Positives / Negatives

[Drew-Sta]

Some good positives out of todays game, and some obvious negatives. I'll post a few in no particular order.

Wicks - Needs to learn to hold the ball properly. Reminded me of a younger Ryles.
Creagh - Absolute freak. Hit Bull some corkers; Shame about the last one, but really showed some quality footy. Will give Young a run for the 13 without a doubt.
Morris - Outside of some small errors, had a quality game. Really thought he did well.
Ryles - Surprised me actually, didn't get turtled too much, didn't pass at the line, and got some good metres. I'll forgive him for the useless kick he put in as a rush of blood to the head.
Williams - Had a great debut. His pass to Lulia was amazing. Went a touch MIA at parts, and his kicking needs to be worked on, but overall he had a great game.
Peek - Didn't think he did much. Could be considered as 'solid' but won't touch 1st grade when Young comes back.
Lulia - Solid
Wes - Fantastic. His goal kicking was splendid.
Hunt - Did ok, but like most young forwards lacked the 'hardnosed' edge you get with a bit more experience.
Woolford - Did well, and importantly, kept his mouth shut.
Caine - Solid game for sure, I like this bloke.
Payne - Again, very solid, and looking forward to his season.
Coops - Played really well, and looked very dangerous.
Mad Pup - Quiet but no mistakes and seemed to support Coops well.
Hornby - Freak. Love the guy. Bottle him and make a few dozen more.

GC played well. A good test, and I think they'll be a contender if they can get some more match experience. Scotty Prince was awesome, and I thought our defence held off him a bit at times. Nevertheless, his attack was excellent and tested out defence in a good way. Someone please clone him and have him running drills against our defence at training.

We did get off lightly on some occasions, but I spose that's luck that has evaded us for a while. The last break Rogers made and the kick in springs to mind. At other times, we've let those tries in.

I think early on, our defence at the edges and wings was found short. Not sure why - First game jitters? Anyways, we seemed to mark up better towards the games end. We had an umbrella looking defence and it seemed to work.

 

[Godz Illa]

I thought Peek was better than solid, he did a good job out there. Tucked the ball under his arm, made metres and no mistakes. Looked professional. Payne was quite poor and Wicks needs to hold the ball. You forgot to mention Ashton Sims who I also thought played well. And Jason Ryles was magnificent, consistently ate big big yards all game long, at times carried 3 or 4 defenders for 10 metres. Deserves plenty of praise for his effort. Other than that your review is accurate.

The big negative for me was discipline. We got hammered in the penalty count and tbh most of the penalties seemed fair enough. Did well to win the game in spite of it, but it needs to be addressed.

Quite odd that we have actually won the first game of the year. A very peculiar sensation. I like it though.

 

[Collateral]

Peek - Didn't think he did much. Could be considered as 'solid' but won't touch 1st grade when Young comes back.

Lulia - Solid

Id swap those two assements around.

Also thought that Payne was a bit quiet.

Hunt had a great game up front for us.

William's went ok.

Caine filled in great for Woolford.

Scott was excellent for us in defence but was MIA in attack a lot of the time. If he can work on his workrate in attack, he will become a great second row partner with Creagh.

 

[Dragonheart]

Overall I was ecstatic to see a win in round 1.

I thought in a general sense the guys played well, though seemed to lack direction a couple of times. The 14 point lead caused a little apathy which led to it becoming a 2 point lead, but they hung in well against a VERY determined GC side.

Simone Wardrobe needs to keep in mind he is NOT the captain (no, I'm still convinced his part in the team is a good idea).

 

[petetheileet]

Some good positives out of todays game, and some obvious negatives. I'll post a few in no particular order.

Wicks - Needs to learn to hold the ball properly. Reminded me of a younger Ryles.
Creagh - Absolute freak. Hit Bull some corkers; Shame about the last one, but really showed some quality footy. Will give Young a run for the 13 without a doubt.
Morris - Outside of some small errors, had a quality game. Really thought he did well.
Ryles - Surprised me actually, didn't get turtled too much, didn't pass at the line, and got some good metres. I'll forgive him for the useless kick he put in as a rush of blood to the head.
Williams - Had a great debut. His pass to Lulia was amazing. Went a touch MIA at parts, and his kicking needs to be worked on, but overall he had a great game.
Peek - Didn't think he did much. Could be considered as 'solid' but won't touch 1st grade when Young comes back.
Lulia - Solid
Wes - Fantastic. His goal kicking was splendid.
Hunt - Did ok, but like most young forwards lacked the 'hardnosed' edge you get with a bit more experience.
Woolford - Did well, and importantly, kept his mouth shut.
Caine - Solid game for sure, I like this bloke.
Payne - Again, very solid, and looking forward to his season.
Coops - Played really well, and looked very dangerous.
Mad Pup - Quiet but no mistakes and seemed to support Coops well.
Hornby - Freak. Love the guy. Bottle him and make a few dozen more.

GC played well. A good test, and I think they'll be a contender if they can get some more match experience. Scotty Prince was awesome, and I thought our defence held off him a bit at times. Nevertheless, his attack was excellent and tested out defence in a good way. Someone please clone him and have him running drills against our defence at training.

We did get off lightly on some occasions, but I spose that's luck that has evaded us for a while. The last break Rogers made and the kick in springs to mind. At other times, we've let those tries in.

I think early on, our defence at the edges and wings was found short. Not sure why - First game jitters? Anyways, we seemed to mark up better towards the games end. We had an umbrella looking defence and it seemed to work.

Creagh was excellent...bit dissapointed in Payne was a lot safer last year, not too impressed with williams, looks more than capable of loosing games for us and kicking game was quite average.

All the other young blokes i was impressed with esp hunt looking foward to head and young coming back, i think poore could b struggling to get a run wen he gets off suspension.

 

[thommo4pm]

Justin Poore and Dean Young walk straight back into the team when they are back.
Poore will be straight to number 8.
Don't forget just how good he was last year, we will have some quality depth when we get some guys back over the next month.

 

[Collateral]

Simone Wardrobe needs to keep in mind he is NOT the captain (no, I'm still convinced his part in the team is a good idea).

I wouldnt listen to what Rab's was saying. He thinks he knows something he doesnt. To me it clearly looked as if Woolford was asking Hornby what he wanted to do.

Woolford might not be Captain when it comes to dealing with the ref, but he is definantly one of our leaders on and off the field.

 

[petetheileet]

Justin Poore and Dean Young walk straight back into the team when they are back.
Poore will be straight to number 8.
Don't forget just how good he was last year, we will have some quality depth when we get some guys back over the next month.

agree with you about young but dont b surprised if poore is a benchy by the end of the year, he will never have the talent of Wicks and Hunt

 

[petetheileet]

I wouldnt listen to what Rab's was saying. He thinks he knows something he doesnt. To me it clearly looked as if Woolford was asking Hornby what he wanted to do.

Woolford might not be Captain when it comes to dealing with the ref, but he is definantly one of our leaders on and off the field.

Big wrap to Woolford he will continue to be great for us

 

[God-King Dean]

We made some dumb mistakes which had me screaming at the telly. But that'll get better.

F*cking good hustle from both teams. Gotta say I f*cking loved that pass from Woolford which lead to Williams' first. Titans were looking thin under the post & we had a forward screaming into it & Titans compressed. Woolford could have eaily passed it to him but passed to the outside instead. Heh, even I fell for it, all experience right there.

I was unhappy that we sign Woolford I must admit, but he's proved the haters wrong for shizzle my nizzles.

 

[sethman75]

POSITIVES - Blooding some of the younger players, which i thought all did quite well.

NEGATIVES - f**king Shane Hayne, is it just me or has this monkey got something against the Dragons??? Dead set i would love to see a win/loss ratio or even better a penalty count for and against when this headcheese ref's our games.

 

[Godz Illa]

Gotta say I f*cking loved that pass from Woolford which lead to Williams' first. Titans were looking thin under the post & we had a forward screaming into it & Titans compressed. Woolford could have eaily passed it to him but passed to the outside instead. Heh, even I fell for it, all experience right there.

I was unhappy that we sign Woolford I must admit, but he's proved the haters wrong for shizzle my nizzles.

That was a great read by Woolford. That is what we have lacked for a while, a dummy half who can read exactly where the ball should go.

That pass was good, but the pass of the match belonged to Williams. The bullet face ball he launched 15m right onto Lulia's chest that set up the try.

 

[thommo4pm]

agree with you about young but dont b surprised if poore is a benchy by the end of the year, he will never have the talent of Wicks and Hunt

He has the talent and has the desire and heart.
At this stage of their respective careers Poore doesn't make as many errors as what Wicks does.
Wicks still has too many fumbles in him...he will get this out of his game eventually.

Hunt will need to bide his time a little more, we need Poore for his experience, having now been in 1st grade for 4 seasons(this year). Hunt will be good for us.
Remember though that Poorey is only 22 also.
I love the passion that Poorey plays with, does a lot of things that don't get the spotlight.

 

[Dragonwest]

Id say young n poore would both come back into the side with payne and peek to drop out of out top 17. Peek was solid today without being spectacular. Payne is struggling to offer anything worthy of our top 17. To many mistakes, often gets dominated in tackles and apart from the odd big hit doesnt usually slow the play the ball down as well as say a creagh or even scott.

 

[God-King Dean]

Forgot to mention...

Creagh = God.

He was Kennedy-esque today. I always thought after Ryles & Hornby retire, that Young would probrably become captain, but Creagh may put his hand up for that if he keeps this up.

 

[Drew-Sta]

Creagh was indeed a superstar today. Some of the defence he was coming up with was rib-cracking, and he's been showing week in and out that he can consistently do it.

I thought Payne wasn't too bad IMHO, but maybe I was not seeing his mistakes. Peek, IMO, is just a fill in for when we have Reps out. He probably wasn't as bad as I made him out to be, but then we have been spoilt with the talents of Sims, Wicks, Poore, Creagh etc coming through, so I guess I was expecting more.

Sims is looking very trim and taut. He seems to be running a lot harder and I think by the end of the season, he will be consistently getting 10m a run.

Williams game was pretty good IMO. He needs a lot more experience, but if trained well enough, he could really prove to be a Preston Campbell-like player i.e. Random, illusive, talented, confident, and his size making him difficutly to track down.

Anyways, promising things for us. GC also had a good start to the season. I expect them to have a bit of a 'Deer in Headlights' effect on some teams.

 

[Slackboy72]

I am simply amazed at the depth of talent we showed out there today. A rusty start but you'll always get that first game of the season.

Positives:
- ten new players into our first 17 and we played quite well
- Williams can play 5/8
- there is life for our pack after Bailey

Negatives
- Williams can punch too according to the NSW police
- Who should we have at 5/8 when Gaz comes back?

 

[Willow]

Creagh played a ripper. He was knocked senseless in the second half and it looked a busted jaw to me (I yelled out to Hayne to stop the game lol).

But the trainers wrapped him up and he played out of his skin for the last 20 minutes.

Full credit to the Titans - they have a lot of support and a good marketing department. Lots a passion from supporters who probably supported a different team in 2006. A credit to them. On the Footy train on the way home, it was quite high spirited.

I overheard one Titans supporter mutter how delighted he was with the effort put in by the Gold Coast: "Yeah... we lost today, and the Sharks won yesterday... but I'll never support the Sharks again..."

 

[petetheileet]

I am simply amazed at the depth of talent we showed out there today. A rusty start but you'll always get that first game of the season.

Positives:
- ten new players into our first 17 and we played quite well
- Williams can play 5/8
- there is life for our pack after Bailey

Negatives
- Williams can punch too according to the NSW police
- Who should we have at 5/8 when Gaz comes back?

Couldnt stomach williams at 5/8 i think you gta go Hornby/head combo when every1 is fit

 

[Willow]

Other positives:

It was fantastic to see Keith Lulia score in front of me. The kid backed himself and in my books that's a huge plus.