NRLW

[Apey]

Left it to the 60th minute to put a play on.

 

[alexwilliams_66692007]

Left it to the 60th minute to put a play on.

AOB must be the coach today

 

[Apey]

Higgins is like a 2022 version of Crossland at hooker- constantly making the wrong decision in the red zone.

She's had a great year but honestly some of our best players saved their worst games for 2024. Southwell in particular but we looked incredibly disjointed.

 

[aqua_duck]

I don’t hate crash plays but we don’t have the personnel to crash over off a crash play.
Laishon has had a good year but her and Karpani were left on the ground after pretty much every tackle.
The roosters girls just looked bigger, stronger and faster.

 

[Apey]

I don’t hate crash plays but we don’t have the personnel to crash over off a crash play.
Laishon has had a good year but her and Karpani were left on the ground after pretty much every tackle.
The roosters girls just looked bigger, stronger and faster.

We also passed it to Predebon a few times when it wasnt on, hoping she'd barge over.

Really disappointing game for our last of the year. Laishon and Jesse probably had their worst games. Commentary on 9 mentioned Southwell and Upton only linked twice all game and one of them resulted in a try.

Thought our centres and wingers did okay for the most part. It really was lost in the middle.

 

[SamSepi0l]

Laishon was awful today. Worst game for last. Will be keen to see run McEwen in that edge role next season. Would be nice to have a line running threat on each edge.

 

[aqua_duck]

Laishon was awful today. Worst game for last. Will be keen to see run McEwen in that edge role next season. Would be nice to have a line running threat on each edge.

Evah McEwen will really add another dimension to the right edge attack, most of our backrowers over the years have been converted from other positions, Laishon was a 5/8th/lock, Clydsdale a centre/wing, Romy Teitzel was a fullback/centre, and we’ve used Caitlin Johnston on the edge before as well. McEwen is a pure edge forward who has grown up running the lines, her physique and athleticism are also very much prototypical for a NRLW edge.

 

[Apey]

Upon reflection, even though it was a shit way to go out, we still did pretty well this year I reckon. We lost some talent last year when the comp expanded with four more teams, then lost our B2B coach and lost our biggest impact prop early on.

The future will be interesting, next year there are two more teams and the NRLW's expansion is going to be much more rapid than in the NRL. The more games the better, the talent thinning will be tough at first, but a longer season will better determine who the best teams are and a longer final series will see the top teams getting a second chance as well.

 

[Yosh]

It's pretty awesome we got those 2 Premierships, no one can take that away from us. It feels like the media hate us for some reason.

 

[Nuke]

It was noteworthy that even after 2 premiership wins in row, Ch9 were still using clips of Broncos and Roosters raising the premiership trophy in their early season ads. Like, seriously?!

 

[aqua_duck]

Upon reflection, even though it was a shit way to go out, we still did pretty well this year I reckon. We lost some talent last year when the comp expanded with four more teams, then lost our B2B coach and lost our biggest impact prop early on.

The future will be interesting, next year there are two more teams and the NRLW's expansion is going to be much more rapid than in the NRL. The more games the better, the talent thinning will be tough at first, but a longer season will better determine who the best teams are and a longer final series will see the top teams getting a second chance as well.

We’ve got a really good pathways set up with both our Tarsha Gale and Harvey Norman sides making that grand final we also were able to debut 3 teenagers this year who all looked right at home.
We’ll be losing most of our kiwi contingent to the warriors for next year from what I can gather so that will be challenging but our fortunes for next year hinge on if we can find some decent front rowers and if Jesse can develop into a complete halfback

 

[Apey]

It was noteworthy that even after 2 premiership wins in row, Ch9 were still using clips of Broncos and Roosters raising the premiership trophy in their early season ads. Like, seriously?!

Yeah, when your team is actually good, the best team of the last 3 years in fact, and you're still not really getting your dues, it becomes obvious you're not a media favourite.

In 2022 Roosters were the Premiership picks then at the start of 2023 it was the Titans despite us being b2b and having largely the same roster, the coach was the main change. Some schadenfreude for me that they didn't even make the finals.

Ah well I suspect we will be thereabouts again next year.

As aqua mentioned, I hope Southwell can move on from this disappointment and get back to being the player she can be. She's still very young, her long kicking game and even conversions are at the top of NRLW, just needs to bring some of those other skills back she had in spades in 2022 & 2023.

 

[Haffa]

Besides our prop rotation, I still think how we can introduce Evie Jones into the team is going to go a long way to determine how successful we are going forward.

 

[HarVeeGee]

Yeah as soon as CJ went down I thought we wouldn’t have the muscle to win the comp. I was filthy with how they played on the weekend but it’s probably a bit unfair of me to say “they can’t win without CJ” and then be annoyed with them losing mostly because their middle forwards got smashed without CJ there.

For my money besides Evah McEwen the player coming through who really impresses me as an athlete is Fane Finau, who’s more of a centre but we’ve seen a big strong physical centre like Biddle over at the Sharks make a massive difference, so she should help. Definitely need one of the young middles to kick on, I see Leilani Ahsam (prop/lock) is another who’s being fast tracked into the top squad but I’ve not seen much of her so I don’t know how much she’ll make an impact.

Jesse is definitely the biggest worry besides that but it’s easy to get why she hasn’t kicked on like we might like. This is the first season where she hasn’t won the comp. Hard to have the mentality that you need to improve when you keep winning the comp every year. The good news is if her halves play continues to be a bit unreliable, she’d likely be a terrific lock forward.

I think they need to figure out a way to get Evie into the halves as the kind of pace and agility she brings is best suited to torturing edge forwards, rather than through the middle as a bench hooker (it’s not that she didn’t play well there, it’s just that she’s a bit tall and doesn’t look to me to have that nippy hooker type of acceleration).

 

[aqua_duck]

Yeah as soon as CJ went down I thought we wouldn’t have the muscle to win the comp. I was filthy with how they played on the weekend but it’s probably a bit unfair of me to say “they can’t win without CJ” and then be annoyed with them losing mostly because their middle forwards got smashed without CJ there.

For my money besides Evah McEwen the player coming through who really impresses me as an athlete is Fane Finau, who’s more of a centre but we’ve seen a big strong physical centre like Biddle over at the Sharks make a massive difference, so she should help. Definitely need one of the young middles to kick on, I see Leilani Ahsam (prop/lock) is another who’s being fast tracked into the top squad but I’ve not seen much of her so I don’t know how much she’ll make an impact.

Jesse is definitely the biggest worry besides that but it’s easy to get why she hasn’t kicked on like we might like. This is the first season where she hasn’t won the comp. Hard to have the mentality that you need to improve when you keep winning the comp every year. The good news is if her halves play continues to be a bit unreliable, she’d likely be a terrific lock forward.

I think they need to figure out a way to get Evie into the halves as the kind of pace and agility she brings is best suited to torturing edge forwards, rather than through the middle as a bench hooker (it’s not that she didn’t play well there, it’s just that she’s a bit tall and doesn’t look to me to have that nippy hooker type of acceleration).

Finau is a beast, having a big strong centre who can help out the middles with those tough carries will be a plus.
With Jesse I think one thing I’m noticing abit is she seems to be making a conscious effort to play more structured which I just don’t think suits her game. She needs to just back her instincts more, and at the risk of being a male chauvinist I think trimming down slightly would be good for her mobility and running game which were elite when she first came into the league, this year it was a non factor

 

[Apey]

Abigail Roache got tackle of the year at the Dally Ms for a great try-saver.

 

[Frederick]

Did Tamika die or something? How was Abbi Church a better fullback
First set of stats is Meeks, second is Church. Like, seriously, come on

 

[aqua_duck]

Did Tamika die or something? How was Abbi Church a better fullback
First set of stats is Meeks, second is Church. Like, seriously, come on
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I think Tamika has become a victim of her own success, it’s just an expectation now that she makes 2-3 line breaks and has 2-3 try assists every single game to even poll any points whereas the mere mortals just need to rock up, try hard and if their team and have a win or lose competitively they’ll get some points

 

[Apey]

Did Tamika die or something? How was Abbi Church a better fullback
First set of stats is Meeks, second is Church. Like, seriously, come on
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Yeah it was a meme, I don't know how Upton polled so poorly in our last couple of games that we won convincingly. I guess Yasmin took some points off her and Eels have no other stand-out players.

Yasmin 2nd rower of the year was our only other winner.

 

[aqua_duck]

Yeah it was a meme, I don't know how Upton polled so poorly in our last couple of games that we won convincingly. I guess Yasmin took some points off her and Eels have no other stand-out players.

Yasmin 2nd rower of the year was our only other winner.

Yet titans finished 3rd last and had 2 winners including Lauren Brown who was runner up.
Would love to see the complete allocation of votes because I’d dare say there’d be some favouritism going on