Round 14 vs the Raiders

[Pomoz]

Which is been ages since those. He's progressed as a player since then, to say he wasn't a viable option to try at fullback is overreach. Particularly given we were trying a second rower at 5/8.

A second rower who did a good job of it when combined with the tactic of bringing Moynl up as a virtual 5/8th. The thing that's great about the forum is everybody's entitled to their opinion. We will have to agree to disagree on DWZ who you like at fullback (I don't) and Cartwright who you don't rate and I do.

Us Forumites having different opinions on players qualities is probably not too different from the coaches. Some rate players, some don't. It's amazing how many sports biographies you read and a player says' The new gaffer didn't fancy me at all. He told me I wouldn't get picked so I should look elsewhere'. Cue player storming off to a new club and playing brilliantly.

 

[Fangs]

and DWZ is not a fullback..

That certainly won't happen now that Edwards has made his mark. But I think DWZ would make a great fullback.

 

[TheFrog]

Looking at the stats...

Raiders had 53% possession
Raiders won penalty count 10 to 7
Raiders had an 81% completion rate to our 68%
Raiders had 18 offloads to our 7
Raiders missed 37 tackles. We missed 54.

But we won. With the refs all but handing Raiders 2 tries in that second half.

Penalties 6-1 Raiders in the second half. At least the whistle was put away for the final 10 minutes this time.

I'm not sure 81% completions for the Raiders is correct, though. I think they were about the same as us.

 

[TheFrog]

Reports in the SMH that Trent and Sally have split up. This might explain Merrin's quiet game yesterday.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...s-and-trent-merrin-split-20170610-gwor1d.html

 

[TheFrog]

1.DWZ
6.Moylan was the simplest coaching call in rugby league history

DWZ was seriously out of form last year, possibly following the collapsed lung of late 2015. He was a turnstile in defence. He was probably fortunate to remain in first grade at one stage, and could not seriously have been considered for fullback. With Bryce at 6 in 2016 we won 10 of 14. It worked last year but it didn't this year.

 

[Tronald Crump]

Serves me right for turning off the game after Mansour's mistake in the 77th minute. I put on a DVD, turned the phone off and fumed all night over the expected loss.
Got a nice little surprise when I flicked the radio this morning.

 

[Panther Pete]

Certainly didn't see that win coming with 3 minutes to go. It's great the boys showed the heart to keep going and not give up but most of it has to go to Moylan playing at 6.

I do not have a footy brain but looking at our game from a simple point of view I think we need only need to sort out a few things to trouble the better sides. First, stop giving away dumb penalties. I know the ref did a lot to give the Raiders a better than even chance but we still give away more than our share of dumb penalties. Second thing is control the ball and the third is going to require a footy brain to give us 5th tackle options and manufacture tries when we are inside the oppositions 20. If Griffin can't solve this then perhaps Moylan or Cleary but until that is sorted we won't trouble the top sides.

 

[GongPanther]

Then don't read it, because frankly overall I think we're just near where we should have been at the start of the season, and that Griffin got there more through having had his hand forced rather than good management.

Meaning we've got half a season to start refining things to be the premiership threat we were expected to be, instead of the full season we should have had.

I'll be happy and full of praise for Griffin when we start playing to our potential, for 80mins.

But you still have to be mindful,we still have a lot of inexperience in our squad. The so called experts,not us,were touting us as GF favourites.And the TAB,who I think was at the centre of this over inflating of that publicity,made sure they have made a killing out of the naive public.

Watch how some of the players in yesterday's game came up with bad choices for examples for inexperience.Edwards who was going for a loose ball,just like Cleary earlier,wanted to pick it up and make ground instead of simply securing possession by just falling on the ball.

You can see that the team,regardless of the past month,is still a work in progress.IF we get into the finals,I don't expect us to go further than the third week. Would be great if we did,but highly doubtful,as a learning curve takes time,and experience.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

I'm no Hook apologist...

*proceeds to apologize for pretty much everything Griffin has done*

Yeah, I'm glad he left Edwards out for the first half of this season too, we probably would have lost five in a row with him at the back.

 

[maple_69]

I think theres still time for us to sort out the two areas we need to this year. Controlling the game and finding some fluency.
1. We get rattled when the defensive line pressures us. Thats when we push the pass and dont play controlled. I think its a natural instinct for a lot of our guys. Its been better during this run though. Key is for our pack to keep the defensive line retreating. Time for Tamou to step up. With our back 3 dominating, Merrin getting back to great form and the rest of the pack warming to the task, him finding form would make us so tough to contain. Yeo deserves a huge wrap as well. Hes long exceeded any expectations I had for him but hes since gone to another level with his surges down the left. If he plays out his career on Moylans hip he is going to go far.
2. We obviously lack fluency. The spine has been shuffled a bit and weve plsyed the whole season, until the last month, behind a solidly beaten pack. We have started winning the one on ones though. Most of our side is in form and showing good attitude, objectively, its just not quite the finished product. Barring terrible injuries, we have a pretty good idea what our side looks like and the roles they need to play for us to be successful for the rest of the year and a softish run coming up. There is plenty of time to find it as we did last year.

We have showed a few times this season that when we control the game, we are so hard to contain. If we can continue moving in the right direction on the couple points above we will start playing in that mode more often. Do it consistently against the top sides and you back the talent in this side to come up with the big plays

 

[billypilgrimnz]

I think we'll still struggle against the top sides because (a) we are inexperienced and (b) Griffin is not exactly a tactical genius

 

[OldPanther]

Moylan’s magic: http://www.penrithpanthers.com.au/news/2017/06/11/moylan_s_minute_of_m.html

 

[Pomoz]

*proceeds to apologize for pretty much everything Griffin has done*

Yeah, I'm glad he left Edwards out for the first half of this season too, we probably would have lost five in a row with him at the back.

Your usual sarcastic self eh Billy? I was referring to last year in respect of Edwards, hence the phrase "the extra year's physical development". Last year Edwards was in Holden Cup.

As for this year, if you were awake at the wheel you might have noticed that Hook tried TMM at 5/8th at the start of the year so the only place Moylan could play was at fullback. We will never know whether this would work or not because allegedly, TMM couldn't keep it in his pants.

I don't think Hook is the best coach coach in the world, but as a fair minded person I will stick up for him when people make statements that are just untrue.

 

[Pomoz]

I think we'll still struggle against the top sides because (a) we are inexperienced and (b) Griffin is not exactly a tactical genius

I think we can agree on that. Gasnier commented during the game that Canberra were vulnerable up the middle and yet we repeatedly went wide. Lo and behold we scored two tries going up the middle and turning the ball back inside.

Maybe the players don't follow Hook's gameplan and that is the problem. He then needs to drop players who don't take instruction.

I think he is of the "play what's in front of you" school of coaching and relies on the players to develop tactics on the fly. Our team aren't good at that it would seem.

 

[OldPanther]

Your usual sarcastic self eh Billy? I was referring to last year in respect of Edwards, hence the phrase "the extra year's physical development". Last year Edwards was in Holden Cup.

As for this year, if you were awake at the wheel you might have noticed that Hook tried TMM at 5/8th at the start of the year so the only place Moylan could play was at fullback. We will never know whether this would work or not because allegedly, TMM couldn't keep it in his pants.

I don't think Hook is the best coach coach in the world, but as a fair minded person I will stick up for him when people make statements that are just untrue.

It's fair of him to try TMM this year. He looked promising so go for it. He shouldn't have defaulted to Carty at 6 though. By that time Edwards could have come in.

 

[Pomoz]

TMM, what might have been? We will never know...........

 

[Doomednow]

Not fussed about TMM. It should have always been Moylan/Cleary.

 

[OldPanther]

JUST IN - Reagan Campbell-Gillard cops Grade 1 Careless High Tackle charge for 70th minute hit on Josh Papalii. Faces monetary fine only.

 

[herbert henry1908]

6 or so weeks ago sure. But he didn't trial well there at the start of this season. Well actually he trialled pretty terribly there.

Fair enough, I didn't realise you were referring to this off season.

Where did you get that info though? Did you watch the trials?

 

[herbert henry1908]

DWZ was seriously out of form last year, possibly following the collapsed lung of late 2015. He was a turnstile in defence. He was probably fortunate to remain in first grade at one stage, and could not seriously have been considered for fullback. With Bryce at 6 in 2016 we won 10 of 14. It worked last year but it didn't this year.

Seriously out of form? Really?!

His stats don't show it.

9.78 meters per run

12 tries

12 line breaks

Let's compare that to Mansour;

10.31 meters per run

16 tries

22 line breaks
---------

Admittedly his missed tackles to tackle ratio was poor, close to the worst in the club.

Now mansour is superior in all aspects but they're close on 2. Mansour also had more errors than DWZ. Still those numbers are solid from DWZ, way too much hypbole used around here.