*Live* Parra v Penrith Game Day thread, March 11, 2018

[Poupou Escobar]

Bring in Terepo and KE. Goodbye to Matagi and Scott.

I agree on Matagi but we don't know the importance of Scott to our leadership. He could be essential to our big game performances and round one obviously isn't a big game.

There's a reason Arthur includes him in the team.

 

[Bazal]

Well until you can back up your reasons for the possession swing with some evidence it's just a pet theory. It could be true but I'm unconvinced. Allowing the opposition to make easy metres should be a reason to keep the ball away from them rather than giving it back in good position and then conceding penalties in kicking range. Evans still made over 10 metres per carry yesterday. Tucking it under his arm would've been smarter than throwing silly passes.

So throwing silly passes isn't poor performance? Lol.

You're saying that the bench let us down, you just refuse to realise you're saying it.

 

[hindy111]

I agree on Matagi but we don't know the importance of Scott to our leadership. He could be essential to our big game performances and round one obviously isn't a big game.

There's a reason Arthur includes him in the team.

Cause he be on 400k and a big name. I dont want to over react yet its round one and we played one of the premiership heavyweights and a team I consider a top 4 roster at there home ground run by one of if not the greatest minds in rugby league who had been under a lot of scrutiny.....
We also lost Moses for 25mins. And Normans missed kick almost from infront.

 

[emjaycee]

Comes back to my points doesn't it. I didn't like our selected team and said they were too small. Our lack of big men will bite us in the bum. The forwards were tired as our smaller forwards had to work so hard to contain their bigger men, we wilted and they got stronger. Unfortunately we have no big men to counter the many big packs we'll come against this year. Kikau absolutely smashed us and we just couldn't contain him. The loss of Semi is huge and we just can't replace him unless we went big in the forwards. End of story.

Just wanted to check how those big forwards from the Raiders fared yesterday. Last i heard they went hard for the first 12 mins for an 18-0 lead... did the big guys keep them in front?

 

[84 Baby]

I actually think it is only useful for a single game - to show possession flow. Over the course of a season I would expect it to flatten out for everyone. It might still show which forwards are more in the team for their defence or attack but runs and tackles per minute is a much better stat. However now that the NRL have completely dumbed down their stats for us deadshit slobs I can't find the minutes played stats for anybody. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough but NRL.com pisses me off too much to waste my time.

Not a full season but at least a few weeks. A single game can be too skewed by other factors to be relevant, such factors as 4 bench players have completely shithouse, ineffectual games. Over a couple of games (further analysis of the stat would determine a better baseline number of games), those factors being one-offs or habitual is more determinable

 

[forward pass]

Panthers are actually a gun side - they will be close to top 4. Three tries a piece on their turf is really not a bad effort. We were only beaten on penalty kicks.

Panthers forwards towered over ours. They are massive - every one of them. We got out muscled there.

We had no halfback for 20 minutes and he was not well when he was out there. Also, Hayne, French and Jennings did not see any quality ball.

I am still very optimistic about our season.

 

[emjaycee]

How many top 4 sides are there this year?

Roosters
Cowboys
Storm
Panthers
Eels
Sharks
Raiders

Did i miss any?

 

[TheParraboy]

I still thought we had a chance to win it when Moses came back on after his sin binning, we were only 8 behind with about 15 min to go. For a side that apparently dominated us in the 2nd half they could only post one try when we had 13 men on the field in this time

Not sure if Penrith adapted to the heat better than we did? Could we have been better served having a Kaysa/Smith on the bench? Run their bigger forwards around via some spark around the ruck?

Panthers had 52% of the ball overall, that's a lot considering we had most of it in the first 15 minutes

Im dissapointed with leaking that try before half time, but not too worried at this stage. We will get them come Rd 5

 

[TheParraboy]

How many top 4 sides are there this year?

Roosters
Cowboys
Storm
Panthers
Eels
Sharks
Raiders

Did i miss any?

Id put Dragons in there as well, and the Broncos will be there, plus Knights a smokey...

 

[Gronk]

Zero cover on the inside. Very poor.

Was as if everyone said "yours".

 

[Poupou Escobar]

So throwing silly passes isn't poor performance? Lol.

You're saying that the bench let us down, you just refuse to realise you're saying it.

I agree the bench bought into the dumb shit that was going on at the time, and I expressed concern before the game that they wouldn't be able to work as hard in the middle as Mannah/Alvaro. I kind of expected Arthur to not use them at the same time, staggering the times he removed Mannah and Alvaro, keeping Brown on for longer and maybe even moving Moeroa to the middle to pair with Evans/Matagi. It feels like the loss of Moses to the HIA completely f**ked our rotation, meaning Moeroa had to play edge forward for longer, and forcing us to have Evans and Matagi on at the same time early on. And I absolutely blame those two (and Scott) for the Blake try in the first half. Ma'u had hold of him. Where was the hit over the top to finish him off?

So I don't see why you're saying I'm absolving the bench of their poor performance. But plenty of the starters also took their foot off after we had a good lead.

Cameron King is also a virtual defensive non-contributor, but he is in the team to provide 80 minutes of quality at dummy half, meaning we have even more need for workers in our three middle forward spots.

 

[Noise]

Was as if everyone said "yours".

Including Mau

 

[Poupou Escobar]

How many top 4 sides are there this year?

Roosters
Cowboys
Storm
Panthers
Eels
Sharks
Raiders

Did i miss any?

I reckon the Cowboys are the only legit top four side.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Including Mau

Except Ma'u actually made an effort to get to him.

 

[84 Baby]

Zero cover on the inside. Very poor.

Team effort there.
Jennings rushing out of line to do nothing
Norman (likely effected by Jennings' decision) is unsighted
Mau is nowhere near as bad as the deathriders make out here because he's probably covering about 3 players' worth, but he does fall off tackle i.e. the only thing the deathriders will notice out of the whole play
King (I think?) has more of the blame I reckon. Makes zero impact on tackle
Evans makes zero effort, not even sticking out an arm
Come back to Beau because it highlights the real team error here
French does pretty well to at least make it difficult and I don't think many if any other fullbacks would have done any better. A shorter centre than Blake maybe doesn't score
Back to Scott and the rest of the team (except Taka & Moses), there's zero urgency. Everyone's jogging. SLOWLY. Best case scenario Manu completes one on one tackle on 20m and dummy half runs to the right and Norman at least forces them to score out wide. If Scott reacts a lot quicker then at least he forces a pass for them to score out wide. If Scott reacts even slightly earlier then Blake plays the ball on the 10m, or if French comes up with a miracle hit, the goal line, and the only players on side would have been Scott/French (at least one of whom would have been the tackler), Taka, Moses, Norman & maybe Hoffman. All the others could have done was get in the way of passes or give up a penalty and probably be binned for it. Matagi is walking FFS!

 

[84 Baby]

How many top 4 sides are there this year?

I think there'll be 4 of them

 

[Bazal]

Team effort there.
Jennings rushing out of line to do nothing
Norman (likely effected by Jennings' decision) is unsighted
Mau is nowhere near as bad as the deathriders make out here because he's probably covering about 3 players' worth, but he does fall off tackle i.e. the only thing the deathriders will notice out of the whole play
King (I think?) has more of the blame I reckon. Makes zero impact on tackle
Evans makes zero effort, not even sticking out an arm
Come back to Beau because it highlights the real team error here
French does pretty well to at least make it difficult and I don't think many if any other fullbacks would have done any better. A shorter centre than Blake maybe doesn't score
Back to Scott and the rest of the team (except Taka & Moses), there's zero urgency. Everyone's jogging. SLOWLY. Best case scenario Manu completes one on one tackle on 20m and dummy half runs to the right and Norman at least forces them to score out wide. If Scott reacts a lot quicker then at least he forces a pass for them to score out wide. If Scott reacts even slightly earlier then Blake plays the ball on the 10m, or if French comes up with a miracle hit, the goal line, and the only players on side would have been Scott/French (at least one of whom would have been the tackler), Taka, Moses, Norman & maybe Hoffman. All the others could have done was get in the way of passes or give up a penalty and probably be binned for it. Matagi is walking FFS!

So it was f**king manus fault f**ken!

 

[84 Baby]

So it was f**king manus fault f**ken!

Did you even f**king read what I wrote?
I clearly stated it was French's fault for being too f**king small!

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Team effort there.
Jennings rushing out of line to do nothing
Norman (likely effected by Jennings' decision) is unsighted
Mau is nowhere near as bad as the deathriders make out here because he's probably covering about 3 players' worth, but he does fall off tackle i.e. the only thing the deathriders will notice out of the whole play
King (I think?) has more of the blame I reckon. Makes zero impact on tackle
Evans makes zero effort, not even sticking out an arm
Come back to Beau because it highlights the real team error here
French does pretty well to at least make it difficult and I don't think many if any other fullbacks would have done any better. A shorter centre than Blake maybe doesn't score
Back to Scott and the rest of the team (except Taka & Moses), there's zero urgency. Everyone's jogging. SLOWLY. Best case scenario Manu completes one on one tackle on 20m and dummy half runs to the right and Norman at least forces them to score out wide. If Scott reacts a lot quicker then at least he forces a pass for them to score out wide. If Scott reacts even slightly earlier then Blake plays the ball on the 10m, or if French comes up with a miracle hit, the goal line, and the only players on side would have been Scott/French (at least one of whom would have been the tackler), Taka, Moses, Norman & maybe Hoffman. All the others could have done was get in the way of passes or give up a penalty and probably be binned for it. Matagi is walking FFS!

At least Scott tripped Dylan Edwards over, taking him out of the play.

 

[WaznTheGreat]

Bring back Semi and King Gutho