Eels game.

[slippery5]

Considering McNoidea's post match interview stating "we just need to build on our second half performance " tells me it will be the same players on the field.

 

[hazzbeen]

If Nightingale, and more importantly, Aitken are in the run on side you will hear my scream from one corner of Sydney to the other. Aitken's defence is appalling, as it was through a lot of last year. He had a hand in all three Warrior tries and his much vaulted strength was not evident as he was simply shrugged off by the Warrior's backs. It started with the first Warriors break within the first five minutes by RTS who simply ran through him. That step around an injured Inglis was largely the last positive thing he has done. Lomax at least has size, pace and creativity. He might be green but could he be worse than Aitken at the moment? In game after game he and Nightingale are targeted as coaches know that we are terribly weak there. Lafai is not great but at least he can tackle most of the time. Aitken was smashed by Melbourne, the Roosters and the Tigers. Parramatta will target him again this week and their outside backs are fast. Look Aitken can play but when his confidence is down he rushes in and panics. At the beginning of the year he seemed to trust his instincts and those around him. At the moment he has no confidence and we will see Parra players lining up to run at him.

I will be honest here the way they have been playing most of the teams below them are doing better . Parra the last couple of weeks are playing better footy than us . Hayne looks like he has hit form , for me this could be another loss unless we change something ......

 

[Blood Shot Eyes]

Returning after a long break using Dad's old name. I haven't commented for a long time but my frustration has reached boiling point over the last few weeks. We played so stupidly last week against the Warriors. We have lost twice to them where they used the same tactics against us - they stayed offside and rushed up out wide. In both games we tried to constantly go around them rather than drawing the Warriors in by punching up the middle. In the second half we did play up the middle and scored two quick tries and then we went back to the same old same old, cut out pass, try to go wide and use Dufty coming in between centres. Predictable and slow. I just don't get it. Even allowing for Mary, we have five State of Origin players, two English internationals, a NZ international and several Islander reps, yet we refuse to move from the set script. Mind you I don't know how the Warriors didn't have a player binned. Our players needed to fight more to get to their feet and they should have constantly complained to the referee.

Welcome back and glad your still using Dads name.....your spot on with what youve stated....because we were beaten again by the Warriors and we were far from our best no one really commented on what they got away with....like in our first encounter they were offside all match, they repeatedly laid all over us in the play the ball and were rarely penalised and never binned, whenever they were under the pump they would go down injured, and when they were penalised Shek would continuously start talking to Sutton thus giving his players a rest....thats one thing I dislike about Sutton he spends to much time disagreeing and explaining his decisions with some captains.....blokes like Smith and Thurston are masters at exploiting this.....having said all that we had enough ball in the last 20 in their 20 to score half a dozen tries

 

[Rocket Rod]

The eels are in good form and should probably start favourites
They should’ve beaten Souths And easily beat the titans who had beaten the warriors who in turn beat us
Go figure why we’re short price favourites !

 

[blacksafake]

Considering McNoidea's post match interview stating "we just meed to build on our second half performance " tells me it will be the same players on the field.

Of course it will bar Vaughan

 

[Dennis Papaioannou]

If Nightingale, and more importantly, Aitken are in the run on side you will hear my scream from one corner of Sydney to the other. Aitken's defence is appalling, as it was through a lot of last year. He had a hand in all three Warrior tries and his much vaulted strength was not evident as he was simply shrugged off by the Warrior's backs. It started with the first Warriors break within the first five minutes by RTS who simply ran through him. That step around an injured Inglis was largely the last positive thing he has done. Lomax at least has size, pace and creativity. He might be green but could he be worse than Aitken at the moment? In game after game he and Nightingale are targeted as coaches know that we are terribly weak there. Lafai is not great but at least he can tackle most of the time. Aitken was smashed by Melbourne, the Roosters and the Tigers. Parramatta will target him again this week and their outside backs are fast. Look Aitken can play but when his confidence is down he rushes in and panics. At the beginning of the year he seemed to trust his instincts and those around him. At the moment he has no confidence and we will see Parra players lining up to run at him.

Jennings and Hayne vs Lafai and Aitkin....enough said.

 

[SGMax]

Welcome back and glad your still using Dads name.....your spot on with what youve stated....because we were beaten again by the Warriors and we were far from our best no one really commented on what they got away with....like in our first encounter they were offside all match, they repeatedly laid all over us in the play the ball and were rarely penalised and never binned, whenever they were under the pump they would go down injured, and when they were penalised Shek would continuously start talking to Sutton thus giving his players a rest....thats one thing I dislike about Sutton he spends to much time disagreeing and explaining his decisions with some captains.....blokes like Smith and Thurston are masters at exploiting this.....having said all that we had enough ball in the last 20 in their 20 to score half a dozen tries

Not making excused cos we clearly aren't showing the energy and aggression we played with in the early rounds but......
Hasn't anyone noticed that Saints have come off the boil in line with the relaxing of the off-side penalties by the refs. I think that our forwards do not respond well to defences rushing up (understandably).
The refs have blunted our main strength and we don't have the backline to offer an alternative point of attack.
The Dragons need to be more vocal about the off-side, wrestling, holding down tactics as the refs are being duped.

 

[Blood Shot Eyes]

Our mentality

Not making excused cos we clearly aren't showing the energy and aggression we played with in the early rounds but......
Hasn't anyone noticed that Saints have come off the boil in line with the relaxing of the off-side penalties by the refs. I think that our forwards do not respond well to defences rushing up (understandably).
The refs have blunted our main strength and we don't have the backline to offer an alternative point of attack.
The Dragons need to be more vocal about the off-side, wrestling, holding down tactics as the refs are being duped.

Youve raised some good points here

 

[getsmarty]

St George Illawarra under pressure as injured Vaughan struggles

• 
  Tim Barrow

Local Sport
Limping. Pained. Busted.

Paul Vaughan’s leg injury could easily also describe the Dragons' form.

They have a month to save themselves, but will have to do so without a key forward who earned a State of Origin debut this year.

Hurt: Paul Vaughan. Picture: Adam McLean

After leaving WIN Stadium in a moon boot on Saturday, Vaughan underwent scans and treatment, with an official diagnosis expected on Tuesday. It’s been complicated by concern over both the knee and ankle, but fears remain it will be deep into the finals before he could return.

Winger Nene Macdonald is probably another week away.

The Dragons have lost four of their last five and are now under threat of dropping out of the top four, for the first time all season.

On Monday, Penrith, only below the Dragons on for-and against, sensationally sacked coach Anthony Griffin after months of murmurs about internal unrest at the Panthers.

With Parramatta, Wests Tigers, Canterbury and the Knights to come, there will be major questions asked if the Dragons fail to finish in the top four. The players themselves have nominated a top-four finish as the bare minimum in terms of season benchmark, especially after the bitter feeling of missing the finals last year, when beaten by the Dogs in the final round.

There was a significant shift in fan unrest after the loss to the Warriors at WIN Stadium. Supporters are crying out, asking why the Dragons are on the verge of another late-season flame out.

Coach Paul McGregor and the football department spent a significant amount of time addressing last year’s meltdown and how to manage the squad.

And there is no mood for Panthers-style dramatic change at the Dragons, the internal dynamic is completely different and St George Illawarra’s powerbrokers have their eyes fixed on finalising the new ownership structure.

But they also know crunch time has arrived this season.

It’s almost impossible to miss finals from here, but they can finish as low as eighth, a prospect unthinkable before Origin stared.

“It’s not going away until you win,” McGregor said after the Warriors loss.

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/5568966/crunch-time-arrives-for-limping-dragons/?cs=302

 

[Life's Good]

I used to look forward to team list Tuesday. In the days of Smith & Waite you’d know that changes would be coming after a string of losses no matter the position on the ladder(and we were generally going ok). Now the only interest is to see if Coach is going to play Nighty on the wing, middle forward, off the bench or roaming ball player.

 

[Bests Golden Boots]

Not making excused cos we clearly aren't showing the energy and aggression we played with in the early rounds but......
Hasn't anyone noticed that Saints have come off the boil in line with the relaxing of the off-side penalties by the refs. I think that our forwards do not respond well to defences rushing up (understandably).
The refs have blunted our main strength and we don't have the backline to offer an alternative point of attack.
The Dragons need to be more vocal about the off-side, wrestling, holding down tactics as the refs are being duped.

We were rubbish, but I notice no mention anywhere of the Warriors bloke running into Sims with an elbow to his throat, which he has been charged for and we got no penalty from it.

But then again, why when your six points down with 20 to go, do you not take any of the very lockable penalties on offer from the Warriors?
We had at least three in the last 20.

 

[st penguin]

But then again, why when your six points down with 20 to go, do you not take any of the very lockable penalties on offer from the Warriors?
We had at least three in the last 20.

This is a very interesting question.

It seems that rugby league logic (is that an oxymoron?) is that you go for the try when you are down by six. Apparently it’s negative to go for goal. Anyone who has studied statistics/finance and understands expected values can see the problem with this approach.

 

[Old Timer]

Taking into account all the info in the various posts about sin bin, refs, forward passes etc we may have in fact just snuck over the line.
Whilst the 2 points would have been handy the simple fact is we would still be playing very ugly football and we would get smashed by the teams above us
Part of the trouble is some people place all the importance on the 2 points
Rejoicing over 2 points by playing poorly against poor opposition is exactly how we come to this position of not recognising poor performances by several players
The edict of “we wouldn’t have won these games last year” is valid and correct but the stupidity is we didn’t take the opportunity to strengthen the team we instead we took the position a win means business as usual
Now almost all the teams that were flops early in have made changes and now playing much better whilst we remain in a 1 dimensional space

 

[Bests Golden Boots]

Taking into account all the info in the various posts about sin bin, refs, forward passes etc we may have in fact just snuck over the line.
Whilst the 2 points would have been handy the simple fact is we would still be playing very ugly football and we would get smashed by the teams above us
Part of the trouble is some people place all the importance on the 2 points
Rejoicing over 2 points by playing poorly against poor opposition is exactly how we come to this position of not recognising poor performances by several players
The edict of “we wouldn’t have won these games last year” is valid and correct but the stupidity is we didn’t take the opportunity to strengthen the team we instead we took the position a win means business as usual
Now almost all the teams that were flops early in have made changes and now playing much better whilst we remain in a 1 dimensional space

I could have handled the loss if the razzle dazzle Warriors had turned up and put on a display against us. The Warriors can do that on thier day.
But to lose when the Warriors invited us to win the game in the second half and we didn’t is whats really disturbing.

 

[The Damo]

This is a very interesting question.

It seems that rugby league logic (is that an oxymoron?) is that you go for the try when you are down by six. Apparently it’s negative to go for goal. Anyone who has studied statistics/finance and understands expected values can see the problem with this approach.

Yeah it’s really silly. Narrow the lead and get the ball back, it makes perfect sense but people say -psychology they know they can’t score - it’s rubbish but that’s the prevailing they.

 

[muzby]

Yeah it’s really silly. Narrow the lead and get the ball back, it makes perfect sense but people say -psychology they know they can’t score - it’s rubbish but that’s the prevailing they.

It also takes the field goal from the warriors to create a 7 point gap out of the equation..

 

[JohnnoMcJohnno]

Taking into account all the info in the various posts about sin bin, refs, forward passes etc we may have in fact just snuck over the line.
Whilst the 2 points would have been handy the simple fact is we would still be playing very ugly football and we would get smashed by the teams above us
Part of the trouble is some people place all the importance on the 2 points
Rejoicing over 2 points by playing poorly against poor opposition is exactly how we come to this position of not recognising poor performances by several players
The edict of “we wouldn’t have won these games last year” is valid and correct but the stupidity is we didn’t take the opportunity to strengthen the team we instead we took the position a win means business as usual
Now almost all the teams that were flops early in have made changes and now playing much better whilst we remain in a 1 dimensional space

2 points against a top 8 side could have brought confidence and potentially a build up to better things. Now we have no two points and no confidence. Yes the bottom line is piss poor player management and coaching, but confident players can make a huge difference.

 

[Dragonslayer]

So, what are the odds today of any changes to the team list barring Vaughan (who may yet me inc just to fool Arthur)?

 

[muzby]

So, what are the odds today of any changes to the team list barring Vaughan (who may yet me inc just to fool Arthur)?

Chance is 50-50.

He’ll either make changes or he won’t.

 

[JohnnoMcJohnno]

Chance is 50-50.

He’ll either make changes or he won’t.

Shut-up Muzby.