The forwards all started lethargically. Missed tackles,dropped balls, basic errors culminating in Papali strolling over like he was on holiday. Barely ruffled his shirt.
Once the Raiders scored and tried the rough stuff, we woke up. When we went down to 12 men, we completely dominated them in defense. We weren’t “another brick in the wall”, we were the whole wall. Even the commentators were astounded at our defense.
I can only applaud Ivan. He has built a culture strong on team and effort. If we were a stick of rock the words “team first" would be written through it.
Dylan Edwards epitomises that culture. He repeatedly went up to catch the ball with the sound of thundering boots in his ears as he was lined up and smashed. Again and again. He then took a hit up to help the forwards. Does the man not feel pain? Inspirational stuff.
I always thought the 91 team were tough with MG, Dunn et al, but other than Freddy, whom is nails hard, the backs were average toughness.
Now I think this team is by far the toughest we have produced. I don’t mean overt MG, JWH hard men, I mean men who go where others fear to tread. Every one of them are fearless. Even Crichton, who looks more like a rap star than a footy player, is tough. Split ear? No problem, headgear on, good to go.
Our backs play like props, they belt it up and get smashed and don’t seem to care. The Panthers have created a new model for backs. Teams have always had the odd back like Mansour or Adam McDonald who plays like forward, but we have taken it to another level. It has changed the balance of the team because the forwards are fresher in defense giving us the ability to drive teams backwards without the ball. Against the Raiders, we demonstrated this with wave after wave of smothering defense. A black wall of threshing limbs engulfing everything in its path. Resistance is futile, we are the Panthers.
That said, the downside is we don’t have a lot of speed in our backs. Even if they are quick at the start, they are buggered doing plenty of the donkey work. It’s why we don’t blow up the scoreboard like the Storm and South’s do. We just don’t have the zip to slice teams up.