Daily Telegraph: Feleti Mateo launches Eel attack

[The European Polynesian]

Maitua and Ben Smith are miles better defenders than Feleti. Even Lasalo is better.

Who cares? And who gives a shit about missed tackles? Look at the whole picture: (since you're a big stats man) points scored against the Warriors this year, 16.4 on average which is 5th best in the competition. 7th best in the competition for points scored. One could quite easily extrapolate from this that we are a stronger defensive side than we are an attacking one.

 

[SDM]

Is that 29 including you ?

Nah 30, my opinion counts double

 

[SDM]

Btw Mateo = fat and lazy and two time gf loser

 

[Poupou Escobar]

f**k I hope not.

I couldn't handle it if Judas won another grand final.

 

[SDM]

Have you been watching the games. Moanly will shit it in, unfortunately. Manly 5-1 penalties at half time, and unlike the Tigers, they wont choke.

 

[Eels Dude]

I'm not crediting him; I'm pointing out his priorities.

For the record I think we're much better off with only two players on about half a million and having better depth.

But who could Melbourne really get rid of out of their big three? Cam Smith is the most important player in their side (we saw that in the 2008 grand final) - he's the captain, the goalkicker and directs all their attack around the ruck. On top of that he offers 80 minutes of top notch defence in the middle third.

Then there's Cronk who is also a key leader at the club. He's a great general play kicker, organises all the shifts and is one of the best defensive halfbacks going around.

So that leaves Slater, who is probably the easiest of the three to replace on the field - Widdop or Duffy can play fullback to a high level - and Slater has no kicking game to speak of. But he's Billy Slater for God's sake. He's a Melbourne Storm and NRL icon.

I kind of feel Bellamy is stuck with these three, and therefore stuck with the 22 man reserve grade squad surrounding them (an exaggeration of course but they do lack a lot of quality across the park).

We'll have a lot of balance next year with only Hayne and Sandow as 'indispensibles'. The fact Hayne can kick means we have two kicking options in centrefield, so we can play just about anyone in the 6 jersey. And with our strong front-row and Sandow's brilliance at 7 we don't need a world beater at hooker.

I think we've got a really good team for next year and I'm excited.

The NRL couldn't force Melbourne to release certain players, just to release players. They got rid of Inglis yes but only after they realised it was the only way they'd be able get under the cap and compete for points this year again.

The fact is that they retained Smith, Cronk, Slater last time contract negotiations were up with all of them and if they didn't cheat one if not more of them would be playing for other clubs right now.

I agree with your assessment on all three players but it is the cheating that enabled them to retain those 3 players and until we see Bellamy perform with a squad that doesn't contain them it's difficult to judge his ability as a coach.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Have you been watching the games. Moanly will shit it in, unfortunately. Manly 5-1 penalties at half time, and unlike the Tigers, they wont choke.

Don't say that.

 

[The EELiminator]

The NRL couldn't force Melbourne to release certain players, just to release players. They got rid of Inglis yes but only after they realised it was the only way they'd be able get under the cap and compete for points this year again.

The fact is that they retained Smith, Cronk, Slater last time contract negotiations were up with all of them and if they didn't cheat one if not more of them would be playing for other clubs right now.

I agree with your assessment on all three players but it is the cheating that enabled them to retain those 3 players and until we see Bellamy perform with a squad that doesn't contain them it's difficult to judge his ability as a coach.

we will see how good the storm really are when smith, cronk and slater's contracts expire and they are all offered 3 times more money to go elsewhere welcome to our world mr bellamy

 

[The EELiminator]

Have you been watching the games. Moanly will shit it in, unfortunately. Manly 5-1 penalties at half time, and unlike the Tigers, they wont choke.

the storm had plenty of penalties too it didnt help them any :lol:
ivan cleary came up with a game plan to shut the storm down and it worked to perfection im sure he has some aces up his sleeve for manly as well

 

[Eels Dude]

we will see how good the storm really are when smith, cronk and slater's contracts expire and they are all offered 3 times more money to go elsewhere welcome to our world mr bellamy

Exactly. It also helps when News Ltd give a blank check to the Melbourne Storm for coaching staff, recruitment staff etc, and any other off field expendatures.

 

[TheParraboy]

Smith would have been at the Titans if not for their rorting.

 

[The EELiminator]

Smith would have been at the Titans if not for their rorting.

he might get there yet ;-)

 

[SDM]

Smith would have been at the Titans if not for their rorting.

This probably cost us the wooden spoon

 

[Poupou Escobar]

The fact is that they retained Smith, Cronk, Slater last time contract negotiations were up with all of them and if they didn't cheat one if not more of them would be playing for other clubs right now.

Not necessarily. They could have worked their roster the same way they've done it now - with three players on $1.8 million or thereabouts, and the other 22 sharing $2.5 million.

They've shown they'll move heaven and earth to keep them so I'm sure that's what they would have done at contract time. The cost is reduced quality through the rest of the squad but Bellamy proved this year he's happy to go that way.

I agree with your assessment on all three players but it is the cheating that enabled them to retain those 3 players and until we see Bellamy perform with a squad that doesn't contain them it's difficult to judge his ability as a coach.

True.

I think he's one of the top coaches in the game but it's a fact that he's never won anything more than a minor premiership.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

we will see how good the storm really are when smith, cronk and slater's contracts expire and they are all offered 3 times more money to go elsewhere welcome to our world mr bellamy

This is the thing. Smith and Slater are already two of the highest paid players in the game. Who's going to offer them more money?

Cronk could certainly get more somewhere else and he's got one big 2-3 year contract in front of him when he finishes his current one at age 29.

 

[The EELiminator]

This is the thing. Smith and Slater are already two of the highest paid players in the game. Who's going to offer them more money?

other clubs could probably only match what the storm are paying now under the cap you would need someone with a LOT of third party sponsors to make up the slack roosters maybe?

 

[TheParraboy]

This probably cost us the wooden spoon

and cost us a GF win ;-)

 

[Eels Dude]

Not necessarily. They could have worked their roster the same way they've done it now - with three players on $1.8 million or thereabouts, and the other 22 sharing $2.5 million.

They've shown they'll move heaven and earth to keep them so I'm sure that's what they would have done at contract time. The cost is reduced quality through the rest of the squad but Bellamy proved this year he's happy to go that way.

They could have sure. But if they could have done it legally why did they resort to cheating in the first place?

The point is the cheating helped them retain those players and we'll never know if they would have retained them had they not broken the rules so doubt must be cast there.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

They could have sure. But if they could have done it legally why did they resort to cheating in the first place?

Because they didn't want to surround them with reserve graders; they wanted to keep players like Inglis, Hoffman, Finch, White, Tolman and Chambers.

The point is the cheating helped them retain those players and we'll never know if they would have retained them had they not broken the rules so doubt must be cast there.

Well we do mate, because when they were finally forced to shed players they cut absolutely everyone they could so as not to have to lose those three.

 

[Eels Dude]

Because they didn't want to surround them with reserve graders; they wanted to keep players like Inglis, Hoffman, Finch, White, Tolman and Chambers.

That wasn't Bellamy's choice though. I don't believe he had anything to do with actual rorting that went on. It was those above him who didn't have the confidence in the ability of him and the other lower graders in the squad that forced their hand.

Well we do mate, because when they were finally forced to shed players they cut absolutely everyone they could so as not to have to lose those three.

That is true. But as I said that would necessarily been the been the case in trying to retain them when they were off contract. The Storm last year were bound by their contracts to all players including the big 4. That enabled them to spend months negotiating with those players as none of the other clubs in the NRL could speak to them without the Storm's permission.