R16 | Broncos 44-22 Knights @ Suncorp | Friday 7.35pm

[NoSchitSherlock]

Who do we lose to next week?

Bye.

Raiders week after.

 

[Tom155]

Who do we lose to next week?

Bye next week raiders In 2 weeks in Canberra

 

[Zoidberg]

Well that was expected. The old "lose the game in the 1st 20, then get my hopes up, then get blown away in the last 20".

Our defence is shocking. What happened to our determination we saw in rounds 1-4?

Injuries didn't help for the last 20 I know, but we absolutely lost it in the 1st 20.

And did we get 1 penalty in the entire game?

 

[The Showstopper]

Sione is a mystery this season. Really down on any form of confidence. In part I blame Stone for insisting he play in the 17 by default. Never let him settle at all.that ten minutes either side of the half time break is our killer. We play well or terribly. No grey area. I am excited for our juniors though. They are special. Tapine, Mamo, Randall etc. with a decent set of halves running them around like Mullen and Hodko next season could be very interesting. It was sad we didn't go on with it. We had the chance to win tonight. Broncs were off their game. Apart from a couple of ten minute windows where we defended like Under 8s. We really went at their left edge. Uate was excellent.

 

[K-Man]

Sione is a mystery this season. Really down on any form of confidence. In part I blame Stone for insisting he play in the 17 by default. Never let him settle at all.that ten minutes either side of the half time break is our killer. We play well or terribly. No grey area. I am excited for our juniors though. They are special. Tapine, Mamo, Randall etc. with a decent set of halves running them around like Mullen and Hodko next season could be very interesting. It was sad we didn't go on with it. We had the chance to win tonight. Broncs were off their game. Apart from a couple of ten minute windows where we defended like Under 8s. We really went at their left edge. Uate was excellent.

Mystery? He looks like the exact same player as he was before. A teenage defensive liability with not all that much to offer in attack, signed up for stupid money to keep some people happy. I just do not understand how anyone thought he was anything more than what he is.

 

[Johns Magic]

I was pretty bloody impressed with Sione on the wing last year. He was slick. I think he can still come good for sure but the fact we had to pay up for him so much at this stage really sucks.

 

[Swarzey]

He needs to go back to the wing. As great as Gagai has played for us, he's never been great in defence and I have no doubt that's down to not playing on the wing more before easing into the centre position. He's great now, but this is a few years later. I'm more than happy to remain persistent with Sione, plenty of young players like Mamo and Levi are going to take some time to firm into their respective positions, rather critical ones to any success and Sione is no different. However, if there's a chance to make his transition easier, then the club should explore it. McManus may not have the speed, but he's a solid defender made to look worse by Sione's decision making.

 

[1qaz]

He looks most comfortable on the wing but then you are paying massive overs for a winger. The Knights are good at that.
The biggest problem with Sione is... he's quite quick, but not super quick, he's quite big, but not super big, solid foot work, but not great, solid hands but not great...
His defense will improve over time but all the other part of his game not going to improve that much.

 

[Joel-22]

.....commentator on nbn just said mullen's career is in jeopardy due to toe injury

Anyone else catch this?

 

[Swarzey]

It's Hadley. He's full of shit most of the time. Career threatening? f**king please.

He was close to playing tonight, two weeks will do a world of good. Even if he decides to spend the rest of the year rehabbing, his career will be fine. Hadley is a joke.

 

[slotmachine]

McManus may not have the speed, but he's a solid defender made to look worse by Sione's decision making.

Anyone blaming Jimmy for that cluster f**k is having a laugh. He's not doing much in attack these days but is still one of the best defensive wingers in the comp.

He looks most comfortable on the wing but then you are paying massive overs for a winger. The Knights are good at that.
The biggest problem with Sione is... he's quite quick, but not super quick, he's quite big, but not super big, solid foot work, but not great, solid hands but not great...
His defense will improve over time but all the other part of his game not going to improve that much.

I think as he grows into his body his speed and footwork will fall away if anything.

Talking about speed, it's sad to see how slow Aku is these days. He was in the clear 3 or 4 times last night and didn't even bother pinning the ears back. Adam Blair stayed with him pretty easily

 

[Whats Doing]

We now have the worst defence in the NRL.

Unless we fix up our defensive structures and improve our fitness this club will remain on the bottom.

They are also mentally weak where they drop their heads the first sign of any adversity. How many tries did the Broncos score in the next set of six after a mistake or penalty by the Knights.

We are a basket case both on and off the field.

 

[Joker's Wild]

I just don't know what's going to turn this team around, or if it's even possible.

These days I still cheer when we score but when we get points put on us, I don't swear or kick chairs or get upset, I laugh. I laugh cause I know that when the opposition gets in our 20 they will score unless they make an error.

I just don't care anymore

 

[Haffa]

I agree. All I did last night was laugh last night.

Some of those missed tackles were disgraceful. There were glimpses of a decent team in patches, then they derped it.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Let's face it guys our season is gone, and I think this might be an even bigger injury crisis than the dark days of '04 & '05 (although let's face it the last decade has been pretty dark) we just have so many established first graders out. I know we're playing like shit but I'm not sure if we actually have the cattle to be competitive at the moment. I don't want to sound like Stone here because the defensive lapses are inexcusable at times but in all seriousness I don't think there is a team in the comp that could keep their season together with the injuries we've had. Add Scott and Rochow to the list tonight and we'll be running out with pretty much a reserve grade forward pack soon.

And I can't really blame some of the young guys playing their first few games of FG for the shit we've seen so far this year. I'm happy to blame guys like Houston, Snowden et. al. For some of the on field stupidity but some of these young guys are being asked to play above their pay grade probably a bit early in their careers and its not a surprise that they're down on confidence.

Tbh the only real gain we get from this now is prepping these guys for next year and hopefully picking up a few handy signings in the process.

 

[Noname36]

I don't think there's anything we can do really. Yes some of the poor defence is related to attitude and confidence but much also just comes down to having too many rookies in key defensive positions that aren't ready for it, combined with blokes that have never been able to handle it. Then there's the fact that our only good defenders (Scott, Smith, Rochow, etc) we can't keep on the field. We can drop kids like Sione and Mamo that can't handle it defensively but I'm not sure it's going to help. We've put a lot of stock into them so we probably just need to sit back and take the hits and hope they get more comfortable.

We started the year extremely well defensively but we had a very different side, and that also sums up the difference between mentally strong and mentally weak sides like us. Any side can hold themselves together defensively for a few weeks...but it requires a large degree of mental strength and a squad full of defensively sound players to be able to maintain that over a long period. It also comes down to leadership...and the fact that the very few leaders we have in the squad can't stay on the field. God help us if Snowden or Houston are made captain next year...their leadership is about as bad as Gidley's in regards to the way they put the side under more pressure instead of helping.

Under Stone the first time around our philosophy seemed to be "if you score 38, we'll score 40" but you can't expect to score that many points to overcome the deplorable defence...especially when you lose the entire spine you started the year with like we have. All things considered I'm surprised we've been able to score as many points as we have...especially with the obvious lack of structures which I put down to coaching and players in key positions that have no idea what they're doing.

 

[Noname36]

Just to add: Gagai is so weird. It seems the poorer the side get, the better he does.

 

[Joker's Wild]

Levis 2 cold drops from dummy half were bad, even for a 2 game rookie.

It's a mental thing with this side and nothing is going to improve until that's fixed.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

What's really annoying me is that manly keep losing so we can't be last

 

[Noname36]

That's my concern though...how do we fix the mental problem? Seems it's a year in year out thing which is the most depressing thing.