Generally, whenever we play badly I'm always the first to admit so but I think tonight was a case where we can blame the referees for what was another diabolical performance. I thought the Ashley Taylor try on the verge of half time was clearly the result of a Titans player knocking the ball out of Greg Inglis' hands. Moreover, I don't know what Sam Burgess did to them but the referees certainly had it in for tonight. For some reason, the referees seemed to miss him getting interfered while he was playing the ball when we were 18-10 behind and ruled that he knocked the ball on. The Titans subsequently scored and the decision changed the game. I thought we did well to get back into it and were lucky to lose in golden point. The obvious talking point is going to be the Adam Reynolds disallowed field goal, so I will address that before I break down our performance tonight. There are two massive problem that I have with the way that it was handled. Firstly, since when is a referee allowed to award a decision and then go back and change it? The referee blew for a field goal and by the letter of the law it should have stuck. Yes, one of the chasers was interfered with but the referee awarded it and I think that based on officiating policies, it should have stuck. Secondly, how on earth did the bunker manage to miss all those Titans chasers who were offside before the ball was kicked? As is my understanding, we always play the first infringement and the first infringement was the Titans chasers clearly offside. Therefore, either the field goal should have stuck or it should have been a penalty close to the goal posts within easy kicking range for Adam Reynolds. Based on that logic and reasoning, Souths should have won the game.
Onto the performance now, and once again we continued to do what we've done all season and make things difficult for ourselves through poor execution and soft defence. I mean Ryan James' should not have been allowed to score his first try under any circumstances; that was just soft. While the second try was a refereeing blunder, there were no excuses for Tyrone Roberts' effort and Ryan James' second try; they were just soft tries that came about through poor reads and not wrapping up the ball carrier. In saying that, it seems to take bad calls or poor mistakes on our part to spark us into life because as soon as the Titans scored their third, everything changed for the better and we sprung into life. If one player in our squad epitomises this lackluster sort of performance, it is Cameron McInnes; in the first half he was absolutely woeful and everything was so slow and laboured. However, one we are 18-0 down, he starts to control the game, speed things up and looks to involve other players. This cannot go on; we need to get off to better starts or we won't be playing finals football.
What impressed me in the second half in particular was our line speed and aggression in defence - why we can't do that at the beginning of games I will never know. I was really pleased with our forwards, particularly Nathan Brown. Despite him kicking someone in the head and costing us the game through his needless obstruction, his aggression can win us games. What really bothers me is that Madge seems to have him and Tom Burgess off the field at the same time; that for me is a big no no. Similarly, Paul Carter came alive and Sam Burgess had a strong game too despite a series of handling errors.
In terms of attack, I think both Cody Walker and Greg Inglis on that left hand edge can really cause havoc. Walker, in particular, when he runs the ball is a real handful and was involved in almost all of the good work that we did with the football in his hands. In saying that, what really helped us was that we started offloading the ball a bit more which allowed us to create second phase play. While I'm not a fan of it, I think controlled offloading (if there is such a thing) could work to our advantage as we saw tonight. Honorable mentions go out to Bryson Goodwin, who continues to impress and never lets the team down, and Greg Inglis, who I thought really came alive in the second half. Alex Johnston was also very elusive and made valuable metres, which eased a lot of pressure off our forwards.
The position that Greg Inglis plays is going to be a talking point. I personally think it is still better to play him at five-eight and the move him into the centres in the last 20 minutes of games, with Luke Keary moving to five-eight. My reasoning for this is that you want to maximise Greg Inglis' involvement and by playing him at centre from the onset, you are limiting his impact to one side of the field. He by no means played badly in the first half and I think what transpired in the first halve was more a symptom of poor execution from other players rather than team selection. Moreover, Keary come on at the back end of the first half for Kyle Turner and created very little. I was actually unsure of what position Keary was playing as he seemed to be popping up all over the place. Nevertheless, I would personally move Inglis out into the centres late in the game when he can run at tired defenders.
Overall, I thought this was a game that we should never have lost and will probably end up kicking ourselves over, particularly given how well we played in the second half. The Titans are a rabble and we should have beaten them easily. Even in the first half we managed to create half a dozen chances despite the litany of errors that we made. I think we have a right to feel aggrieved over the refereeing but in the end we can only blame ourselves because if we didn't let in such soft tries we would have won easily.
