Mason: 5 = I think some of here are a bit harsh on the bloke. A second string fullback who had a dig I thought. Good first half but you could see he felt more unsure of himself as that second half went on. Weak in def and his sole error at the back cost us dearly. Please heal up Bula!
Turuva: 7 Ball rarely went down his side yet was not shy to do some work. Very solid club debut.
Douehi: 5 = A bit of a nothing factor in attack but I thought he defended okay.
Faataape 2 = I can never fault this man's effort but his defence is simply not first grade standard. Sad to say this but needs to be dropped for Starford or Bird next week.
Skelton: 8 = Immense.....could not ask for more from a man making his debut. A fantastic buy which I don't think cost the club much at all.
Galvin: 3 = He is already disliked by some sections of our fanbase and the longer he doesn't sign on, the harder our fans are going to give him a hard time about it. But, he needs to (and Im confident he will be) be better than today. His short kicking game was horrid and the crab style running just didn't work.
Luai: 4 = Decent enough kicking game.....needed to take more control in the red zone than what he did. His vision was responsible for our try. He'll get better.
May: 8 = Lucky as f**k to get this bloke. He'll get better as well.
Hope: 3 = A bit of a nothing type match from him. A couple of passes were not great. De Silva looked a lot better than when he came on.
Pole: 4 = A bit disappointed in this bloke yesterday. Apart from a patch early in the second half, was pretty shit in attack. He was even worse in defence. His defensive style was pretty much around the ankles with no real efforts to put on dominant tackles.....which has been a major issue with our side for a long time. He needs work.
Samuela Fainu: 4 = Apart from the centres, our weakest position is the back-row. Fainu is our best backrower from last year but my lord, he was ineffective yesterday on both sides of the ball. Given my expectations of this bloke, he was my biggest disappointment yesterday. If he doesn't lift his game, we are f**ked.
Seyfarth: 2 = That performance was vintage pre 2024 quality from Seyfarth. Slow and non-threating in attack. We are in big trouble backrower wise this year. We need someone to emerge from the lower grades.
Twal: 6 = He had his usual dig. A pass mark.
Da Silva: 4 = Better passing game than Hope and a better mover. Not the best defender which is why Hope got minutes very early and late into the game.
Hunt: 4 = The more time goes on, the more Im thinking this guy is a dud. He was meant to play more minutes than at Nulla....but if anything, he looks more unfit than ever. Hope he proves me wrong.
Bird: 5 = I liked his effort but needs to tighten up a bit in defence.
Fainu: Not enough game time to really assess his value.
From that game, we have three big challenges to overcome if we going to go up the ladder.
1. Fitness: I am hoping this is just an early season thing....but every other side in the comp that I've seen (apart from the Warriors) played the 80 out fitness wise. We were tired from the 30 minute mark while we were in front. Hopefully, fitness comes together quickly and not like what happened with Souths.
2. Defence: I was extremely happy with our scramble defence which absolutely saved the game from becoming a blowout. But, we can't do that every game. Our defence needs to learn bend attackers back, not just struggle to bring them down. This part of our game has been a concern for a very long time and was still evident yesterday.
3. Backrowers: Our centres are an issue but the biggest is our backrow. We need a lower grader to somehow stand up as we are looking very bleak in this area.
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