3. Macca - may not have been his best in attack, but 57 tackles is an outstanding effort, and I think this could have been his first 80min game at 9.
2. Barba - the difference in attack for most of the game. Without his breaks, and that try assist in the opening minutes, we wouldn't have been in that game.
1. Hannant - good strong bullocking runs up the middle, and made crucial metres out of our own half at the back end of the game. He needs to be starting.
On the rest of team. The Hoffman experiment at 6 went pretty much exactly as most of us here thought it would - dismally. Hunt's kicks were awful, but Hoffman may as well have not touched the ball with his foot. Gould (as geniused as he can be at times) was right. When you have a player who is clearly not a strong or accurate kicker, get them to perfect a grubber kick. Hoffman never tried this. We all remember how Karmichael was acting as a playmaker from fullback in his final season. Some of his grubber kicks were pinpoint, and almost always resulted in a try or a repeat set.
Hunt. Not a great start, but it seems like all of the playmaking pressure was put on him, since every time Hoffman got the ball he would simply try to beat defenders.
Maranta had possibly the beat game of his career, but still really shouldn't have been selected. If he can back this up every week then fine, but something tells me he won't.
Copley is back to the kind of form he was hitting late 2011. He's taking hit ups and getting us out of our own half when needed.
The rest were solid if not underperforming a little.
Happy to take the points, but if history tells us anything, Griffin will stick with Hoffman at 6, and we will suffer another year of boring predictable attack that works in the first 20 minutes, but the opposition works out and shuts down for the rest of the game.
