Match Discussion: Round 9 vs Eels @ McDonald Jones Stadium

[Zoidberg]

You're grasping at straws, we were awful and didn't deserve anything

Not trying to make any excuses just curious.
Looked like that image was photoshopped anyway.

 

[Knight Vision]

Knee injury I think? O Brien mentioned it in presser

Yeh ok just saw a report they think its a PCL, I have no idea what that is but it's not as bad as the other knee injuries and only a couple of weeks, he should come back nice and fresh for our run into the finals

 

[Knight Vision]

I also thought there was a lot of agro missing from the team today, not enough to win the game.

If a player puts a high shot on Ponga nothing short of mini all in bags at 10 paces is good enough.......

Today we were bullied and hate that.

 

[Yosh]

Like the look of Hoy. Seems genuinely excited yo be playing the game. Ponga seems to be carrying boulders on his shoulders. Could be expectations, self doubt, or perhaps just too much load out on him because Pearce and Mann not doing their jobs.

Can't see us missing the finals this year. Have a feeling Pearce is going to plod along but Ponga should be the goods in the finals I reckon.

 

[Loose Cannon]

Had enough possession to win 3 games, yet we score our only try (second week straight) from a play everyone here had issues with for the last several years.

Pearce should be dropped for being incompetent, Ponga not too far behind. Kurt Mann offers less as a 6 than Herman Ese’Ese would, and if you check try assists this year, it will show Herman ball playing at the line to put guys over. If Ponga can’t do it on the right, maybe he should stick left and perhaps Pearce can play right, (he has been a first grade halfback for over a decade).

Forwards were fantastic. Guerra with a sh*t-ton of defensive saves, Jacob gets better every week, Saulo strong too. They deserve much better than these million-dollar muppets ballsing thing up, or short kicking dead on the fourth.

Bradman got F all ball today, thought Moga had great involvement and earned his place for some time. Hoy has plenty to offer but doesn’t fit in this team with our useless spine.

Filthy with that performance.

 

[perverse]

These are things that can be fixed but AOB needs to work it out and fix it fast because teams will work us out pretty quickly if we don’t.

Unfortunately this has been my mantra for weeks already, and they've already figured us out. When the opposing centre rushes in our on second man receiving the ball out the back everything shuts down 100% of the time. We basically never service the line runner with any ball to keep them guessing. I was screaming for 2 things tonight and neither eventuated -

1 - Play short balls up the middle. There were stretches of that game where we had ascendancy in the middle. Working over their forwards with some short balls to fast players in the middle could have reaped rewards. I believe I saw us attempt this once in 80 minutes with Best. Watson will help tremendously in this department as an attacking option around the middle.
2 - Send Ponga down the left. Now, I'm all for training this kid to work anywhere on the park... but there are times where you prepare for the future, and there are times when you go out there and win a footy match. At half time, the mandate should have been to run plays down the left with Ponga and men in motion. I think we did this twice i can remember in 80 minutes, and both looked very dangerous.

We can sit here and bitch and moan about Pearce and Ponga playing like shit, and they are... HOWEVER... when are we going to talk about the game plan? What I saw out there in attack was a f**king shambles. Either the gameplan is too complicated and they don't know what they're doing, or it's just flat out ineffective. Watching Ponga linger on the right when we know he's a weapon on the left is super frustrating, and it happened set after set after set.

I know it's very popular around here to suck O'Briens dick, and look he has done a TREMENDOUS job in getting us competitive and bringing a strong mentality. I am glad he's here and he has my support. BUT... how many weeks do we look at this and say that our attack has gone backwards massively without asking questions of the coaching staff? There are clear and obvious things that even a moron like me can look at on the field and think wow that's a really stupid idea... and it was not a part of our game last year or the year before. It is brand new. These players can produce much better. Whatever the coaching staff are teaching us in attack, it does not work for these players. Locking Ponga on the right is f**king criminal at this point for mine - and I don't care what he or anyone else says publically, there's no way he's not been told to do it. As a player, you don't run out there and get excited to do the thing you're shit at for 80 minutes.

Due to the nature of this forum and how things are perceived I think it's worth re-iterating again that i'm not anti-O'Brien, I don't have the knives out for the guy - but I do want to call it how I see it, and I see massive strategic issues in attack beyond the form of our playmakers. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that the form and the strategy are somewhat related. It may well be that this is just a stepping stone along the way that needs to be taken to get where we need to be, too... but there are moments in games where we absolutely could just play to our natural strengths, and invariably we do the thing we're shit at instead.

 

[Spot On]

Geez, what's this, what's this????

Pearce is the scapegoat now.

Hmmm.

 

[perverse]

Geez, what's this, what's this????

Pearce is the scapegoat now.

Hmmm.

Yeah, if you throw another 5 posts crying about it, with zero to contibute beyond that, you'll hit your quota for the week.

 

[mozza91]

I thought we were pretty good in the first half. Our attack looked pretty fluent but we just couldn’t get the finishing touches right. But the second half was atrocious.

Pearce and Ponga are definitely trying but it just isn’t working. I really think we’re missing Watson’s running game. He’s a massive threat and we can play good football off the back of it. Barnett will add plenty too. Guerra is solid but he doesn’t offer what Barney does on that right edge.

Our middles were excellent again. I thought Ese was our best and Klemmer and Saifiti x 2 were great again. Was the best I’ve seen from Saulo in FG too.

Was a frustrating performance but I think our attack will click again soon. I didn’t see anything from Parra today that worries me. We can definitely beat them.

 

[NoSchitSherlock]

O'Brien acknowledged in the press conference that the focus has been on defence. He claims we have natural attacking talent that will come good but we nneed to shift the balance in training more towards attack.

 

[Knight Vision]

I thought we were pretty good in the first half. Our attack looked pretty fluent but we just couldn’t get the finishing touches right. But the second half was atrocious.

this

Forwards were fantastic. Guerra with a sh*t-ton of defensive saves, Jacob gets better every week, Saulo strong too. They deserve much better than these million-dollar muppets ballsing thing up, or short kicking dead on the fourth.

Couldnt kick to save our lives, Dare I say it they looked uncertain everytime they went to kick ....really down on confidence. Dont think I've ever seen Ponga in such a form slump.....woeful .....Pearce? Oh yeh, he can get worse.....

 

[Yosh]

I thought we were pretty good in the first half. Our attack looked pretty fluent but we just couldn’t get the finishing touches right. But the second half was atrocious.

Pearce and Ponga are definitely trying but it just isn’t working. I really think we’re missing Watson’s running game. He’s a massive threat and we can play good football off the back of it. Barnett will add plenty too. Guerra is solid but he doesn’t offer what Barney does on that right edge.

Our middles were excellent again. I thought Ese was our best and Klemmer and Saifiti x 2 were great again. Was the best I’ve seen from Saulo in FG too.

Was a frustrating performance but I think our attack will click again soon. I didn’t see anything from Parra today that worries me. We can definitely beat them.

Exactly. We beat ourselves again. Only the Roosters and the Storm I feel are teams that can genuinely beat us.

 

[newyboy]

our forwards and backs really did more than enough against the best side in the comp

Who were without the inform 1/2 in the comp. It's like the Storm without Smith or the Knights without Pearce.

 

[Yosh]

Who were without the inform 1/2 in the comp. It's like the Storm without Smith or the Knights without Pearce.

The Storm without Smith are worse off. I don't know if that'll be the case with the Knights and Pearce unfortunately...

 

[perverse]

Having had a little bit of time to reflect on the match I think it's worth noting that we created more legitimate opportunities than Parra did. We had Moga drop the ball over the line twice and Tex be a bees dick offside for his no-try too. So even firing on 1/8 cylindars, we did still threaten.

I've just watched the presser and O'Brien straight away calls out the problems of the coaching leading to the performances in attack we've seen, so yeah... I don't see any need to be slashing wrists or dropping players at this stage. We might not be as far off as we feel we are. The fact that we're so competitive with our 2 linchpins in bad form is actually a very positive sign, and bodes very well if we can get things clicking again.

 

[Knight Vision]

Having had a little bit of time to reflect on the match I think it's worth noting that we created more legitimate opportunities than Parra did. We had Moga drop the ball over the line twice and Tex be a bees dick offside for his no-try too. So even firing on 1/8 cylindars, we did still threaten.

I've just watched the presser and O'Brien straight away calls out the problems of the coaching leading to the performances in attack we've seen, so yeah... I don't see any need to be slashing wrists or dropping players at this stage. We might not be as far off as we feel we are. The fact that we're so competitive with our 2 linchpins in bad form is actually a very positive sign, and bodes very well if we can get things clicking again.

oh without a doubt mate, if the bounce or rub of the green was more our way it could have easily seen us winning by 12.......

There's much to look forward to, we looked every bit the new roster with new coaching staff that we are at the moment...

 

[Spot On]

You're grasping at straws, we were awful and didn't deserve anything

Yep... and the attack is gradually getting worse, if that is possible.

Interesting next four games too.

 

[alexwilliams_66692007]

Interesting next four games too.

We SHOULD win at least 2 of them but... I know this team.

 

[Silent Knight]

F*** it, never mind the next 4 games here’s SK’s dodgy tarot crystal ball outlook for the rest of 2020:

Souffs - maybe if our attack clicks. Dan is a big loss as he doesn’t take any crap from them. Please don’t let Dane Gagai post a hattrick ffs.

Dogs - should win but I said that last year and they beat us the second time.

Storm - lol no way that’s going to happen.

Tigers - should win but earlier in the year we were actually capable of putting 40 on them. Not so sure we’re capable of that anymore.

Manly - this has revenge game written all over it. Debatable if we win, even at home.

Cowboys - should win if we’re fair dinkum but I said that the first time and these spuds we support set out to prove me wrong in the most convincing fashion.

Warriors - should win but if we continue to derp in attack Blake Green could pull our pants down.

Sharks - f***ing hate them and some of their arrogant fans on here telling all and sundry how great their team is and how sh*t the rest of our teams are. No thoughts here of whether we win or lose, we need to grind them into the dirt. Wish every NRL team did the same.

Roosters - lol forget it. This game will prove how far off winning a premiership we are.

Dragons - you’d hope so wouldn’t you?

Titans - you’d hope so wouldn’t you?

From the above I’d say 6 likely wins, 2 possible wins, 1 big FU and piss off out of the 8 for the year and 2 Lol no it’s not going to happens.

Prove me wrong Knights. Prove me wrong.

 

[Knight76]

We are a bit off in attack no doubt. But as is pointed out by media commentator ex players, just a few percent off and your not good enough.

Kicking is a big problem at the moment, downfield kicks tend to go straight to the defender, Pearce does not seem capable of getting the ball in to the in goal so not many repeat sets.

Attacking kicks are just not where they need to be. Mid field bombs are not high enough, and we don't get players under them to contest. That last short drop out was horrible, ball went 15m which is ok, but not high enough, and it didn't even look like our right side knew it was on, maybe only one of our players got near it.

Kick off's are too short giving the opposition a free 10m every time. Get the ball down in to the in goal.

It seems we don't even think about 40/20 option anymore.