..

 

[Fire]

Thanks mate, just geeing up the souffs fans lol.

 

[big pat]

Thanks mate, just geeing up the souffs fans lol.

thought you might be firing them up.

 

[TruSaint]

We went OK.

Pros - Rein and King were great. The forwards we great. Morris and Nighty were in vintage form. Matt Prior killed it.

Cons - Soward has to spark. Beale looked a little light, maybe he needs to put 5kg back on. Me old mate Fieny has to go to the Cutters. I love him but age has caught up with him.

I'm not worrying until we've played a few of those games were the NRL gives you 2 competition points for getting a win.

Well said, can we reserve judgement atleast until the season starts?
We all agree that based on the squad and the performances in trials, we have a lot to work on. No doubt. Like all here, i am hoping for a good season, albeit optimistic, but lets see what the boys deliver and have some healthy banter about our real prospects.

Fire, i too have a lot of admiration for Nathan, he has been a great player for NZ and us, but yes he;s getting on. What i cant grasp is Beale. At this point he is really struggling both in defence and attack. Fullback will take some time to adjust, but he appears to be lost at times. Thoughts?

 

[big pat]

Well said, can we reserve judgement atleast until the season starts?
We all agree that based on the squad and the performances in trials, we have a lot to work on. No doubt. Like all here, i am hoping for a good season, albeit optimistic, but lets see what the boys deliver and have some healthy banter about our real prospects.

Fire, i too have a lot of admiration for Nathan, he has been a great player for NZ and us, but yes he;s getting on. What i cant grasp is Beale. At this point he is really struggling both in defence and attack. Fullback will take some time to adjust, but he appears to be lost at times. Thoughts?

i remember boyd took a while to get into the fullback role as well, maybe beale needs a bit more time, he certainly will find out what fullback is about first up, against slater and the storm.

 

[Fire]

TruSaint, I agree with Big Pat. Boyd was very quiet for us in 2009, then came good in 2010.

Our backline moves "stuttered" (as you'd expect in trials). Souths backline moves were very sharp, I was surprised. I think this caused Beale to look a bit ordinary.

I thought Beale did look lost in attack and defence at times, but I expected this. Training helps, but executing in games is another thing. I just hope that Price has some good moves (like the left hand sweep we used to do) and he persists with these moves at training, so they'll be second nature to execute in the game.

What worried me more was his lack of size. He's stated that he's lost weight since coming down from Brisbane (because of the amount of running you have to do at full back). But I don't know, he looked to me to have lost too much. Hmmm, the dieticians and trainers will be keeping an eye on him, fingers crossed they are bringing his body/weight along in the correct way.

 

[tumbidragon]

What worried me more was his lack of size..

Ditto mate. He looks almost as light as hodgson. At least Beale won't have to worry about big Gordy though :lol:. I think Beale will come up trumps for us. He showed no fear when bringing the ball back (cringed sometimes though because of his build) but unfortunately we did not get the opportunity to see what he can do in broken play, as Souths kick and chase was tremendous on Friday. I'm backing him big time though.