R2 | Sea Eagles 32-0 Knights @ Brookvale | Sun 6.30pm

[K-Man]

I said before the season that I don't rate our new forward pack as much as a lot of others do, and tonight I'm afraid I think I might have seen a glimpse of what I was worried about.

It all comes back to one simple philosophy - attack is the best form of defence. We looked like world beaters last week because we had all the ball and were never tested.

And it's not as if our forwards are poor tacklers on an individual level, far from it.

BUT, when your entire forward pack is so predictable and pedestrian in attack, your defence eventually suffers because you're just not winning the battle in the middle at all.

That's going to happen to us a lot this year unless something changes dramatically.

Houston and Scott on the fringes - you wouldn't even mention them in your pre-match team talk. We're a pack of 'tough nuts', but that doesn't cut it in the modern game. Did we even look tough out there tonight with our number one set of forwards? Nope, we looked soft.

We were soft a few years ago too under Stone, but we had a bit of ballplay in us and when we got it right it worked.

This team is going to rely on tries to centres and wingers. We don't offer even the slightest threat up the middle - no pace, no directness, no footwork, no punch whatsoever. It's all about Boyd, Gagai and Uate. Which basically means the opposition just have to turn up like Manly did intent on beating us up front, which I believe many teams will be able to do. And we don't have the class in the halves to bail us out either. Our class is all out wide. Everywhere else is filled with workhorses and toughness. Class wins premierships, not toughness.

This is how I felt before tonight and it's how I will feel until proven otherwise.

Neville Costigan - please leave our club. Please.

 

[K-Man]

We seemed so old and slow in the forwards and got murdered in the ruck speed.

We can get used to it in my opinion. As I've said, I'm extremely worried about our forwards. To me it looks more like a bottom 4 pack than a top 4 pack.

We don't have anything that even resembles Watmough, and when your entire attacking threat comes from your right centre, right winger and fullback's ballplaying skills there's a problem.

 

[Rod]

Wow a lot of premature wrist-slitting in here, as if our season is already over. Please, we always find a way to get manhandled at Brookvale no matter how well we're going beforehand, it doesn't tell the story of our 2013 season any more than the Cowboys getting bent over by the Storm in Townsville tells the story of theirs.

It is obviously disappointing that it happened again though, and of course I was hopeful that our trip to Brooky would be different this year. I will say in our defence that certain things conspired against us. Losing Gagai actually affected us quite a lot, not only did we lose attacking potential there but also Scott, one of our best last night anyway, was forced to play wider. And with Willie off the field it seemed like Smith was the only one prepared to roll his sleeves up (although McKinnon and Rochow get pass marks).

I also thought the referees did not allow any sort of flow to develop, making for a pretty dire spectacle. The refs have been mostly good this year so far but last night the rucks were far too slow with too much garbage going on in there. It was happening for both teams but it did feel like Manly were getting quicker play-the-balls in general and were suspiciously quick with their line speed. And that no-penalty call when McManus was so clearly taken out just summed up our night.

Some other problems: we definitely looked slow as someone else said. I think our lack of a genuine hooker found us out last night. Hilder is passable as a temporary option but was not good last night, and Roberts made a nice break first up but was poor after that. It added to the already very slow ball we were getting. Overall it just looked like any attack we tried to construct looked very laboured.

So not good at all, but I think we can write it off as just one of those nights when nothing goes your way. I wouldn't dwell on it for too long, the boys should just look to make amends on Monday. If they play well there last night will largely be forgotten. It's a long season.

 

[The Showstopper]

Rod it is simply a case of nothing has changed. We are soft under pressure and cannot dig our way out of it.

 

[Alex28]

Even Bennett said after the match his worst fear is which team is going to show up for the game. If he can't get rid of that mentality out of the club we are seriously screwed long-term.

 

[perverse]

Glad I missed the second half. My thoughts on the first half are already in the thread... Manly were completely dominating us in the ruck and with their line speed, and everything was flowing for them off that. I don't know how they managed to maintain their line speed, it was insane... and you'd have to say they were offside far more than they got pinged. The ruck is more concerning, we still haven't worked out how to gain time for our defensive line.

We need to work out how to stand up to those sorts of onslaughts. Teams will happily give up an extra penalty or two if they know they can just drill us out of a match... and as it tends to work out, we end up giving away more penalties away trying to combat it. Need to fix this.

I will say this, too. Waddell is a better option than Hilder at hooker by some margin already. I'm so sick of seeing Hilder make a good, textbook tackle... only to have the player immediately spring up and play the ball while he's still on the ground. Unfortunately you don't get rewarded for good tackling in this day and age. His 1-on-1 tackles are completely detrimental to the team.

Gids got shown up as the halfback he isn't last night. Roberts should be our halfback.

It concerns me that we got bashed out of the game. I honestly didn't think t hat would happen this year, but there you have it. I don't think it's time to get out the stanley knives just yet, it's a long season. We miss Buderus a lot. A very disappointing loss, but not the end of the world. We're better than what we showed last night, Brookie is always a nightmare for us.

 

[Nuffy]

Even Bennett said after the match his worst fear is which team is going to show up for the game. If he can't get rid of that mentality out of the club we are seriously screwed long-term.

Read that myself and was stunned. Is that Bennett acknowledging that not even he can control them, doesn't auger well for the future.

 

[Nuffy]

Bennett has a tough decision with Kids, he isn't the best hooker, fullback or likely half in the club but Bennett needs to find a spot for him due to his status within the club.

Managing this aspect will require all Bennetts skill.

 

[perverse]

Bennett has a tough decision with Kids, he isn't the best hooker, fullback or likely half in the club but Bennett needs to find a spot for him due to his status within the club.

Managing this aspect will require all Bennetts skill.

14. Gidley (c)

 

[Rod]

I don't really understand why Gids is getting such a towelling, he threw a couple of dud passes but that was pretty much par for the course with everyone last night. Maybe I need to watch the game again but I didn't come out of it last night thinking Gids in particular was terrible. Our halves received basically no front foot ball the whole night. Every second tackle our ball-carrier was getting picked up and driven back by Manly, personally I'd be focusing on that aspect at this stage rather than panicking about Gids.

 

[Bring it home Knights]

I said before the season that I don't rate our new forward pack as much as a lot of others do, and tonight I'm afraid I think I might have seen a glimpse of what I was worried about.

It all comes back to one simple philosophy - attack is the best form of defence. We looked like world beaters last week because we had all the ball and were never tested.

And it's not as if our forwards are poor tacklers on an individual level, far from it.

BUT, when your entire forward pack is so predictable and pedestrian in attack, your defence eventually suffers because you're just not winning the battle in the middle at all.

That's going to happen to us a lot this year unless something changes dramatically.

Houston and Scott on the fringes - you wouldn't even mention them in your pre-match team talk. We're a pack of 'tough nuts', but that doesn't cut it in the modern game. Did we even look tough out there tonight with our number one set of forwards? Nope, we looked soft.

We were soft a few years ago too under Stone, but we had a bit of ballplay in us and when we got it right it worked.

This team is going to rely on tries to centres and wingers. We don't offer even the slightest threat up the middle - no pace, no directness, no footwork, no punch whatsoever. It's all about Boyd, Gagai and Uate. Which basically means the opposition just have to turn up like Manly did intent on beating us up front, which I believe many teams will be able to do. And we don't have the class in the halves to bail us out either. Our class is all out wide. Everywhere else is filled with workhorses and toughness. Class wins premierships, not toughness.

This is how I felt before tonight and it's how I will feel until proven otherwise.

Neville Costigan - please leave our club. Please.

This has generally always been the case when Hilder or Costigan is in the number 9 jersey. When Buderus comes back, I'm confident that issue will change.

 

[perverse]

Yes, it can't be understated how much of a negative effect Hilder had on us last night. I can only speak on the first half, but his service was just shitty and all over the shop... and it's no better on the other side of the ball.

 

[Bring it home Knights]

Costigan may have played ok last week but how many decent games has he played for us? Maybe 3 in what, 30? Also look at the forward pack he was up against. I would'nt exactly call them top class, or even NRL class. Even today, Manly were missing G.Stewart and King. Even a 35 year old Joe Galuvao was steam rolling Costigan and Snowden.

I dont think theres much of a case to say im being harsh on Costigan, he's been a repeat offender ever since he's been here and should be treated accordingly. Snowden aint much better. My 11 year old son kept saying to me "why does Snowden always run so slowly" and "he does'nt do much does he Dad".

I've been Costigan's harshest critic since we signed him, however I was referring to your comment about him lacking heart. Last week he demonstrated that he had heart, as he played with a great deal of toughness and courage. BTW I think stating that he's played 3 decent games for the knights over his time here may be too complimentary towards him ;-)

 

[perverse]

NRLStats has Willie only playing 20 minutes last night. What happened there?

 

[The Showstopper]

Gidley to 9. Tyrone to 7. We do that we are a decent chance a week from today. Gidley is a dummy half above all else. We need to ask questions around the Cows ruck or it will be groundhog night. Gidley's energy is from his running game. He will pinch plenty of yards out of dummy half. I would then look to him wearing 14 when Buderus returns. I still think Gids is a tactical weapon without peer off the bench as you never know where he would pop up. As a manufactured halfback it seems to not be working for Gids. He isn't going back to fullback and at 31 a bench spot might be more ideal. I found Wayne Bennett's comments on us as a sign he knows he has to work harder than ever to ensure he leaves the club with a better culture.

 

[Rod]

NRLStats has Willie only playing 20 minutes last night. What happened there?

Calf injury.

 

[Joker's Wild]

I didnt get to see the game due to a freak Foxtel meltdown but it seems we played very poorly

In saying that however, all we have to do is look back to the 2001 season see how we got absolutely belted 3 times by Brisbane, Canterbury and Parramatta where each of them put 40+ points on us.

Now I know we dont have Joey to lift us in 2013 but it shows that even premiership winning sides have really shit games.

If the belting trend continues then Ill get worried. For now Im gonna do what mt IQ did and erase the game from my harddrive and move onto next week

 

[Mr_Knightside]

I'll weigh in with my $0.02 on this topic.

Firstly, everyone needs to relax a little. It's round 2 of a 26 round competition, we are 1-1 at the moment with a neutral differential. It's not the end of the world or our season for that matter.

Also I'll give you all an example of a match a number of years ago that hopefully will give people a little more optimism. In 2004 the Bulldogs were thrashed 35-0 in a mid season game against the Roosters. That is an even bigger score line than last night and the dogs went on to win the Premiership that year. Now I'm not saying that we have a team as good as theirs or that we're going to win the comp, but it's just one game out of the whole season. And the next time those two teams played each other the Bulldogs won by about 30 points later that season, so obviously they learnt their lesson.

We ALWAYS get smashed at Brookvale, it wouldn't matter who was playing or how good our form is we would get smashed there either way. Manly always play better at home and their parochial crowd ensures that they always get plenty of penalties while the other team doesn't. I'm relieved that we were able to get this one out of the way early on rather than later.

Any Knights supporter who thought we would be able to go a whole season without getting smashed by one of the top sides is kidding themselves. We have some good players in our side but they can't all play amazingly well every week together and they need time to gel, not to mention injuries which didn't help us in this one either. Our team needs to cop a loss like this because it will teach them a valuable lesson, and as I said before I'd definitely prefer to get that out of the way in round 2 rather than late in the season when there could be a top 8 or top 4 spot on the line.

 

[Bring it home Knights]

I didnt get to see the game due to a freak Foxtel meltdown but it seems we played very poorly

In saying that however, all we have to do is look back to the 2001 season see how we got absolutely belted 3 times by Brisbane, Canterbury and Parramatta where each of them put 40+ points on us.

Now I know we dont have Joey to lift us in 2013 but it shows that even premiership winning sides have really shit games.

If the belting trend continues then Ill get worried. For now Im gonna do what mt IQ did and erase the game from my harddrive and move onto next week

I find it impossible to use those loses in 2001 as a case of optimism in 2013. We were a team back then that was completely reliant on one player. If Johns wasn't there we were a good chance of getting hammered. If he was there, we were a good chance of hammering the other team. If Johns was in those games, then we were very unlikely to get hammered like we did. The team we have now has a completely different structure to the one back then.

 

[Bring it home Knights]

I'll weigh in with my $0.02 on this topic.

Firstly, everyone needs to relax a little. It's round 2 of a 26 round competition, we are 1-1 at the moment with a neutral differential. It's not the end of the world or our season for that matter.

Also I'll give you all an example of a match a number of years ago that hopefully will give people a little more optimism. In 2004 the Bulldogs were thrashed 35-0 in a mid season game against the Roosters. That is an even bigger score line than last night and the dogs went on to win the Premiership that year. Now I'm not saying that we have a team as good as theirs or that we're going to win the comp, but it's just one game out of the whole season. And the next time those two teams played each other the Bulldogs won by about 30 points later that season, so obviously they learnt their lesson.

We ALWAYS get smashed at Brookvale, it wouldn't matter who was playing or how good our form is we would get smashed there either way. Manly always play better at home and their parochial crowd ensures that they always get plenty of penalties while the other team doesn't. I'm relieved that we were able to get this one out of the way early on rather than later.

Any Knights supporter who thought we would be able to go a whole season without getting smashed by one of the top sides is kidding themselves. We have some good players in our side but they can't all play amazingly well every week together and they need time to gel, not to mention injuries which didn't help us in this one either. Our team needs to cop a loss like this because it will teach them a valuable lesson, and as I said before I'd definitely prefer to get that out of the way in round 2 rather than late in the season when there could be a top 8 or top 4 spot on the line.

Apart from 1998 of course when we put 50 on them. One of the best games in the knights history that one. Shame outside of that game, the knights record there has been abysmal.