Match Discussion: Round 2 vs North Qld @ Queensland Country Bank Stadium, Townsville / Wulgurukaba

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

Leadership void is still a glaring issue.

yes 100% some experienced composure through leadership was missing today.

Shows exactly how short the memory of this forum is.

Two losses and the sky has fallen.

it's not the loss it is the manner in which we lost- diabolical. Any serious roster does not lose the way we lost those 2 games. ( 3 on the trot)

Still worries me that we lose if Ponga doesn't have a blinder.

the roster is lacking top tier players in the spine to help Ponga. Sadly I see Ponga's career go the way of so many loyal Knights players before him, retiring having never won a Premiership.

 

[Alex28]

You’re here refs faulting.

That final strip was just about on the ground, and should have been called held. The Cowboys a number of times were given repeat sets to let them roll up the field when the game was close - we didn’t get anywhere near as much benefit and they infringed just as much. I get it’s the home ground advantage - just sucked is all.

 

[Woody90]

Only saw bits of the game.

Look, I’d predicted us to have a slow/poor start to the season purely just taking into account our draw and also expecting our attack would take a while to click given history. Prior to season start the only game I’d tipped us to win was Raiders.

Not trying to be too pessimistic though, but in my mind I’ve kind of already closed the curtains on this season. Yes it’s only game 2, but most likely we’ll be 0/4 at the very least (based on today’s performance we probably won’t beat the Dragons or Roosters either).

The halves have been really disappointing. Ponga’s been poor too but he’s also not getting quality ball. I’m not sure if the best answer is to persist with Hastings and Gamble in the hopes that our attack will continue to build, or make a statement now by bringing Cogger in and seeing if he can do any better.

A small thing that really shits me off is Hasting’s religiously sharing videos on social media of his try/try assist highlights straight after we lose. You’re the halfback of a team that’s struggling in attack. Fans don’t want to see highlights if you can’t direct the team in attack when it matters.

 

[Yosh]

The trials concerned me. They're playing exactly the same way now.

Realistically we're probably still a top halfback and hooker away from taking a step up.

We do have Cogger and Brailey waiting to come in and both of them are pretty high standard.

 

[Walk On Home Boy]

Only saw bits of the game.

Look, I’d predicted us to have a slow/poor start to the season purely just taking into account our draw and also expecting our attack would take a while to click given history. Prior to season start the only game I’d tipped us to win was Raiders.

Not trying to be too pessimistic though, but in my mind I’ve kind of already closed the curtains on this season. Yes it’s only game 2, but most likely we’ll be 0/4 at the very least (based on today’s performance we probably won’t beat the Dragons or Roosters either).

The halves have been really disappointing. Ponga’s been poor too but he’s also not getting quality ball. I’m not sure if the best answer is to persist with Hastings and Gamble in the hopes that our attack will continue to build, or make a statement now by bringing Cogger in and seeing if he can do any better.

A small thing that really shits me off is Hasting’s religiously sharing videos on social media of his try/try assist highlights straight after we lose. You’re the halfback of a team that’s struggling in attack. Fans don’t want to see highlights if you can’t direct the team in attack when it matters.

Wow, really? Tell me where Hastings is posting that so I can go give him a dose of reality. He's the main culprit.

 

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

I’m not sure if the best answer is to persist with Hastings and Gamble in the hopes that our attack will continue to build, or make a statement now by bringing Cogger in and seeing if he can do any better.

and if he cannot do any better ? stick with him? change again? That is 100% something that Browny would have done.

I say we stay the course and back the halves to come right. Although I think long term we need another marque play maker.

 

[Woody90]

Wow, really? Tell me where Hastings is posting that so I can go give him a dose of reality. He's the main culprit.

His instagram stories usually. Re-posted the club IG post of his kick for Marzhew’s try literally within an hour of the loss.

 

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

We do have Cogger and Brailey waiting to come in and both of them are pretty high standard.

disagree on Cogger , other than a 20 min cameo last season ( in my opinion Reynolds choked and lost the game) he is a fringe first grader.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Where to start on this game… I hate golden point. Absolutely hate it. We never win these ones, we must have the worst golden point record of any team in the 20+ years since it was brought into the game. We just consistently seem to give the other team chances to ice the game.

The thing that gets me in this one is that we let them roll 60+ metres up field in that first set in GP. It’s basically the same as what happened to us against Penrith last year at home. We gave up a huge amount of metres and they got themselves into FG range immediately and took their shot. I don’t know whether we just clock off and play too passive or whether it was to do with the fatigue? Either way it’s a trend that can’t be ignored.

The other thing is that we just didn’t attack well at all. Did we spread the ball at all aside from the 20m zone? I don’t remember Gags or Best getting any kind of clean early ball even from 40m or 50m out. Gags got a couple of line breaks from broken play but we just didn’t provide our outside backs with any good opportunities to run the ball.

Admittedly the cowboys defended well in the first half considering how much ball we had but the fact that the only two tries came from a couple of soft plays was super disappointing. We just couldn’t get any real fluidity and we didn’t start offloading until pretty late in the first half, Jack Heatherington actually got that going which was good to see.

Anyway. I genuinely think the key moment was KP dropping that kick when there wasn’t anyone within 30m of him. We did a great job by pinning them in their half and we probably would have started that set around halfway or even at their 40m line with a real shot at closing out the game but that drop just turned the whole momentum of the game. Just so frustrating to watch us shoot our-selves in the foot over and over.

 

[Jono078]

Where to start on this game… I hate golden point. Absolutely hate it. We never win these ones, we must have the worst golden point record of any team in the 20+ years since it was brought into the game. We just consistently seem to give the other team chances to ice the game.

Didn’t even have to include golden point in that. We’ve just been shit for a long time

 

[Old dog]

I see Cogger at 7 next week, Hastings injured, Brailey to 14 with Crossland holding onto 9 for this week

 

[Zoidberg]

Where to start on this game… I hate golden point. Absolutely hate it. We never win these ones, we must have the worst golden point record of any team in the 20+ years since it was brought into the game.

They did bring up our golden point stats before that period started today. It was something like - 1 win - 14 losses - 4 draws.
Has to be the worst. How do you get more draws than wins? And only 1 win from 19 (now 20) games.
I am quickly becoming very concerned about this season.

 

[Seage]

We played a side that made 11 - Eleven! - errors in the first half, committed 5 ruck infringements, were forced to defend 29 tackles in their red zone and scored 0 points in the entire half. And we lost. Let that sink in. The opposition will never play that badly again and we couldn't beat them.

The absolute lack of discipline on our side in gifting penalties and the general presence of Greg Marzhew cost us. Dan Safiti's bone rattler was the match turning point. Right until KP spilled that kick at the end to give them the ball. That ended up the real turning point.

 

[Old dog]

I am quickly becoming very concerned about this season.

Nice to see you’ve caught up with the rest of us

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Calling it early… we won’t win a game this year. Wooden spoon #5 coming right up!

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

I missed this but it sounds like a repeat performance. Don't think I'll catch up on it

 

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

They did bring up our golden point stats before that period started today. It was something like - 1 win - 14 losses - 4 draws.
Has to be the worst. How do you get more draws than wins? And only 1 win from 19 (now 20) games.
I am quickly becoming very concerned about this season.

wow. That does show we have been lacking a genuine blue chip game manager/clutch player for a very long time

 

[Mr_Knightside]

The only GP game I can legit remember us winning was that 2004 game against the Broncos where Kurt Gidley kicked that bludger of a FG.

Aside from that… have we ever won a GP game since then???

 

[Mr_Knightside]

I missed this but it sounds like a repeat performance. Don't think I'll catch up on it

Here’s the summary…

Cowboys were utterly shit in the first half… a regular standard NRL team would have put 20 on them. A good team would have put 30 on them, a premiership contender would have put 40 on them… we however were only up 12-0 at half time.

Cowboys then started the second half pretty well and it was 12-10 about 7 mins into 2nd half.

We then go up 20-10 after another try and a penalty goal with around 20 mins to go. And it all goes down hill from there.

Cowboys get it to 20-20 golden point and get a FG from basically right in front in the first minute of GP.

All pretty predictable…

 

[Woody90]

I missed this but it sounds like a repeat performance. Don't think I'll catch up on it

To be honest I think we were a bit improved on last week…although the Cowboys were trash as well so maybe not.