R2 // Knights 20-26 Raiders @ Hunter // Sun 6.30pm

[The Showstopper]

Agreed. Some say we overachieved. I say bull shite. We deserved every part of it and beat both of the 2012 Grand Finalists to get there. We can still be that again but with Gids in the 9 i don't see it this season. I will cop an average year if we open the cheque book and recruit big time for next year.

 

[Swarzey]

Are we any closer to winning a premiership with the team we have?

The ONLY doubts I have with this team are our hookers. Waddell is plain shit and Gidley isn't a natural hooker, he'll never have the assets that guys like Smith, Farah, Friend and even Ennis to get the job done. Perhaps the bench too, but we've got blokes who only need that little bit of improvement to have an impact.

But really, we got within one win of a grand final. The way our team is built is to grind the opposition out. We won a finals game where our pack was out-sized and SHOULD have been out-muscled but we dominated them. Even in the Melbourne game when we're up against Melbourne who thrive in finals series, f**k, they should have been South Sydney the week prior and we lived to fight another week. That final 20, Melbourne finally showed up and threw EVERYTHING at us and we held on.

Don't start believing the dribble that's written in the papers, that's read on TV, that the "experts" say. We didn't overachieve. It's nothing more than a term to justify us defying the idea that the Top 4 were well and truly ahead of the pack so those who were wrong can sleep easier at night.

Plenty went wrong in that finals game against the Roosters but there was plenty to take from it.

 

[Yosh]

Just watched the game again and honestly it was a 50/50 game. We have out two best players out and we could have won that game. Some really annoying penalties at the wrong times really swung the game the Raiders way...

Minto really showed he should probably be in the 6 not the 1 in my opinion.

None of Kidley's 150 passes in the game hit anyone on the chest. They were either forward, or a tad in front or a tad behind... Something he can work on? Or do we need to lose him?

I think if we had either Boyd or Mullen we would have won that game.

 

[Knight Vision]

I just watched the game wrap up on Australia Network channel. Even the Raiders players knew it wasn't a try. Thats the second forward pass try in the last 3 games we have played. Not a good record from the refs. These flat passes by teams are getting more and more forward ala Storm.