R2 | Cowboys 14-16 Knights @ 1300SMILES | Sat 9.00pm (AEDT)

[Bring it home Knights]

Well that was a stressful game to sit through.

I was pleased with the determination that the team played with tonight. The most noticeable thing that I took from the game was how poor our forwards were compared to theirs. They dominated us in the ruck and kept holding us down, whilst we were required to get off the tackled player quickly.

Snowden had a big impact with meters and creating plays from his passes. Sims played pretty well tonight I thought. His line speed and aggression in defense was impressive. I've been very unimpressed with Beau Scott so far this year. He's done one decent run in 2 weeks that I've noticed and he isn't charging onto the ball. Fa'alogo has been hopeless over the 2 games. His timing is out and he's having no positive impact. Houston can be thrown into that category also. He hits the line like a wet tissue and he's starting to remind me of Reagan Tanner... If Houston is on more than 100K per year then we are paying massive overs. Due to Gidleys lack of natural ability, it always takes him a while to not play like an inbred hick. Until he strings some games together he's full of errors and penalties and we witnessed that tonight. Mullen and Roberts both had solid games. They were happy to throw the ball around and that was vital as we were getting dominated in the forwards. Mcmanus played really well in both attack and defense as did Uate and Leilua. Gagai had a pretty poor game.

One of the major negatives I noticed for the cowboys was how ordinary their outside backs are. We always looked dangerous against them and they offered very little in attack,

 

[perverse]

I just hope the team doesn't have your attitude, chino. No-one should be happy with that performance. Grateful for the points, absolutely... but not anywhere close to happy. If that game makes us happy, we should just forget about really competing in this competition, and just be happy to struggle along, getting kicked in the guts by teams that actually want to be good at football.

There's positives to take out of the win - we know how to win from behind. McManus was great, our starting props were great. Aku and Leilua were good. It's 2 points we wouldn't have counted on getting. All good things, and we've set ourselves up to have the best year possible... but we're not going to trouble any serious teams with that sort of stuff, and that's the frustrating part for me. The Cowboys have been considered Top 4 contenders... and we can't afford to dish that up to an actual Top 4 contender on their home turf, because our F/A will get smashed.

 

[MC DUI]

I just hope the team doesn't have your attitude, chino. No-one should be happy with that performance. Grateful for the points, absolutely... but not anywhere close to happy. If that game makes us happy, we should just forget about really competing in this competition, and just be happy to struggle along, getting kicked in the guts by teams that actually want to be good at football.

The good thing is I don't think Stone is happy with the performance at all.

Plus the Cowboys are a bunch of cowgirls.

 

[1qaz]

I thought Knights should have gotten more penalties.

 

[MC DUI]

Holy moley we won with 39% possession in North QLD.... that's huge.

 

[perverse]

Holy moley we won with 39% possession in North QLD.... that's huge.

According to NRL stats we only had 2 less completed sets than they did (30 - 28), I'm not sure how that equates to 39% possession.

 

[Noname36]

Oh FFS. We had 2 wins in our first 13 or something games last year (the Sharks and Raiders). We have 2 from 2 this season and some people still have the razors out.

Are we an awesome side like Souths or Roosters? Hell no, but none of us expected us to be. We have a long way to go but there's a hell of a lot of fight in the side.

We went up to one of the toughest places to win tonight, played a side with the world's best halfback and biggest forward pack, and clawed our way from behind on the wrong end of the penalty count once again.

I actually wish I hadn't come on here after the game tonight. I feel like we were flogged after reading some of the comments.

 

[perverse]

I don't understand why calling a really shit performance shit is getting the razors out? I was stoked with the win last week, and we didn't even play that well then - but it was better than tonight.

Are we not allowed to be unsatisfied with shit performances now that Stone is in charge or something? Shall we do away with analysis of the football and just worry about the score at the end of every match?

 

[Zoidberg]

LOL @ the Cows press conference.

They spent the whole 10 minutes bitching about how JT copped a load of treatment. But ultimately the main impairment he copped was a bloody accident.

They blamed the whole loss on it!

Suck it you sooks!!

Just watched this (I usually only watch ours). It was pretty pathetic. Apart from that one late tackle and the "dangerous" tackle (which JT contributed to by the way) I didn't see anything wrong with how we defended against them. Of course you're going to go in hard against good opposition, if you go in half arsed they'll make a fool of you and go around you.
Happy to see our defence sting a bit.

 

[perverse]

Winning becomes habitual... culturally for the team these wins are pretty important. That's a definite positive to take out of tonight. This early in the season I'll take any points we can get, they're probably the most valuable wins you can pick up, really. IF we can either get the stupid out of our stupid players, or find replacements, we should be sitting quite pretty. I think we have a lot riding on Stone making some tough decisions with a couple of his favourites. Houston has to be first cab off the rank - he is diabolical, and has been for ages. Must be the first bloke dropped when Tariq returns, and really should go even before that.

 

[knightsarmy]

Remember Cowboys would have been fired up for this game ,I will take the win with both hands
well done boys !!

 

[Alex28]

We have two wins against pretty ordinary opposition - given we ourselves are kinda ordinary it isn't a bad start. We aren't loaded with superstars. We are finding our way under a new coach - putting in play a new style of play, finding confidence and having fun again. I was never expecting miracles this early in the season - two from two is a great start!

I only saw the last 25 minutes - looks like that was the best part of the game to have seen! Snowy was massive during this period - him and Joey pretty much won the game for us.

We can't keep giving teams a head start like that and catching them in the second half - against better opposition we'll lose more than we'll win, but I'm sure they know that and will work on it.

Two from two - now let's not take the Titans for granted. The crims should be back for the match...

 

[Bensen]

In defense of both teams, I have played union in the extreme humidity of the tropics where you almost need to chew the air before you breathe it. Maybe a contributor to less than quality performance from either team.

 

[Jono078]

We've kept the Warriors and Cowboys scoreless in the second halves. That's HUGE.

There's a lot of positives with this team and I've very happy to be 2/2. The good thing is Stone is on point with the teams performance, he knows we've won on will and not skill. So there's a lot to be excited about.

We're second after 2 rounds and will most likely be 3rd of the completion of round 2.

I'll take that any time it's offered no matter how we're performing.

4 points are hard to come by, we've got them in the bag now and can keep improving.

 

[Loose Cannon]

I dibs joey. He has the maddest hair

I'd like to be our captain, but there is a waiting list for a frontal lobotomy.

I dibs Clydesdale.

 

[Noname36]

Houston gave away 4 penalties last night. I know some of us get accused for using him as our whipping boy but that's just inexcusible and really highlights how much he f**ks us over. He could maybe get away with it if he came on and made a lot of impact or was an excellent defender but he's neither.

How he's surived 4 coaching changes I'll never know. I don't have any faith in Stone to drop him so hopefully the judiciary takes that issue out of our hands and whoever replaces him comes in and absolutely kills it so we don't have to deal with his crap anymore.

 

[Sacrolishes]

Knights coping a lot of flack for being grubs last night on Thurston. I honestly saw nothing that bad apart from Houso and Scott's one on him. Which. Was clumsy from Houso. I think Scott mite be in more trouble.

But there was nothing malicious in any of the pressure that smith and Scott put on Thurston. Cowboys so upset by it then they should be more concerned that their forwards could protect him better.

 

[The Showstopper]

We are the Phoenix in the ashes lads. Utterly fearless side who I think has turned the betting market on it's head already. With their forwards they should have rolled us but they didn't. Starting to think Stone is a very up to date coach and knows exactly what he is doing tactically.

 

[Spot On]

]We have two wins against pretty ordinary opposition - given we ourselves are kinda ordinary it isn't a bad start.[/B] We aren't loaded with superstars. We are finding our way under a new coach - putting in play a new style of play, finding confidence and having fun again. I was never expecting miracles this early in the season - two from two is a great start!

I only saw the last 25 minutes - looks like that was the best part of the game to have seen! Snowy was massive during this period - him and Joey pretty much won the game for us.

We can't keep giving teams a head start like that and catching them in the second half - against better opposition we'll lose more than we'll win, but I'm sure they know that and will work on it.

Two from two - now let's not take the Titans for granted. The crims should be back for the match...

There's a lot of teams "more ordinary" than the Cows, the Warriors and us at the moment. Outside of Souths, Rabbits and Penrith the rest are plain ordinary to be honest. The Sharks, Broncos, Melbourne, Titans, Saints, Tigers etc are light years away from the top 3 teams.

I couldn't believe how bad Mlb looked for a lot of their clash last night. A lot of blokes looking old and slow. Their attack is shit atm. Their pack got bashed by the Manly forwards. Now that's got to be a worry.

 

[Spot On]

Knights coping a lot of flack for being grubs last night on Thurston. I honestly saw nothing that bad apart from Houso and Scott's one on him. Which. Was clumsy from Houso. I think Scott mite be in more trouble.

But there was nothing malicious in any of the pressure that smith and Scott put on Thurston. Cowboys so upset by it then they should be more concerned that their forwards could protect him better.

If Houston doesn't lift his legs then Thurston doesn't finish in the position he did. Hopefully they throw the book at Houso.