Forward Pack

[Far Canal]

Our forward pack was completely out enthused and out muscled. We got smashed.

Usually I am quite critical of Mortimer but geez how can you play behind that abysmal forward pack.

Allgood - decent/should learn to offload otherwise too one dimensional
Mannah - poor game by his standards - he needs to lift
Keating - f**kwit - sh*t for brains clay for hands - no directions - stupid inside passes
Lasola (sp) - poor player - should spend his time in Wenties - cant break the line - as soft as butter
Horo - average game - dropped the ball that lead to the first Penruff try
Hindmarsh - workaholic but does nothing in attack
Smith - showed some agression
FFMM - tried to inspire but was a one man wrecking ball
Shacks - tried hard but was ineffective

Another thing - how sh*te are out outside backs?

 

[mrpwnd]

Honestly...I think the team got too complacent over last weeks win...Haven't watched the game yet but 'apparently' our pack got beaten by an inferior pack in Panthers.

Looks like some mental weakness is still strong in Parra, the club never really does well when there's expectation huh? I really hoped Mooks killed that whole cocky attitude.

Old habits die hard and thank god I wasn't around to watch the game...Sounds like a distaster.

 

[Runaround Man]

I was at the game.

We were poor, no zip, no speed, no precision.

Penrith were pretty good. Plenty of enthusiasm. It is where we are at. Next week we will be better.

So sad that we don't have any menace in the back line. How I miss Eric..

Morgan looks real good...potentially..

 

[SDM]

Sack the lot of em'. Usless.

 

[caylo]

I think MK services was very poor but Penrith came out firing and killed us in defence.

This was one match I have seen Mannah get smashed consistantly but Lasalo and Horo saw very little ball on the edges. Allgood and Shakelton did run hard but Fui was the only one that was able to get on top.
Ben Smith was very poor and IMO that is 2 bad games in 2 weeks by MK and Benny, they better pick up soon or might find themselves out of the team.

My main problem was Hick and Whats, they were very bad... how slow is hicks honestly. Whats shoots out of the line worst then Tahu, atm they both need to go back to wenty and find form beforebeing brough back up. For me Reddy to the cenres and Walker to the wing, if Reddy isnt fit to play then they should honestly look at filiga, even thou he is slightly injury prone he is one player who has looked good all pre season.

 

[PJ Marshal]

Our forward pack was completely out enthused and out muscled. We got smashed.

Usually I am quite critical of Mortimer but geez how can you play behind that abysmal forward pack.

Allgood - decent/should learn to offload otherwise too one dimensional
Mannah - poor game by his standards - he needs to lift
Keating - f**kwit - sh*t for brains clay for hands - no directions - stupid inside passes
Lasola (sp) - poor player - should spend his time in Wenties - cant break the line - as soft as butter
Horo - average game - dropped the ball that lead to the first Penruff try
Hindmarsh - workaholic but does nothing in attack
Smith - showed some agression
FFMM - tried to inspire but was a one man wrecking ball
Shacks - tried hard but was ineffective

Another thing - how sh*te are out outside backs?

we dont offload much at all anyways , second phase doesnt seem to be a strong point so far, trying to be a tad more controlled.

slow play the ball and getting dominated by penrith and in turn not dominating or slowing penrith is what killed us in the long run. To be honest coming away 20-6 is a good result , considering how much we got dominated.

 

[dazeely]

I think penrith deserves some credit. They were close to perfect in that first 20 - 25 min. They definately got the jump. Having said this the good teams will lift and at least go with them until the other team drops in intensity.

The eels definately need to win ugly because they have not a hope in hell of running down a handy lead.

He's my favorite all time eel but f**k doesn't hindy look pedestrian with the ball.

I liked allgoods game by the way. For me Ben smith should start and play lasalo from the bench.

 

[Ant]

I think for 2011, we are going to have to get used to the fact that when our forwards don't win the battle we are a very slim chance of winning games. Penrith came out all guns blazing and won the battle early on then at least matched us if not bettered us for the rest of the game.
Our halves and outside backs are simply not big, fast or skillful enough to solve the problem when we are not going forward, apart from Hayne and to a lesser extent Burt.

Mortimer and Robson are solid players are good enough to pay first grade, but neither are match winners unless we are on a roll. The simple fact is perhaps we have no other options that are any better. Murray, Humble or McGuire, the first two are not proven and McGuire has never been a match winner as a half, better suited at hooker.
Robson is what he is, a solid player with no particular amazing trait to his game. If he was playing next to a lockyer or carney or campese he would be fine, but he isn't.
Mortimer, well even tonight I think he looks better than last year. But he lacks genuine playmaking ability and his lack is size is an issue. Once again if he has Johns inside him, he'd be fine, but he doesn't.

Our outside backs don't offer much strike power. Burt is a clever player when given a chance. Reddy is strong, but he is no blockbuster. The other centres lack, none of the options are either really quick, strong or deceptive. A centre needs one of these traits. The lack of threat outwide doesn't help our halves, because there is no need for the defence to focus on the guys outside allowing our halves more space. We also lack a geuine star edge backrower.

There is no real solution in 2011, If our core players win the battle we will be a chance of winning, when they don't like tonight its going to be hard. The good thing is we should hope with the likes of Hindy, Poore, Mannah, Fui, Shack and allgood we should generally do pretty well in the middle. Tonight we didn't.

 

[Gronk]

Once again that game shows that it you don't turn up mentally, you'll get your pants pulled down.

I'm not going to critique each and every player, simply because Penrith would have done a job on most of the other 14 teams last night.

Hopefully that was the kick in the pants that we needed to jolt us back to reality. Next week the Bunnies will have a less dominant pack and they are the perfect team for us to play right now.

 

[oldmancraigy]

Our forward pack was completely out enthused and out muscled. We got smashed.

Usually I am quite critical of Mortimer but geez how can you play behind that abysmal forward pack.

Allgood - decent/should learn to offload otherwise too one dimensional
Mannah - poor game by his standards - he needs to lift
Keating - f**kwit - sh*t for brains clay for hands - no directions - stupid inside passes
Lasola (sp) - poor player - should spend his time in Wenties - cant break the line - as soft as butter
Horo - average game - dropped the ball that lead to the first Penruff try
Hindmarsh - workaholic but does nothing in attack
Smith - showed some agression
FFMM - tried to inspire but was a one man wrecking ball
Shacks - tried hard but was ineffective

Another thing - how sh*te are out outside backs?

Fair enough that we got beaten up front last night.

But at least rate the players based on how they ACTUALLY performed in the game eh?

Allgood was fine.
MoiMoi was good.
Horo/Lasalo actually looked dangerous running wide of the ruck on the very odd occasion that they got the ball. Both tried to return hits in defence.
Hindmarsh was heroic in defence.
Shackleton played a 'fine' game last night.

Mannah was dreadful last night - but that's the rarity for him.
Smith was dreadful - has been regressing game by game. Just keeps either dropping the ball or giving away penalties, and then seems not to care too much afterwards. Perhaps we should've sent him to NZ with his mate Mateo?
Keating gave awful service from dummy half (yet again - I don't see what he has...)


All in all, half of our forwards were 'passable' - the other half were quite bad/ dreadful. Only one was 'good' (MoiMoi) - so fair enough that we lost the forward battle based on that.

As for the outside backs - I assume you don't realize that there's NOTHING they can do when given terrible service from the inside men?
They need to see the ball with some space, or be put into a gap.

I was actually impressed with Morgan - thought he handled Jennings VERY well in the 2nd half. Not bad for a 2nd gamer on a boom attacking centre.

In the end, no attack = nothing in the halves. Again Robson/ Mortimer showed very little.

 

[yy_cheng]

Don't forget it was wet. Score should be 40-12

 

[Parramatta1947]

Everything went Penrith's way early - they should have scored more. My concern is how we responded playing from such a big margin down - we didn't even look like scoring at times.

 

[Twizzle]

credit to Penrith, they outplayed us

personally I thought our backs were much weaker than our forwards

as soon as Wicks fell over in that attempted tackle for thier first try, they just kept attacking down his side with ease

our forwards have more pace than the likes of Fats and Wicks

 

[dazeely]

I'm not going to critique each and every player, simply because Penrith would have done a job on most of the other 14 teams last night.
.

I agree. Let's not forget we have an average team whom IMO will struggle in 2011. Then when an opposition turn up to play like panthers did we can only hope to hang in there, weather the storm and grind out an ugly win of a point or two. For this to happen we will need to have an awesome completion rate without giving away penalties. Last night this did not happen.

 

[Hollywood Jesus]

Why the hell did SK start with Keating?

I mean, sure, why did Keating even get selected? Nevertheless, Casey should be our starting hooker.

 

[hineyrulz]

Keating offers about as much as a HayneTrain post.

 

[mrpwnd]

Funny...No one complained about Keating last week.

 

[parra-matters]

Horo in a post game interview on parraeels.com.au seemed to think they competed in forwards and weren't dominated. There is the problem right there. They players are dilusional!

 

[mrpwnd]

Horo in a post game interview on parraeels.com.au seemed to think they competed in forwards and weren't dominated. There is the problem right there. They players are dilusional!

I'm surprised at how well the bloke talks though, you'd think most young forwards are illiterate idiots.

 

[lingard]

I think for 2011, we are going to have to get used to the fact that when our forwards don't win the battle we are a very slim chance of winning games. Penrith came out all guns blazing and won the battle early on then at least matched us if not bettered us for the rest of the game.
Our halves and outside backs are simply not big, fast or skillful enough to solve the problem when we are not going forward, apart from Hayne and to a lesser extent Burt.

Mortimer and Robson are solid players are good enough to pay first grade, but neither are match winners unless we are on a roll. The simple fact is perhaps we have no other options that are any better. Murray, Humble or McGuire, the first two are not proven and McGuire has never been a match winner as a half, better suited at hooker.
Robson is what he is, a solid player with no particular amazing trait to his game. If he was playing next to a lockyer or carney or campese he would be fine, but he isn't.
Mortimer, well even tonight I think he looks better than last year. But he lacks genuine playmaking ability and his lack is size is an issue. Once again if he has Johns inside him, he'd be fine, but he doesn't.

Our outside backs don't offer much strike power. Burt is a clever player when given a chance. Reddy is strong, but he is no blockbuster. The other centres lack, none of the options are either really quick, strong or deceptive. A centre needs one of these traits. The lack of threat outwide doesn't help our halves, because there is no need for the defence to focus on the guys outside allowing our halves more space. We also lack a geuine star edge backrower.

There is no real solution in 2011, If our core players win the battle we will be a chance of winning, when they don't like tonight its going to be hard. The good thing is we should hope with the likes of Hindy, Poore, Mannah, Fui, Shack and allgood we should generally do pretty well in the middle. Tonight we didn't.

I agree with all that. I think Mortimer is showing signs of becoming an 'adequate' half. Outside (or inside) a brilliant partner, he could be fine. Same with Robson. You`re right. The two together? Well. It seems fairly obvious we need to buy or manufacture a REALLY good half. We might only need one. And we definitely need to buy a class centre. Wouldn`t Greg Inglis have been a nice addition to our little band?
Maybe we only need one brilliant half and one brilliant centre, to be premiership contenders?