Couldnt get on last night too much Mothers day stuff to do. The performance yesterday was almost unbelievable. Ive read in the NRL forum a few Dogs fans (Canterbury in particular) making the excuse that they had six backing up, no mention by that goose that we had Perry, and Kidley backing up, Johns, Kennedy, Abraham, Tahu, Simpson, and ODavis missing from our team. Back to the game. The team showed all the defensive intensity that weve been whingeing was missing last season, one passage of play saw four of our guys pick OMeley up and force him back 5 meters before sitting him on his arse he played the ball back it went to Mason, and he received the same treatment, That set the trend for the entire game, I kept expecting our intensity to drop off but it never did, the Knights smothered every raid the Dogs could muster, so much so that they (the Dogs) started knocking on, dropping balls etc. One of the most pleasing aspects of many pleasing aspects was the much improved kicking game, Kidley was finding open spaces with his kicks, and in difficult conditions kicked far better than Annaster, or Sherwin. Hughes was brilliantly safe at fullback, took some very high balls in windy conditions, and was unlucky not to have two tries, his first disallowed try was the result of the ball hitting a dogs leg MM from the grounding, (very Unlucky) To say we dominated them from the outset is no understatement, they were almost mistake free for the whole first half. Perry was penalised for an elbow in a tackle on the ground, (from what I saw there wasnt much in it) and Quinn was very unlucky when an error of judgement saw him touch a ball over the dead ball line from a kick off, and of course Lowries initial knock-on at the start of the game. Carmont has to be the find of the year he is a very solid defender for a slightly built guy, and he is one very good backer-up, he will score plenty of trys this year. Kidley led the team around like an old hand and Witt complimented him perfectly, one thing the game did prove beyond doubt we can function without Johns, and it even more backs up that spending $450,000+ on him is not good spending practice. The forwards Wooly (was the stand-out IMO) Perry, Parso, Newton were really solid, and Price played the best game Ive seen from him, He reminds me of an early Steve Simpson, and on yesterdays effort Id have him in front of Matt Kennedy any day. Lowrie was good in defense and attack, and with him around the Lock posi looks well covered in the absence of BK, and Abes. Bedsy led the side well, and he is a very level headed captain, in that he doesnt rush decisions, and he and Newton seemed to be the Gee Up men, and did it well. To sum it up the Dogs were never in it, our boys didnt give them a sniff, the crowd at times were back to their old selves, the southern end was deafening, and the Newcastle chant coming out of the old grandstand was awesome. Dont listen to the excuses from some Doggies fans, Id say they are a result of being totally embarrassed, and completely outplayed by our team, I know Ive said it once this year already but that game yesterday will go down as one of the teams all-time great performances. The ground MOM was Matt Gidley, But really you could have given it to a dozen of them and got no argument.
By the way our premmy boys got a good win up, and the Guy Scott Briggs (halfback) is a player to watch.
I'm still so excited about yesterday 
