R8 // Bulldogs 16-12 Knights @ ANZ // Sat 7.30pm

[Swarzey]

I still think people are throwing in the towel way too early. I'm just as dissappointed as anyone but it's along ass season. The guys will pick up their slack.

Korbin and Cyldesdale need more game time.

Thank you <3

 

[Jobdog]

I still think people are throwing in the towel way too early. I'm just as dissappointed as anyone but it's along ass season. The guys will pick up their slack.

Korbin and Cyldesdale need more game time.

The main problem though, Yosh, is that we're now a third of the way through the season. Two wins, six losses. If we use say 12 wins, 12 losses to get into the eight as a guide, it means we can only lose another six games in the next 16. Not impossible, but certainly very tough. Panthers game in a fortnight could almost fall into the "must win" category.

It's going to take a fair turnaround, but you do get the feeling if we get on a run we can easily win three, four or even five games on the trot.

 

[Nuffy]

We might put 3 together once a year, we've never been a club to put big runs of wins together.

 

[Noname36]

Tbh I don't think Bennett has ever said anything much different in a press conference. He never acts angry in them even when we find out from the players later on that he was actually filthy on them all week. Why anyone still watches them with interest is beyond me when it's always been the same. Even if he was filthy on them he wouldn't say it during the press conference. Not sure what else he was supposed to say tonight anyway though. They fought really hard, but just did a couple of dumb things at really bad times.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

I'm Pretty surprised how much negativity there is on here tonight. Yeah we lost but we went toe to toe with the team on top of the comp and we played hard for the full 80 and were only beaten by a 50/50 call with 10 mins to go. Our defence was really good tonight I thought, it's just unfortunate that the dogs' defence was better. But they did score 2/3 tries off kicks which can be very tough to defend against.

The effort was definitely there, Boyd maybe being the only exception to that statement. But I feel like we would have beaten a lot of teams with the attitude that we showed tonight.

I'm just as disappointed as anyone else but we as fans really need to get behind the boys or its going to be a pretty rough season. I'm heading up to Newy for our game against Penrith to cheer them on, hopefully we get a big Sunday arvo crowd at home and give the boys some much needed help with getting a win and kick starting our season.

 

[Frederick]

We won't beat penrith

 

[Rod]

It's one of those losses where you're not extremely pissed off at the team, but you're extremely pissed off because frustrating things keeps happening and none of them seem to go your way. The video ref reversing the call near the start (when does that ever happen?), some good chances in attack not quite coming off, then an arsey try off a bomb which I don't really like at the best of times, made even worse by it's dodginess and the fact it probably would have stayed no try had that been the referee's original call (what an ingenious system :roll.

I don't know about you but I find it pretty frustrating when you spend a lot of time defending numerous attacking raids well only to concede a try off a bomb that pinballs everywhere before happening to fall into an attacker's hand. Not a try that I'd class as being a good reflection of what had been happening in general play but that's the game we support I guess.

I know we've been saying it a lot and it's starting to get tiresome, but shit didn't go our way yet again. We played pretty well but our attack is still incredibly disjointed and most of our moves aren't coming off, summed up by Boyd's pass to no one near the end.

At least Mullen played pretty well. With Maloney injured he has a great chance but knowing our luck they'll pick the grub Reynolds. Half the player but twice the niggle, probably exactly what Daley the moron is after.

 

[Jobdog]

Play like we did tonight we'll easily beat Penrith.

 

[Apey]

I'd rather be playing shit and getting the 2 points at this stage. Who cares if we get our act together late in the season but don't have enough wins on the board and end up coming 9th.

 

[Frederick]

I'd rather be playing shit and getting the 2 points at this stage. Who cares if we get our act together late in the season but don't have enough wins on the board and end up coming 9th.

Those geniuss on Facebook would absolutely eat it up.

"OMG SO MUCH HEART TO COME BACK AND WIN ALL THOSE GAMES AND ALMOST MAKE THE FINALS. PEOPLE NEED TO STOP HATING ON THE TEAM, THEYRE TRYING THEIR BEST. BEST TEAM EVER. NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS 4 EVA &#10084;&#65039;&#10084;&#65039;&#10084;&#65039;"

 

[Noname36]

It's easy to say we'll beat Penrith if we played like we did tonight, but honestly I just can't see us winning a game for a very long time. Things just aren't going out way at the moment and I've been supporting this team long enough to know that if you keep hoping that we might start getting some luck you're in for a lot more disappointment.

 

[aqua_duck]

At some point its got to be less about effort and more about results, we're getting pretty close to that point

 

[K-Man]

As far as I'm concerned 'effort' should be a prerequisite for a first grade football team.

What we lack beyond all else and beyond any lingering doubt is attacking threat and attacking structure. Even in games like against Brisbane where we end up conceding a lot of points, it's our inability to dictate terms with ball in hand that leads to the pressure building on us and our defence cracking.

There's a split hair in a game like tonight, but where they got a try from a big backrower running over the top of our usually reliable half in defence, we get a guy like Houston getting sat on his ass.

Where they get two tries from bombs into the chaos, we get Mullen's standard chip bomb garbage that not only fails to threaten but also helps the opposition get a roll on up field.

Pretty much all our problems start with what we do with the football. And the sideways nature of attack inside the 20 is embarrassing. I feel sorry for Gagai, he never gets the ball from a quick shift after momentum has been made up the middle by strong straight running, decoys, quick shifts etc. He always gets the ball from stupidly predictable backline sweeps that have not been earned the hard way.

And the fact we try those stilted shifts when we haven't got the defence on the back foot highlights just how one-dimensional Boyd really is. When he's not assisting tries for our wingers he's not doing anything. Massive waste of salary cap. Some of the fullbacks out there are just absolute class, and Boyd is not one of them.

 

[perverse]

I'd love someone to explain to me why we try that little short side movement so often, particularly off scrums. We get bundled into touch pretty frequently with it, and if we don't we certainly don't gain much from it. I saw us stack 4 blokes in the space of about 3 metres at one stage... it only took 2 guys to defend it because there was no room to run through, lol.

 

[perverse]

Certainly not our passing :lol: We are deadset kings of the hospital pass at the moment. So bad, and it's not just Gidley.

Also the kings of epic blindside plays.

Yes. This. f**king shithouse, cramped, horribly disjointed blindside plays. It's embarrassing and very nervewracking all at the same time. It looks like a Gidley special to me... but I don't really know where it has come from.

 

[Adsy]

I think our disjointed attack at the moment is best summed up by the fact that we've just brought a young, exciting, speedster into the team on the right wing and he'd be lucky to have been on the end of one fluent sweeping backline play in 160 minutes of footy.

 

[Jobdog]

The two tries we scored last night were largely ad-libbing without a lot of structure. Perhaps we need to start playing more like that, rather than five hit-ups and kick to the corner?

 

[aqua_duck]

Sometimes outside backs just need early ball with abit of room to work in, we insist on going through 4-5 sets of hands until the centre and winger are left fighting the touch line

 

[Dogs Of War]

Sometimes outside backs just need early ball with abit of room to work in, we insist on going through 4-5 sets of hands until the centre and winger are left fighting the touch line

You could say the same about the bulldogs last night. Josh Morris and lafai/Mbye have been getting stuff all early ball. When they do they light it up. So frustrating to watch the guys who should be winning you matches getting starved off good possession.

 

[Zoidberg]

Thing is, last year our sweeping back movements seemed to work so well. More often than not if we had a set in the opposition 20 we would score. Not sure if it's just not clicking this year, or if the defence is now more aware of what we do and shut it down well.

We need to mix things up a bit. Get our wingers from the opposite side to where we're going to chime in the back line somewhere. Tyrone needs to show and go more, put doubt in the defenders minds.