Rnd 1- Storm Vs Dragons Discussion.

[God-King Dean]

I'll start with the negatives.

-Price has learnt nothing. Same shit. Stubborn, or geniused?
-Inconsistent. Outside the Bennett years, it's the same old shit. Blame the dinsaur culture.
-While I've already bagged our shit backline play, our right hand version of it is white, dried out in the sun shitty. I've only seen 2 games of us this season, but twice it's ended in an intercept. & even when it got to Beale, he had no room to move. Defence can see it a mile a away & just need to slide to stop it.
-Storm landed on their stomachs more often than not. We ended up on our backs more often than not.
-overall, I just don't think the team is that good in relation to others.


Positives
- twice we got unlucky bounces. Fien was unlucky with that kick that ended in Widdop scoring, could have happened to anyone. I think Stanley would have scored if it went through. We'd be calling him super awesome if it did. Stanley was unlucky again off that bomb Nightingale knocked back. One backward bounce & he'd have scored.
-Offloads. Only time we looked genuinely dangerous. Hopefully they keep doing it.
-Soward took the line on. Au Mau & Merrin were sexy.

 

[Happy Old Dragon]

Bottom line - it was the premiers playing a team "from the bottom half of the 8".
Storm were just too good.
imo, our defence was pretty good.
But that relentless pressure (from storm) - especially over the first 15 or 20 mins when they had strong go forward and field position - got to us.

Some posters mention Bennet and the side post Bennet.
I say forget Bennet.
Sure he coached us to a premiership in 2010.
Thanks Wayne!!
But what did he do for us in the slump of 2011 - Nothing!
Forget him.

For me it's "steady as she goes" on the good ship Dragons 2013.
Again, (to me) the effort in defence was still there. So team morale must be OK.
Ah Mau - as others have said - played well. Much better than last year. He played with energy.
Soward defensively, was good. Looked after his opposing centre very well.

hod.

 

[hewi]

I thought some of these stats from the Tele are interesting.

Runs made meters gained
Fritzell 8 61
Creagh 9 69
Harrison 4 33
Merrin 14 126
Prior 12 110
Ah Mau 12 114
Hunt 12 109
Fien 2 14
Soward 6 99
Cooper 6 43

Fien awful, Soward take out the intercept awful. Merrin, Prior, Ah Mau and Hunt excellent and Merrin a lock? Cooper , Creagh Fritzell average and in my opinion Copoper and Harrison disgracefull.

 

[Lethal25]

Can anyone explain caoch Price's post match comments. Saying several times that we won't beat ourselves up it's only round one and we did play the premiers, then in the next breath saying we have a short turnaround which is a good thing. When questioned why that was a good thing, he said so we can move on??? I thought we weren't beating ourselves up. I'm confused by this guy

 

[Inspector Gadget]

On a side note I see the Cutters got touched up by Newtown 30-10. I haven't seen the game, if anyone went and watched can you advise if any of the fringe NRL players went okay? I would say by the scoreline it's not good.

 

[BennyV]

Ah Mau, Beale, Prior, Merrin excellent. Rest of the forwards bar Harrison were solid. Harrison needs to learn his place in the team, then someone needs to shove a boot up him and get him there! All in all, our forwards were great, possibly needed to use them more to get a roll on before sending it wide..

..which brings me to the backline. The reason I'm not happy with the Fien/Soward combination is that when they send it out the back, and Storm defence has it covered, THEY WILL KEEP DOING IT. We got lucky with Flo's try, but a genuine halfback or coach would see that the backline isn't working, and try something else. If we are making ground and bending the line in the middle, they need to bring Creagh/Friz back inside with Beale looking for the offload. Don't leave it to Rein/King/Merrin to create something, the halves need to look for a way through, and Sowie and Fein just aren't doing that.

Any updates on Stanley's injury? I thought he was fairly impressive. And did Rein cop an injury too?

 

[Morotti]

What is most worrying is that we are predictable.

It is not fair to compare us to the Storm but look at them when anyone runs to the line. Be it a forward or back, they always have support and always leave doubt in the opponents mind. We don't have any of that. When Cronk runs to the line he can because he has at least two options to pass to or he can run himself.

The problem with Fien was that you knew exactly what he was going to do. When he passed it the defence knew he was going to and when he ran you could tell. I thought effort was there but execution is not there anymore for him. Maybe we are being too harsh but to do a whole pre season and to dish up that was pretty ordinary regardless of who you are playing.

I thought Soward had an ok game? Or maybe he just exceeded my expectations.

 

[Mr Red]

overall result as expected.
the team played as expected.
the players we expected to play well like Merrin played well.
the players we expected to struggle like Fien and Stanley struggled..

the team has gone nowhere compared to last season.. Price must go.
Soward spent A LOT of time back on the left side once again making Creagh ineffective... did Price not learn anything from trying this formation last season????

postives:
- despite some mistakes and poor options King at least looked to be playing the game at speed and intensity, which was better than most of the team. he will improve with more game time..
- Beale looked sharp and more importantly safe at the back
- Prior actually had a dig, credit where credit is due.

negatives:
- Fien
- Soward
- the team still playing in slow motion
- defence had more holes than swiss cheese in the first half, storm could have put 40 on by half time had their timing and handling not been average..
- predictable attack, lots of one out running... under 12's stuff.

storm have another 3 gears up their sleeves, i doubt we have much more than what we displayed.

 

[Dezziedc]

WTF are channel nine thinking of
Walley Lewis, Graham Bradley & Andrew Johns commentating
its bad enough watching us lose but to listen to the most dry boring
commentators in da world.
They should use these three against terrorists instead of water boarding
Bring back Vossy.

I agree, this was pretty poor staffing from Channel 9. I had hoped that they were going to replace Ray Hadley (is it Ray or Graham commentating?) after last years effort.

The guy is a total dick. I remember last year when he was commentating a Brisbane game - 5 minutes into the game one of the Broncos busted a tackle and he was saying "he's through!!! He looks most likely to make a difference for the Broncos as he's been doing it all night!!!!". He had busted 1 tackle (with 2 others hanging off him) 15 meters out from his own line, 5 minutes into the game.

After that brilliant piece of commentary, I wanted him gone. He didn't improve through the whole season. He seems to pick one side to heap praise on all game and thats all he does.

 

[Dr Fruitbasket Returns]

Very poor performance. I've been saying we need an elite level front rower, centre and half and now I reckon we're in far worse trouble in the backs than I'd thought. Very mediocre players across the board, ageing and fragile in key positions and no onfield leadership at all.

ASADA is the only stake I've got in this year's comp. Come on. Throw out the Scum and strip Manly. And make the other named teams play for zero points so we don't get the spoon.

I'm not even confident about 2014 now. There's no one on the market -- coach or players. F***.

 

[jenninga]

Those of us who went to the game know how bloody hot it was.
I thought we were reasonable and will improve on that.Must mention Prior and AhMau who were great,King tried and if that intercept pass was slicker it was us who would have scored.
As many have said ,Fien is too slow and was awfull and Soward isn't hungry enough,as we all know it is the halves where we are going to struggle.
We were lucky the Storm weren't at their best although Cronk had a blinder.

 

[jenninga]

Kyle tweeted after the game that he spoke to Chase and he seemed ok,will have scans today.Said it was just a strain.

 

[Ronnie Dobbs]

So, can look at it from a couple of angles -

1. We played the best team
2. We weren't the worst team over the weekend.

3. Fien f**king killed us. Not good enough. Play Drinkwater. Stanley played very well. The Stanleyism in his knees will kill his career as well.

There's still a good team there. The rebuild window can be short if its done properly.

Price needs wins early. I dont understand why he's playing Fien at 7. He's a shit 7.

 

[SaintArsenal]

Not too much to add really. Thought we were predictable and it mainly stemmed from the halves. Horrible similarities to the crabbing across field plays of last season. Anyway, the positives:

- Prior, King, Merrin and Ah Mau played well
- Morris and Nightingale both strong and brave as usual. How does Nightingale keep getting up?
- It was Melbourne. Poor view I know but give them some credit

Hoping we get some more time from the Brisbane defense to see whether we actually do have any structure and moves in attack. If we don't show something then I am going to start worrying about how much improvement we really have in us. Harsh? Too early? Maybe.

 

[Ronnie Dobbs]

Very poor performance. I've been saying we need an elite level front rower, centre and half and now I reckon we're in far worse trouble in the backs than I'd thought. Very mediocre players across the board, ageing and fragile in key positions and no onfield leadership at all.

ASADA is the only stake I've got in this year's comp. Come on. Throw out the Scum and strip Manly. And make the other named teams play for zero points so we don't get the spoon.

I'm not even confident about 2014 now. There's no one on the market -- coach or players. F***.

Cheer up mate. There's a lot of good things for the right coach to work with. Its clear they have no respect fro Price.

He's got to go.

 

[RedVDave]

I would also like to credit Ryles as well was one of Saints better players tonight got us out of trouble on 2 occasions with typical esque Ryles performance.

 

[Cagey Mac]

I saw the game pretty much the same as most but not quite
Firstly needs to be noted that it was a hot day and the older guys would have been feeling it
• Fein is no longer an NRL capable half. Needs to be transferred urgently to the cutters or bench hooking spot. Personally I’d move Soward to half and King to 5/8 and play Fein as reserve hooker at least for the time being
• Prior was MOMIMO! Played in the hottest part of the day and tackled his heart out. No errors either though he did concede one penalty.
• Mez played really well though he did not dominate
• Au Mau, yet another, maligned in the past, is damned good and looks like he will get better.
• Coops had a poor game, his performance needs to be monitored though the older you get, the longer it takes for you to come up to speed each season
• Beale looked okay
• Is the season over for Chase yet?
• Horse looks a bit suspect, hope he holds up
• Ben Creagh played 80 minutes (of the forwards only he and Ryan Hoffman did so)
• Harrison looked out of place in attack but made 33 tackles, the most of anyone on the field except the Australian captain
So short of dropping Fein and shuffling the spine and the forced move of Vidot back onto the centre, I’d leave the all else in place and see how we go next week. Change nothing and I believe we’re in trouble again but Brisbane weren’t too impressive either and we have them at home

 

[saint06]

i thought we looked ok when we kept things tight - we made good metres through the middle. I dont understand why we didnt pressure them more through the middle, instead they tried to get Coops and Stanley on the outside of the defenders.

What a terrible kicking game. Why wouldnt Soward take control of our kicking game?? Did my head when i saw first three kicks go dead and then Fein kick into Widdop.

King looked good.

And for all the Prior bashes, they can rest easy for another week!! Well done Matty, good performance.

 

[Mr Red]

horse looked like he has come back too early.. limping a lot and generally lacking his usual go forward.
all this credit for Ah Mau... yeah sure he can tackle if the player runs straight at him, but any step or deviation and he looked really awful on a few occasions.. he may have gone ok in comparison to some of the others but he is not up to first grade standard.

its a shame though we are only 1 coach, and about 2 players away from having a decent team.
at the end of last season we had 4 pain points:
1. coach
2. right centre
3.half
4.full back

so to think we have only addressed one of these issues (Beale) in an entire season/off season is really dissapointing....

 

[Gomarchin]

Price has to go. Why?
1. He doesn't seem capable of making the tough calls
2. He can't attract marque players to the club
3. Has not learnt from the mistakes from last year
4. Continues to read the same script at his after game press conferences
5. He is not a first grade coach.