R9 | Raiders 44-14 Knights @ Canberra | Sun 2.00pm

[perverse]

I think performances (from a Knights perspective) such as todays' will be over come July. I reckon there will be better form and consistency in the last month and a half of the regular season...

Bennett will try to get them peaking at the business end of the season, for sure. We can't afford to turn in many more stinkers though. Our confidence would take a beating after today.

 

[Dave_]

Heads must roll for this disgusting performance. They are not just embarrassing themselves, they are embarrassing us, the fans.

I am in disbelief in what we dished up against a team full of park footballers. The played need to be told if they're hearts aren't in it they can f**k off!

 

[aqua_duck]

I thought our entire forward pack was f**king shit today... Snowden by far the best of them.

Snowden was a lone ranger today, he had almost twice as many metres as any of the other forwards

 

[perverse]

Honestly he hasn't achieved any of that, we're still a team of mental midgets, still can't grind out tough wins. Maybe I'm saying this out of anger but give me Brian Smith back any day. He had a fraction of the budget, a fraction of the talent but he got the best out of them and atleast we were playing a good brand of football.
Bennett has been here 18 months and I think it's fair to say not one player has improved under his watch, results have declined, our roster is full of injury prone pensioners. I personally think Bennett's gameplans are outdated and his man management skills simply aren't enough anymore. The only time we look good is when teams fold like 7-2 off suit in a game of poker. I think coaches these days need to evolve their tactics and approach, Bennett hasn't kept up with the pack in this regard

Mullen has improved out of sight under his watch. The best players in our team are all here because of him (the likes of Gagai, Jeremy Smith, Beau Scott and, when we're playing well, Darius Boyd). I don't agree with you that his gameplan as outdated, it seems to work for the Storm. It worked fine for the Dragons a few years ago.

 

[aqua_duck]

Bennett will try to get them peaking at the business end of the season, for sure. We can't afford to turn in many more stinkers though. Our confidence would take a beating after today.

We peaked at the business end last year but missed the play offs because we left ourselves too much to do.
The sad thing is we still haven't played Souths, Melbourne or the roosters yet

 

[Nuffy]

Utterly predictable result.

We couldn't get intensity at home for a game against the Sharks, what hope did we have in Canberra.

The raiders have more intensity, passion and enthusiasm, we have a team that not only wont play for Bennett but won't play for each other. Gids 200th game and that's the effort of the team, pumped by 30.

Forget Price and Elliott being under pressure, the coach that is delivering the worst value for money is Bennett. He can duck and weave all he likes but it's now year 2 and we aren't any better than we were when Stone was coaching us.

Also frankly, we are not going to be any better in 2014, we've signed no one and the current roster is crap.

Bennett was brought in specifically to change the culture yet we are no better than before.

Good luck to the raiders, that's how a team should play at home, compare that with our efforts last week.

We will be short odds to drop 7 straight, next week will be 3 on the trot and we are no certainty to win any of the next 5.

Tragedy in all this is that it's expected of this team, we did the same thing last year.

 

[K-Man]

It is easy to shut our team down- all you need to do is rush up wide in defence when we look to spread the ball and everything comes to a complete stop. We haven't got the forward power to make good yards up the middle or on the fringes.

Said pretty much this before round one and stand by it. Bennett has pieced together a certain type of forward pack to suit his style, but I don't think it's skilful, athletic or powerful enough for the modern game. Too many tough guys, not enough serious attacking punch.

We are a team that relies very much on completing our sets at a higher percentage than the opposition. That's all fine, but it's not exactly rocket science from Bennett and it doesn't mean you have to become predictable and completely lacking in creative spark.

We only look dangerous when the opposition coughs up ball or gives away penalties and we can set up deep using Boyd. If you keep us away from your own 20m zone by dominating our mediocre forward pack, then you win in a canter.

 

[Nuffy]

Bennett will try to get them peaking at the business end of the season, for sure. We can't afford to turn in many more stinkers though. Our confidence would take a beating after today.

Bennett will be sucking his thumb in the foetal position, they admitted to being off the boil last week so you would have thought that complacency and intensity wouldn't have been an issue.

And yet they serve this up.

They don't have the mental strength to grind out a game, as soon as the blowtorch is applied, they wilt.

 

[Burwood]

This should be fun- press conference on now!

 

[perverse]

I hate to keep saying it, too... but Gids is treated as our main man, and he shouldn't be. That is a massive issue and, at the very elast, Bennett is going to need to pull the trigger there at some stage. Mullen is our MVP, and has been since Bennett got here at least.

Gids has to be at hooker permanently by the business end of the season, even if it means Bedsy plays some sort of bench role. He's not a halfbacks arsehole, we all knew it was the case and this is the one decision Bennett could make that he should be making to really change our fortunes. Tyrone and Gids just need a simple role while Mullen runs the show in the halves.

 

[perverse]

Bennett will be sucking his thumb in the foetal position, they admitted to being off the boil last week so you would have thought that complacency and intensity wouldn't have been an issue.

And yet they serve this up.

They don't have the mental strength to grind out a game, as soon as the blowtorch is applied, they wilt.

I don't think that is true at all. We've won games this year winning long stretches of arm-wrestle footy only to come out on top at the end and put on some points. We have it in us, but we had better players on the field at the time. We've got a good chunk of our salary cap on the sidelines at the moment, and they're all senior players and leaders.

Put Smith, Scott, Mullen and Buderus into that team today, and we compete much harder... and we get more out of our other players, guaranteed.

 

[doggone]

Master stroke.! What master stoke! Experience was needed today! Uate is a total loser. I am sick of seeing him shake his head. Give Kevin a go. The lack of experience across the team, no direction was totally transparent today. Don't get me started.

 

[Nuffy]

I also predict that Bennett won't see out the 4 years, at some point in the not to distant future he is going to put them in the too hard basket.

There will be an "issue" that means he needs to return to Brisbane full time and that will be it, he'll then become coaching director at the Broncos, helping Griffith.

 

[Dave_]

What do we do then? We have the master coach, a better roster and more money and were worse? Where's the answer?

Maybe we just have to put more effort into the development and retention of quality juniors. I just don't know what to think anymore.

 

[perverse]

Aku really needs to up his game... I don't know what we can do there. There were years where he was carrying our team all by himself. That bloke isn't at home at the moment. He's low on confidence, for sure... and possibly complacent after resigning for big dollars?

 

[The Showstopper]

I have run out of ideas with what this club needs player and culture wise cos every time we f### it up. it is just a sad state of affairs. Bennett has got to put his hand up as the buck stops with him. The players cannot find ways to dig themselves out of s###! It is depressing to the real supporters.

 

[Swarzey]

Mullen is the man who controls the team. That's clear more than anything. Last year we learnt to play without Gidley even though we had a horrid streak of losses, our form in the last few games was pretty spot on. Shit first 10 but excellent the rest. We held the Bulldogs scoreless after from the 15 minute mark until the final few minutes where they got a penalty goal. I think we missed Mullen in a big, big way. He's essentially replaced Gidley as our top man.

We can't keep the rotation of halves. It doesn't work whatsoever because it puts pressure on Mullen to work with the halfback considering one is one of our most experienced players and the other is still has a lot to learn. Gidley needs to be our hooker and swapped on and off the bench for Clydsdale because Waddell isn't cutting it as Bedsy's replacement.

He really just needs to step away from the controls and leave them to Mullen.

 

[aqua_duck]

I don't think that is true at all. We've won games this year winning long stretches of arm-wrestle footy only to come out on top at the end and put on some points. We have it in us, but we had better players on the field at the time. We've got a good chunk of our salary cap on the sidelines at the moment, and they're all senior players and leaders.

Put Smith, Scott, Mullen and Buderus into that team today, and we compete much harder... and we get more out of our other players, guaranteed.

Every game we've won this year has simply been a case of the opposition being worst than us as oppose to us imposing our will. In all of our wins the opposition has had less than 70% completion rate.

 

[aqua_duck]

I have run out of ideas with what this club needs player and culture wise cos every time we f### it up. it is just a sad state of affairs. Bennett has got to put his hand up as the buck stops with him. The players cannot find ways to dig themselves out of s###! It is depressing to the real supporters.

Exactly, at some point Bennett needs to take responsibility. Some coaches have their hands tied and are restricted in what they can do, Bennett has no such restrictions, the results are unacceptable

 

[perverse]

Every game we've won this year has simply been a case of the opposition being worst than us as oppose to us imposing our will. In all of our wins the opposition has had less than 70% completion rate.

Yes, but we also completed very well and applied good pressure to force many of those errors. We competed hard and had intensity. We lacked all of that today. We were horrible.