Valheru
Coach
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Well you thought last week was a rant @Babyface O'reilly, strap yourself in because this is probably best described as a mild meltdown...
What an insipid performance that was. We had a few missing but we had enough talent on the field to win that game by 20+. I'm sure we all felt an air of inevitability once Hook was sacked which is a sad indictment on this current team as previous iterations of the roosters would have still rolled over the dragons.
The first half was absolutely diabolical and the worst I have seen the side since 2016. The attack was slow, meandering and predictable and didn't look like getting close to cracking the dragons defence. Our defence was ok like it has been all year but as I said last week they are now defending with no confidence in their attack so their defence will inevitably fail.
Let's go through some of the "highlights" of the game.
We started well in terms of yardage and ball control but as mentioned looked no real threat of actually scoring. Then we put up kick number 750 to the corner for the year and Suli runs away for a length of the field try. Apparently Robbo said at halftime that was unlucky, I hope he doesn't actually believe that because this wasn't a case of a contest in the air where the ball hit the ground and there was an unlucky bounce scooped up by the opposition, what actually happened was rugby Joe proved that not even his height is useful anymore completely failing to force a contest meaning the ball fell in Suli's lap and he and Paulo just watched him run away. From there the errors set in and we spent most of the rest of the half camped on our own line. If it was most other teams we probably are down 20+ at the half but it was the dragons so only 14-0. Oh and let's not forget Radley having a brain explosion and headbutting someone for absolutely no reason. He can thank his coach pressuring the officials for not being binned but I reckon Robbo would preferred him to be binned and save the good grace for a time he didn't deserve it.
The first 25 minutes of the 2nd half was actually pretty good, Keary and Teddy remembered that they could play footy and started producing some decent plays and we found ourselves 16-14 up with 15 minutes to go and the dragons looked like they were ready to go home... but of course the derp set in form there... Rugby Joe, probably embarrassed about his lack of effort the last few weeks though an offload to Keary who wasn't even looking was appropriate on his own 25m line which gave dragons the momentum back. From there it was a mistakeathon again ending with that feeble defence on the left hand side for a crash play that Stevie Wonder could see coming.
Still, Teddy decided to take things in to his own hands and came up with some brilliance to see us take a 4 point lead with 5 minutes to go. Surely the team could close it out from here right? Well let's go through that last play with a fine tooth comb.... 30 seconds to go and the dragons are 40m out and on a mild roll, Victor Radley decides to just stay down and not get back to marker allowing Hunt to run 10m forward. Do whatever you have to do to slow the play down there, give away 6 again, get binned if you have to, don't juist let them run out of dummy half with momentum. Hunt puts up an average kick and who do we have contesting it ***checks notes*** Lindsay Collins!!! Billy Smith was at least in the frame, I have no idea where Corey Allen was. The winger has to be there to contest the ball, bat it out, knock it on, anything is better than not contesting. From there the dragons re-gather and somehow have a 4 on 1 overlap, what the f**k is the defensive line doing there? Paulo is near the goal post which I assume is a reaction to everyone inside him moving over. Paulo at least tried his best to get back, meanwhile Rugby joe was jogging and for some unknown reason was in the dragons attacking line. It would be comedic if it wasn't so tragic.
Now, there were actually some things that went against us in this game, Hutch must have been damn close to the line on the awkward one where he was sliding and spun around, stays a try if called that way on the field. I'm not convinced the dragons player doesn't lose the ball on that crash play and the most egregious one was Su'a being offside on the Hunt kick and being within 10 of the contest. That one isn't being spoken about at all but you can bet your bottom dollar it would be if it was reversed. But at the end of the day you leave yourself susceptible to these things when you play like shit for 55 minutes and we didn't deserve to win anything based on that first half.
Ok, so now we have a team packed with talent sitting in 12th spot on the ladder which is nowhere close to good enough. There is no doubt we are the worst performed team in regards to talent to results ratio and I would say there is a good argument for us being the worst team full stop. Let me share the following... we have the 3rd worst F/A and we are the ONLY team to not score 30 or more points in a game so far this season... let that sink in.
The thing we do have in our favour is the tightness of the comp which I expect to continue the whole season. I actually do think we will turn things around in the context of where we are at now and probably still make the 8 but it is very difficult to see us turning things around to the point of competing with the likes of Penrith which is where this team should be so something drastic needs to change sooner than later.
Walker obviously needs to come back and will do so with manu injured. We need to get rid of rugby Joe, the bloke is done. I know we are a bit thin with Manu, Tupou and Momo all out but once they return I'm more than happy with a Teddy, Tupou, Manu, Smith, Paulo backline although I could cop Sualli being given a chance on the wing.
Bulldogs is a an absolute must win otherwise we truly are at rock bottom. The bye will help with injuries and the titans probably did us a favour capitulating against them yesterday
3 Teddy
2 Keary
1 No one
What an insipid performance that was. We had a few missing but we had enough talent on the field to win that game by 20+. I'm sure we all felt an air of inevitability once Hook was sacked which is a sad indictment on this current team as previous iterations of the roosters would have still rolled over the dragons.
The first half was absolutely diabolical and the worst I have seen the side since 2016. The attack was slow, meandering and predictable and didn't look like getting close to cracking the dragons defence. Our defence was ok like it has been all year but as I said last week they are now defending with no confidence in their attack so their defence will inevitably fail.
Let's go through some of the "highlights" of the game.
We started well in terms of yardage and ball control but as mentioned looked no real threat of actually scoring. Then we put up kick number 750 to the corner for the year and Suli runs away for a length of the field try. Apparently Robbo said at halftime that was unlucky, I hope he doesn't actually believe that because this wasn't a case of a contest in the air where the ball hit the ground and there was an unlucky bounce scooped up by the opposition, what actually happened was rugby Joe proved that not even his height is useful anymore completely failing to force a contest meaning the ball fell in Suli's lap and he and Paulo just watched him run away. From there the errors set in and we spent most of the rest of the half camped on our own line. If it was most other teams we probably are down 20+ at the half but it was the dragons so only 14-0. Oh and let's not forget Radley having a brain explosion and headbutting someone for absolutely no reason. He can thank his coach pressuring the officials for not being binned but I reckon Robbo would preferred him to be binned and save the good grace for a time he didn't deserve it.
The first 25 minutes of the 2nd half was actually pretty good, Keary and Teddy remembered that they could play footy and started producing some decent plays and we found ourselves 16-14 up with 15 minutes to go and the dragons looked like they were ready to go home... but of course the derp set in form there... Rugby Joe, probably embarrassed about his lack of effort the last few weeks though an offload to Keary who wasn't even looking was appropriate on his own 25m line which gave dragons the momentum back. From there it was a mistakeathon again ending with that feeble defence on the left hand side for a crash play that Stevie Wonder could see coming.
Still, Teddy decided to take things in to his own hands and came up with some brilliance to see us take a 4 point lead with 5 minutes to go. Surely the team could close it out from here right? Well let's go through that last play with a fine tooth comb.... 30 seconds to go and the dragons are 40m out and on a mild roll, Victor Radley decides to just stay down and not get back to marker allowing Hunt to run 10m forward. Do whatever you have to do to slow the play down there, give away 6 again, get binned if you have to, don't juist let them run out of dummy half with momentum. Hunt puts up an average kick and who do we have contesting it ***checks notes*** Lindsay Collins!!! Billy Smith was at least in the frame, I have no idea where Corey Allen was. The winger has to be there to contest the ball, bat it out, knock it on, anything is better than not contesting. From there the dragons re-gather and somehow have a 4 on 1 overlap, what the f**k is the defensive line doing there? Paulo is near the goal post which I assume is a reaction to everyone inside him moving over. Paulo at least tried his best to get back, meanwhile Rugby joe was jogging and for some unknown reason was in the dragons attacking line. It would be comedic if it wasn't so tragic.
Now, there were actually some things that went against us in this game, Hutch must have been damn close to the line on the awkward one where he was sliding and spun around, stays a try if called that way on the field. I'm not convinced the dragons player doesn't lose the ball on that crash play and the most egregious one was Su'a being offside on the Hunt kick and being within 10 of the contest. That one isn't being spoken about at all but you can bet your bottom dollar it would be if it was reversed. But at the end of the day you leave yourself susceptible to these things when you play like shit for 55 minutes and we didn't deserve to win anything based on that first half.
Ok, so now we have a team packed with talent sitting in 12th spot on the ladder which is nowhere close to good enough. There is no doubt we are the worst performed team in regards to talent to results ratio and I would say there is a good argument for us being the worst team full stop. Let me share the following... we have the 3rd worst F/A and we are the ONLY team to not score 30 or more points in a game so far this season... let that sink in.
The thing we do have in our favour is the tightness of the comp which I expect to continue the whole season. I actually do think we will turn things around in the context of where we are at now and probably still make the 8 but it is very difficult to see us turning things around to the point of competing with the likes of Penrith which is where this team should be so something drastic needs to change sooner than later.
Walker obviously needs to come back and will do so with manu injured. We need to get rid of rugby Joe, the bloke is done. I know we are a bit thin with Manu, Tupou and Momo all out but once they return I'm more than happy with a Teddy, Tupou, Manu, Smith, Paulo backline although I could cop Sualli being given a chance on the wing.
Bulldogs is a an absolute must win otherwise we truly are at rock bottom. The bye will help with injuries and the titans probably did us a favour capitulating against them yesterday
3 Teddy
2 Keary
1 No one
