It’s game day ffs!

[Poupou Escobar]

Did he find a blade of grass tonight?

Kick pressure does that.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

We had 53% possession and scored 12 points.

Against Melbourne

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Given the fatigue levels we're going to have in our key forwards over the next month or so, I'm not sure we'll be back there anytime soon.

Will they be fatigued or will they get fitter?

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Meaney made 217m!!!

Little blokes always carve us up. In the grand final Edwards and To'o combined for over 400 metres.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

What about that humongous prick, Nelson sticking to the crowd at full time, that fkn burns me

f**k him. He's lost and copped a spray from the crowd on his last three trips to this stadium. It's the first time he's ever won there.

 

[Chipmunk]

Will they be fatigued or will they get fitter?

Our opponents will always be freshers if they're starting players play less minutes than ours.

 

[Chipmunk]

Kick pressure does that.

Whilst our kick pressure was non-existent from the outset.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Our senior players let us down tonight.

Irrelevant of how our interchange was used.

Well it is relevant because it points to our performance at the end compared to the start.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Our opponents will always be freshers if they're starting players play less minutes than ours.

Not at the start when everyone's fresh, and not if we control the ball. We should've been up by more at half time but Melbourne just defended too well.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Whilst our kick pressure was non-existent from the outset.

Well that's why Moses kicked poorly. If he was kicking against our team tonight he would've had much longer to kick the ball.

 

[eels_fan]

It was shit to lose but there is more positives to take out of the game than all you wrist-slitters are moaning about.

we held the storm to 2 tries in 80mins. That’s bloody great defensively, our scramble was good, our line speed good. Not many teams will keep storm to 2 tries in regular time this year, maybe none.

Our attack is going to take a while. Both halves seemed lost without their regular second rowers beside them. Dyl’s handling was really poor, and we see this from him occasionally when his head is not in the game. Needs to wake up to himself.

Hopgood terrific, Hodgson if he stays fit will be far more valuable than Reed ever was to us, Doorey & Carty both really solid, starting props great.

Would love to have won, and the opportunity was there to be taken, but there is no shame in losing that game the way we did. Round one.

bring on the sharks

 

[yy_cheng]

Our starting middles made over 550m

It wanst the same. We used to get to ons but couldn't yday

 

[Legal Eel]

I don't think the Storm were any better than us in attack. They just defended better. In the end it was a tie after 80 minutes, in round one, with heaps of players missing from both sides. It was a lottery and we lost. It's too soon to slash our wrists.

All true
But there were very concerning aspects of our play - our halves were in fairyland

 

[Jake the snake]

Some More observations

-We still continue to pass it so long and wide from
Dummy half which lets the defence rush up

- love the fact we can off load but we didn’t have the balance right. Going too wide too early showing a lack of patience. We weren’t direct enough. Poor coaching

-That game should have been done and dusted in the first half but with the amount of possession we had

- apart from their halves Melbourne had a bunch of nobodies.

-Lunelume needs to be with Jake hidden deep deep Within the reserve grade cave

 

[Gronk]

I am surprised that @Avenger did not bump the shit list thread last night. Sivo’s head was in Nadi all game. He hardly rucked it back and when he did, with zero venom. Once he batted the ball dead when he could have caught it for a 7 tackle set. Then of course with 5 to go at 12-12 he kicked it dead on the first tackle.

 

[IFR33K]

I am surprised that @Avenger did not bump the shit list thread last night. Sivo’s head was in Nadi all game. He hardly rucked it back and when he did, with zero venom. Once he batted the ball dead when he could have caught it for a 7 tackle set. Then of course with 5 to go at 12-12 he kicked it dead on the first tackle.

I’m sure he was in the field of play when he batted it dead. And blaming him for the kick is a little harsh. He has absolutely no room to work with. I do think he could have Rucked it out a little more thou.

 

[Eelementary]

I am surprised that @Avenger did not bump the shit list thread last night. Sivo’s head was in Nadi all game. He hardly rucked it back and when he did, with zero venom. Once he batted the ball dead when he could have caught it for a 7 tackle set. Then of course with 5 to go at 12-12 he kicked it dead on the first tackle.

I don't think it would have been a 7 tackle set - he left the field of play when he jumped, and would have landed in the in-goal.

It would have been a drop-out, regardless.

His kick was forced on him by his decision to take his winger on the outside; I actually think it's great he chose to back himself. It just didn't pay off.

 

[Eelementary]

Sucks to have lost - and we really should have won; Melbourne were basically giving us the game on a platter towards the ends of regulation time.

However, some perspective, please - we lost in Golden Point to a team that hasn't lost in round 1 in 20 years.

Both teams were missing players, but the Storm still had their all representative spine (aside from Meaney).

Matterson, and Lane, would have been huge for us had they been available.

 

[oldmancraigy]

I don't think it would have been a 7 tackle set - he left the field of play when he jumped, and would have landed in the in-goal.

It would have been a drop-out, regardless.

His kick was forced on him by his decision to take his winger on the outside; I actually think it's great he chose to back himself. It just didn't pay off.

I wonder about awareness? Perhaps realising he didn't have enough space to even get around Blocker Roach, just stop, take the tackle. Play the 99.9%, bit the 0.1% chance.

We have a few cerebrally inept players.

You're dead right on the bomb though

 

[hindy111]

I thought we were garbage. Line speed was poor. Kick chase was poor. Halves were MIA. No shape in the red zone.

Can’t believe Andrew Moore etc on ABC said it was a high quality game between two high quality teams. Go figure.

It was a tough game. A lot of errors however and neither side settled. It seemed like they had far better kick pressure.

Nick Meaney is going to make it hard for Paps to walk straight back into this side. He is a very good player