Valheru
Coach
- Messages
- 19,511
To me this was a classic example of what happens when your team is in poor form and playing with low confidence. The bulldogs were sub par yesterday and we were arguably the better team for the final 45 minutes of the game but the early dropped ball and silly penalties cost us in the end. For me, the real turning point was Tupou fumbling that dropout when we were down to 12 men. If he holds on to that and we manage to score or at least keep the ball down their end for a couple more minutes it is a completely different game IMO.
Anyways, I thought there were a few positives yesterday including Latrell who is really coming along nicely, he seems to have minimised those mistakes and positioning errors that plagued him the first 2 months. Pearce I thought was great with what little attacking ball he had and he seems to be returning to form too. Our forwards out muscled theirs when we finally found parity in possession due to actually holding on to the ball with Cordner once again being the pick. For the 2nd week in a row I thought our defence was quite solid for most of the game. That seems odd to say given we conceded 5 tries but 3 of those included 2 rebounds off kicks that happened to go straight to their players and an offload that went to no one, was picked up by 2 bulldogs players simultaneously who managed not to knock it on.
The negatives, our 2-5 just aren't getting it done at the moment with Tupou being most glaringly out of form, he really needs to be dropped at this point. Aubusson and Guerra just aren't centres (more on Guerra later) and I am not sure what to make of Fergo, he had no impact in attack because he was on the wing but he has been a defensive liability at centre lately which disappeared yesterday. I think his attacking prowess wins out and we need to put him at centre and hopefully the defence will come. For me, when SKD comes back we should go with Elliot, SKD, Fergo and ?? (someone new) in the 2-5 positions. Aiden Guerra, I have NFI what is happening with him at the moment, Tupou is woefully out of form but Guerra looks like he is deadest dogging it and not trying.
As for the halves situation, it is hard to judge Matterson on yesterday's performance but I am sure Jackson will be back sooner than later with Matterson at centre possibly.
As I mentioned earlier, we lost because of the early errors but FMD the bunker had another shocker. I am not sure why they felt the need to over turn a scrum based on flimsy evidence at best but didn't feel the need to alert the referee to a blatant professional foul. Either intervene willy nilly or don't at all. As for the 2 disallowed tries, I think the obstruction one is fair enough as it is at least consistent but the Morriss one was a joke, he was never going for that ball and all he was trying to do was block Fergo who was all eyes for the ball.
3 Latrell
2 Pearce
1 Cordner
Anyways, I thought there were a few positives yesterday including Latrell who is really coming along nicely, he seems to have minimised those mistakes and positioning errors that plagued him the first 2 months. Pearce I thought was great with what little attacking ball he had and he seems to be returning to form too. Our forwards out muscled theirs when we finally found parity in possession due to actually holding on to the ball with Cordner once again being the pick. For the 2nd week in a row I thought our defence was quite solid for most of the game. That seems odd to say given we conceded 5 tries but 3 of those included 2 rebounds off kicks that happened to go straight to their players and an offload that went to no one, was picked up by 2 bulldogs players simultaneously who managed not to knock it on.
The negatives, our 2-5 just aren't getting it done at the moment with Tupou being most glaringly out of form, he really needs to be dropped at this point. Aubusson and Guerra just aren't centres (more on Guerra later) and I am not sure what to make of Fergo, he had no impact in attack because he was on the wing but he has been a defensive liability at centre lately which disappeared yesterday. I think his attacking prowess wins out and we need to put him at centre and hopefully the defence will come. For me, when SKD comes back we should go with Elliot, SKD, Fergo and ?? (someone new) in the 2-5 positions. Aiden Guerra, I have NFI what is happening with him at the moment, Tupou is woefully out of form but Guerra looks like he is deadest dogging it and not trying.
As for the halves situation, it is hard to judge Matterson on yesterday's performance but I am sure Jackson will be back sooner than later with Matterson at centre possibly.
As I mentioned earlier, we lost because of the early errors but FMD the bunker had another shocker. I am not sure why they felt the need to over turn a scrum based on flimsy evidence at best but didn't feel the need to alert the referee to a blatant professional foul. Either intervene willy nilly or don't at all. As for the 2 disallowed tries, I think the obstruction one is fair enough as it is at least consistent but the Morriss one was a joke, he was never going for that ball and all he was trying to do was block Fergo who was all eyes for the ball.
3 Latrell
2 Pearce
1 Cordner
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