Match Discussion: Round 11 vs North Qld @ Queensland Country Bank Stadium

[aqua_duck]

asked if the forwards were the ones letting the team down coach says "no not tonight, i thought they played well"

on mann "i thought he was good, i thought he competed"

other than that not much in the presser, says we have to suck it up because we have injuries and fans "dont want to wait" and "for those who are impatient and don't want to stick with us, that's fine" which is a bit f**king rich.

If that was good Mann I'm horrified by what bad Mann is capable of

 

[aqua_duck]

They were both great tonight. All our forwards were. Reserve graders on the edges cost us dearly.

Don't forget our great Mann

 

[mozza91]

Don't forget our great Mann

I don’t understand what’s happened to him. He was one of our best last year and started strongly this season. But the last 4 or 5 weeks he’s been f**king diabolical. Dropping him to NSW Cup is the kindest thing you can do to him at this stage.

 

[aqua_duck]

I don’t understand what’s happened to him. He was one of our best last year and started strongly this season. But the last 4 or 5 weeks he’s been f**king diabolical. Dropping him to NSW Cup is the kindest thing you can do to him at this stage.

Agreed, his confidence looks shot, half the time he gets the ball and doesn't know what to do

 

[mozza91]

I’ve been really impressed with Crossland the last few weeks. He needs to stay in the halves for the rest of the year. I can see us finishing the year strongly with a Crossland/Pearce halves combination.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Personally I liked the AOB presser. I’m just as pissed off as anyone else in here right now but he did highlight how inexperienced our backline is and I don’t think that him getting on their back about things is constructive given they’re already copping it from all directions.

How he manages to channel that into a better performance next week remains to be seen but I’m willing to see what happens.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

I’ve been really impressed with Crossland the last few weeks. He needs to stay in the halves for the rest of the year. I can see us finishing the year strongly with a Crossland/Pearce halves combination.

Yeah he has definitely looked better over the last few weeks. Loved that first try that he set up.

 

[Old dog]

Yes Crossland and Pearce but we have a few weeks before that happens.
Mann will be back at 5/8 next week because he is the best we have at this time, hurt me a lot to say that.

 

[Old dog]

Hoy was lucky, was he injured or dropped, would have been better at F/b than Mann, Mann would have been better than Green at 5/8, Green let Sasagi and Toa down with slow reactions in defence, Tuala was best, yes best of back 5 but Crossland was best of back 7.
Will be the same for a few weeks until Pearce and a few others are back, need Ponga, Best, Hunt, Pearce but we will still need one or two of Mann, Tuala, Toa, Lee and Sasagi

 

[Yosh]

Horror show that. Gets worse every week. I wonder when we will finally hit rock bottom so we can start the climb back up. I keep thinking it can't get worse but it really does...

This was the first week Seibold coached the defense, did that have something to do with our terrible defense tonight? Will it just take time to adjust?

I thought all our forwards went pretty well. If we didn't give them a line break time they spread the ball, I think we would have seen a dominant forwards performance.

I don't know what else more we can say about Mann. He kills the play every single time. The attack dies in his hands. I think the players don't trust him much either, so Musgrove thought he had to make a play at the ball. If it's Ponga, everyone is giving him room to do his thing.

Mann or Green at 6 next week. That's almost Jigsaw torture.

 

[Yosh]

Just wanted to post some positives at least I thought so...

We pretty good with discipline. I think we doing great even during the crackdown. Very happy about that.

Our guys look fit. Definitely down on confidence and enthusiasm as we are losing so badly every week, but, we look fit and compete till the end.

AOB said we have 4 games in 18 days, then spent 13 days up the East Coast playing 3 games. That's pretty intense. However, we didn't look unfit every out there. Once our schedule cleans up a bit and we get some experience back into the team, hopefully, we start to compete on a weekly basis.

 

[Apey]

I thought the team tried harder tonight, especially the forwards, but they simply just aren't very good. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.

 

[Bartwah]

Crossland has to be the number 7 for me. He and Pearce together don’t go well together at all

 

[Knight Tales]

Ponga
Lee
Hunt
Best
Young
Clifford
Pearce

Could be our backline and halves soon but it will be all too little too late. Puts in perspective the injury crisis we are enduring. We can cry all we want about the results but at the end of the day we are a spare parts side with fill ins and it is actually remarkable we don't lose by more. Broncos have a far better squad at present and get dusted every week.

Behind the scenes I'd say Mann and a number of others are feeling the heat as they are very much looking like not getting new deals. Mann looks spent.

 

[The Axe of Druss]

Agreed, his confidence looks shot, half the time he gets the ball and doesn't know what to do

Mann looks like my U10s kids when they get the ball from dummy half. They know they need to do something like run or pass they just don't know which and end up just dancing on the spot

 

[Johns Magic]

Good on Obi sticking up for Mann in the presser. The alternative is doing a Barrett-Flanagan publicly. I would lose a lot of respect for him taking cheap shots at a guy whose faults aren’t on effort.

Mann may be struggling but wherever you put him he is one of the few I can say has never shirked it in his time here.

If the player puts in on the field then keep those conversations about improvements behind closed doors.

 

[Jono078]

Just seen something on Twitter which basically said we lost to 11 players, let that sink in.

Pissed me off. 13 on 13 and that game is 36-4, potentially worse if they kept getting points when those players went off.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Just seen something on Twitter which basically said we lost to 11 players, let that sink in.

Pissed me off. 13 on 13 and that game is 36-4, potentially worse if they kept getting points when those players went off.

They had 11 players for about 7 or 8 minutes out of an 80 minute game which is roughly 10% of the whole game. Saying we lost to 11 players isn’t really accurate.

The Raiders received a send off early in their game against the bulldogs last week and the dogs still couldn’t win against 12 men for most of the game, at least we’re not that bad.

 

[slotmachine]

Comparing the Knights to the Bulldogs to make yourself feel better. Grim.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Comparing the Knights to the Bulldogs to make yourself feel better. Grim.

Yep that’s pretty much where I’m at.