Jimbo
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Well it's that time again, the regular season is half over so it's time to reflect on what we have seen, and hopefully will see over the next 17 weeks...
Round 1 - Tigers (A), 6-12. One of the ugliest games in the history of Rugby League. 16 errors from both teams, with Cronulla's completion rate a miserable 26/42. Ordinary start to the year for Mr Raper
Round 2 - Bulldogs (A), 20-24. What a difference a week makes!! After leading for the majority of the game, ill-discipline and poor refereeing see the Bulldogs score only minutes from fulltime. Encouraging signs though.
Round 3 - Manly (H), 28-20. Shock result of the season so far. For Manly fans that is, whose side was not yet running last and thus still had aspirations on the premiership at this stage...
Round 4 - Souths (A), 12-36. The stats tell the story. 15 penalties conceded, 49 missed tackles, the MacDougall brothers run riot and Greg Bird's brain goes "bang." Ugly stuff...
Round 5 - Cowboys (H), 10-36. The discipline is repaired, at the expense of ball control and intensity. 25 errors and 46 missed tackles does not win football games, regardless of who we're playing.
Round 6 - Canberra (H), 38-24. Finally the passes stick and the lads behave, and end up posting a solid win. Points leaked late in the game is a concern though.
Round 7 - Parramatta (A), 18-14. Nigel Vagana earns his paycheck. Noddy and Dumas tie the game up in the 74th minute, sending us into Golden Point for the first time where Sully and Vanaga remind us why we travel to away games. Simply brilliant.
Round 8 - Merged Scum (H), 12-42. After the high of Parramatta Stadium, the boys out in one of their worst performances thus far, unfortunately on the same night as the Dragons find rare form. Ben Hornby plays the game of his life, and we are left wondering why we always seem to play teams a week or two before they lose all form and succumb to injury crises...
Round 9 - Melbourne (A), 36-26. Great turnaround in form from the previous week, shooting out to an early lead and going on with it in the second half. Again points conceded late in the game is a worry.
Round 10 - Roosters (H), 18-38. Field position in the first half conceded through poor handling and penalties, results in a handy half-time lead for the Roosters. We would close the gap to 8 a couple of times, but were never really a chance of recovering. Another wake-up call.
Round 11 - Manly (A), 30-28. A rare win at Brookvale, soured by soft tries conceded late in the match which almost saw another Golden Point finish. Another satisfying away trip though.
Round 12 - Souths (H), 38-18. After giving Souths a 12 point head-start, the Sharks click into gear and hammer the final nail into the coffin of Paul Langmack's career. Sully outstanding.
Round 13 - Brisbane (A), 30-22. A wonderful display of attacking football saw the Sharks out-muscle their highly-rated opponents for our first ever win at Lang Park. Now into the top eight, the lads can approach the second half of the season with confidence.
We now sit in eighth place on 14 points. Unfortunately we are getting little help from our for/against, which is currently -44 courtesy of a few lapses late in games and poor losses to teams we should have beaten.
The rest of the season looks like this:
Round 14 - Canberra (A)
Round 15 - Penrith (H)
Round 16 - BYE
Round 17 - Newcastle (A)
Round 18 - Warriors (H)
Round 19 - Bulldogs (H)
Round 20 - Merged Scum (A)
Round 21 - Broncos (H)
Round 22 - Roosters (A)
Round 23 - Parramatta (H)
Round 24 - BYE
Round 25 - Melbourne (H)
Round 26 - Cowboys (A)
Biggest Challenges: BUlldogs, Broncos and Roosters. We will probably lose Noddy for round 14 and 17, but Sully showed yesterday that this won't be the catastrophe it moght have been a year or two ago.
Positives:
- We have Canberra next week low on form
- We play the Panthers the following week whose depth is being tested with injuries for the first time in 18 months
- We play Newcastle the week before Origin 3, which means they are without Kennedy, Tahu, at least one Gidley and probaby several others.
- We have two byes
- The Merged Scum are tenth (means nothing to our chances or form, I just think it's funny
)
We should expect to win at least eight of our remaining eleven games. Adding the two byes, this gives us 34 points, which should be good enough for around 4th-5th place.
Our last four weeks is excellent. After the two byes in rounds 23 and 24
we have tricky games against Melbourne and the Cowboys which will be a good test. The lads should head into the finals full of confidence.
It's a great time to be a Cronulla fan
Round 1 - Tigers (A), 6-12. One of the ugliest games in the history of Rugby League. 16 errors from both teams, with Cronulla's completion rate a miserable 26/42. Ordinary start to the year for Mr Raper
Round 2 - Bulldogs (A), 20-24. What a difference a week makes!! After leading for the majority of the game, ill-discipline and poor refereeing see the Bulldogs score only minutes from fulltime. Encouraging signs though.
Round 3 - Manly (H), 28-20. Shock result of the season so far. For Manly fans that is, whose side was not yet running last and thus still had aspirations on the premiership at this stage...
Round 4 - Souths (A), 12-36. The stats tell the story. 15 penalties conceded, 49 missed tackles, the MacDougall brothers run riot and Greg Bird's brain goes "bang." Ugly stuff...
Round 5 - Cowboys (H), 10-36. The discipline is repaired, at the expense of ball control and intensity. 25 errors and 46 missed tackles does not win football games, regardless of who we're playing.
Round 6 - Canberra (H), 38-24. Finally the passes stick and the lads behave, and end up posting a solid win. Points leaked late in the game is a concern though.
Round 7 - Parramatta (A), 18-14. Nigel Vagana earns his paycheck. Noddy and Dumas tie the game up in the 74th minute, sending us into Golden Point for the first time where Sully and Vanaga remind us why we travel to away games. Simply brilliant.
Round 8 - Merged Scum (H), 12-42. After the high of Parramatta Stadium, the boys out in one of their worst performances thus far, unfortunately on the same night as the Dragons find rare form. Ben Hornby plays the game of his life, and we are left wondering why we always seem to play teams a week or two before they lose all form and succumb to injury crises...
Round 9 - Melbourne (A), 36-26. Great turnaround in form from the previous week, shooting out to an early lead and going on with it in the second half. Again points conceded late in the game is a worry.
Round 10 - Roosters (H), 18-38. Field position in the first half conceded through poor handling and penalties, results in a handy half-time lead for the Roosters. We would close the gap to 8 a couple of times, but were never really a chance of recovering. Another wake-up call.
Round 11 - Manly (A), 30-28. A rare win at Brookvale, soured by soft tries conceded late in the match which almost saw another Golden Point finish. Another satisfying away trip though.
Round 12 - Souths (H), 38-18. After giving Souths a 12 point head-start, the Sharks click into gear and hammer the final nail into the coffin of Paul Langmack's career. Sully outstanding.
Round 13 - Brisbane (A), 30-22. A wonderful display of attacking football saw the Sharks out-muscle their highly-rated opponents for our first ever win at Lang Park. Now into the top eight, the lads can approach the second half of the season with confidence.
We now sit in eighth place on 14 points. Unfortunately we are getting little help from our for/against, which is currently -44 courtesy of a few lapses late in games and poor losses to teams we should have beaten.
The rest of the season looks like this:
Round 14 - Canberra (A)
Round 15 - Penrith (H)
Round 16 - BYE
Round 17 - Newcastle (A)
Round 18 - Warriors (H)
Round 19 - Bulldogs (H)
Round 20 - Merged Scum (A)
Round 21 - Broncos (H)
Round 22 - Roosters (A)
Round 23 - Parramatta (H)
Round 24 - BYE
Round 25 - Melbourne (H)
Round 26 - Cowboys (A)
Biggest Challenges: BUlldogs, Broncos and Roosters. We will probably lose Noddy for round 14 and 17, but Sully showed yesterday that this won't be the catastrophe it moght have been a year or two ago.
Positives:
- We have Canberra next week low on form
- We play the Panthers the following week whose depth is being tested with injuries for the first time in 18 months
- We play Newcastle the week before Origin 3, which means they are without Kennedy, Tahu, at least one Gidley and probaby several others.
- We have two byes
- The Merged Scum are tenth (means nothing to our chances or form, I just think it's funny
)We should expect to win at least eight of our remaining eleven games. Adding the two byes, this gives us 34 points, which should be good enough for around 4th-5th place.
Our last four weeks is excellent. After the two byes in rounds 23 and 24
we have tricky games against Melbourne and the Cowboys which will be a good test. The lads should head into the finals full of confidence.It's a great time to be a Cronulla fan
