Denis, always respect your views but I am opposed to you today and it seems opposed to everyone else.
My key points:
1. Loss largely down to a stupid sinbinning by Ryan C. Involved in a scuffle which he got away with. But then dinbinned I assume for mouthing off at the red. Oh so dumb .His 10 mins allowed the Roosters to get back into
2. Marschke made some terrible handling and kicking blunders. The team looked better with the Pom (?) at half
3. I thought, contrary to others, that this was the best I had seen from Fifita. A number of very strong runs. Yes a penalty for a leg pull was a shocker but he made inroads
4.Agree that Tamale looked good.
5. Michael Molo very strong, so too the Couchmsns.
6. Despite successive last minute losses this is a decent team, far better than the rabble of the last few years.
Jersey Flegg - opposite story! Coming from 6-24 down with 20 mins to play the Dragons scored 5 unanswered tries to win 30-24.
Nick Tsgranis an absolute stand out in the last 20 mins. Huge run up to take a ball at great speed to completely brake the Roosters line. Only his 3rd game bac from injury the fightback occurred all round him. He just looked too good for this comp.
The other guy who really impressed me was King-Togis. Looked a much better team with him on..
Also the first time that Jett Liu has impressed me. An absolute monster he got the team moving forward.
I agree with your summary of the NSW. Cup game.
As for your point (6.). I agree. The team is looking really good for extended periods of play. We completely outplayed them in the general run of the game. (Same as last week). The penalty count, a sin bin (for talking), and unforced errors (2 while down to 12 men) cost us a win, but we were easily the better team.
On the player front, the good news is that Ryan Couchman was the best on field, and Toby Couchman, Tamale, Michael Molo, and Egan were better than any Roosters player on the day. Besides Molo, these boys are all still eligible for Flegg.
More generally, on the lower grades. It sucks to lose, but in my opinion the lower grades are mostly in service of first grade: keeping players ready for immediate first grade and/or developing them for future first grade. Winning SG Ball, for example, is cool, but it's less important than preparing those kids to potentially play at the top level. Ideally you do both. The other thing to keep in mind is that NSW Cup and Flegg are also in a weird spot because they have less settled squads than 1st grade, SG Ball, and Harold Matthews. They don't get to train as a team as much.