Round 18 VS Dragons

[franklin2323]

Since I have berated him plenty of times, I want to doff my cap to Cleary for his tactics. It was clear to me at least that the Dragons have a tough and monstrous forward pack. We were all worried that our bench was too light and should have another forward. From the kick off, we moved the ball around to make their forwards have to do more running. By half time, they were gassed and had virtually no impact. Their SOO reps were hardly sighted and we avoided an arm wrestle by using the ball really well against their compressed defence. They wanted to smash us, but they couldn't catch us because of that ball movement.

Other points from the game:

• We started using JFH and Whare at the line as ball players. It really added to the variation in our attack. Whare passing? Who'd of thought! Then when Luai was on the field I thought Dave's mate maybe taking something. Cautious, conservative? Nah......

• JFH is taking over from Gallen and competing with Jai Arrow as the NRL machine. His stats this year are unbelievable, but he also makes an impact with the ferocity of his tackling. Now he is adding ball playing to his repertoire. 166m and 38 tackles. He is an elite player. Cut down the penalties and he is close to the best forward in the game.

• Mitch Kenny made 49 tackles and had a good game. I still think Egan is the slicker dummy half, but Kenny is perfect for battles in the trenches.

• Egan should get his spikes on and get down to Jamison park and do sprint training. If he can get his running game going, he can be a real point of difference but he just doesn't seem to want to run even though the dragons were on the rack and going backwards.

• RCG and Tamou both played 42 minutes and made 132m and 139m respectively. That's great input from the props. I was worried our bench was too light but we rolled up the field quite nicely using good ball movement and the forwards not shirking their jobs. 5 forwards with 100+ metres. Wow!

• If there was any doubt about letting DWZ go, against the Dragons Too showed why you needn't worry. He also showed that size isn't everything, strength, speed and balance are just as important.

• Our juniors rock!

Best thing To'o isn't on some huge long term deal. He has looked promising for 3 seasons now. Glad to see someone finally show that promise in the top grade

 

[TheFrog]

JFH is taking over from Gallen and competing with Jai Arrow as the NRL machine. His stats this year are unbelievable, but he also makes an impact with the ferocity of his tackling. Now he is adding ball playing to his repertoire. 166m and 38 tackles. He is an elite player. Cut down the penalties and he is close to the best forward in the game.

A seriously underrated footballer. Did not make the NZ starting side recently, Isaac Liu was preferred for goodness sake. I'd be interested in how many Dally M points JFH gets. I bet its not many. He'll win the Merv if he stays healthy and holds his form.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Best thing To'o isn't on some huge long term deal. He has looked promising for 3 seasons now. Glad to see someone finally show that promise in the top grade

No outside backs should be on long deals again, other than a very special fullback.

 

[martielang]

A seriously underrated footballer. Did not make the NZ starting side recently, Isaac Liu was preferred for goodness sake. I'd be interested in how many Dally M points JFH gets. I bet its not many. He'll win the Merv if he stays healthy and holds his form.

I’m a poor judge, I thought he was gonna be an average middle. He’s unbelievable at the moment, far exceeding my expectations. Hasn’t played a poor game & his involvement is ridiculous for the full 80. Still can break tackles in the last minute.

 

[Aliceinwonderland]

I’m a poor judge, I thought he was gonna be an average middle. He’s unbelievable at the moment, far exceeding my expectations. Hasn’t played a poor game & his involvement is ridiculous for the full 80. Still can break tackles in the last minute.

I've been riding on James's coattails for quite a while now. He's a man of few words, wonderful worth ethic, and fairly deadly in both attack and defence.

 

[Dave's mate]

Fish is playing very well but anyone saying hes close to the best forward in the game is way off. No one is in the same ballpark as Tamalolololo

 

[Aliceinwonderland]

Fish is playing very well but anyone saying hes close to the best forward in the game is way off. No one is in the same ballpark as Tamalolololo

I agree he is the best. Gould said last night in commentary that give James 18months and he has the 'potential' to be the best in the game.

 

[Panther Pete]

Well Pete, since you mentioned it. I still would have preferred Bennett, or Hasler and the process for selecting Dave's mate was wrong and we were the unfittest team in the competition. If you are unfit, you will slowly develop fitness from playing every week. It's no coincidence we have got better as the season has got on in terms of fitness.

Let's not gloss over we were last and bottom of all the attacking stats worth mentioning for a couple of months at least.

None of that is changed by winning 7 in a row. Manly and South's are going ok with Hasler and Bennett and without having such a poor run of form. I still don't want Dave's mate back but he has my support and I hope he is successful this time because I love the Panther's.

Actually I am not glossing over anything, merely pointing out the fact when we were playing poorly an awful lot on here we putting the blame on Ivan for the reasons I stated in my post . And yes I fully understand the coach has to take the bulk of the responsibility when we are playing like crap. Conversely I haven’t seen too many posts since then stating Ivan deserves credit for getting the team to turn up to play each week, playing for the full 80 mins, giving the young guys a go etc. It is good to know however he now has your support and yes, go the Panthers as I love them too!

 

[soc123_au]

Actually I am not glossing over anything, merely pointing out the fact when we were playing poorly an awful lot on here we putting the blame on Ivan for the reasons I stated in my post . And yes I fully understand the coach has to take the bulk of the responsibility when we are playing like crap. Conversely I haven’t seen too many posts since then stating Ivan deserves credit for getting the team to turn up to play each week, playing for the full 80 mins, giving the young guys a go etc. It is good to know however he now has your support and yes, go the Panthers as I love them too!

There has been quite a few posts giving Ivan credit for where we are now. Mostly from those that were bagging him hardest when we were going like shit. The majority of posters here are for the most part pretty fair in judgement.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

Didn't watch this game either. It seems like my power is growing. You are all welcome.

 

[betcats]

One thing the commentary pointed out is how quick we were setting our ‘shapes’ as they called it. You can see what they they mean on Nadens second try, as soon as Kikau dives in the fumbled kick we line up perfectly out to the left in about a second and are easily able to capitalise on the ridiculous overlap. It’s a small thing but you can see from how fast they get in position that it’s something they’ve worked on, little things like that are the difference between scoring 20 or 40 in games when your on top.

Great effort by kikau to dive on that by the way.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Actually I am not glossing over anything, merely pointing out the fact when we were playing poorly an awful lot on here we putting the blame on Ivan for the reasons I stated in my post . And yes I fully understand the coach has to take the bulk of the responsibility when we are playing like crap. Conversely I haven’t seen too many posts since then stating Ivan deserves credit for getting the team to turn up to play each week, playing for the full 80 mins, giving the young guys a go etc. It is good to know however he now has your support and yes, go the Panthers as I love them too!

Ive always believed you shouldn’t get too much credit for fixing a problem you helped create.

 

[OldPanther]

Ive always believed you shouldn’t get too much credit for fixing a problem you helped create.

That is pretty ridiculous.

 

[franklin2323]

Here is the thing. If we had a proper pre season we would of started the year better. Mansour should of been dropped a couple of weeks earlier. Moving Yeo to mark Xerri instead of Blake. Are all issues early on due to Ivan.

The fact we took use of an easy draw to get to some sort of respectabilty. Doesn't make up for the poor early season effort.

For me starting next year strong is what will say if he learnt from it or if it was just dumb luck

 

[herbert henry1908]

That is pretty ridiculous.

Why?

He played a big role in the team not being fit, it was finally his chance to hit the ground running with a good squad and he failed. I don’t think he deserves heaps of credit for correcting our path. We should’ve been competitive from game 1.

He also got lucky with a good draw for us during the origin period, slots opening up for younger guys through injury or off field behaviour.

If he gets us to week 3 of the finals then I’ll be dishing out the credit.

We’re not talking about some superstar coach here.

 

[OldPanther]

Why?

He played a big role in the team not being fit, it was finally his chance to hit the ground running with a good squad and he failed. I don’t think he deserves heaps of credit for correcting our path. We should’ve been competitive from game 1.

He also got lucky with a good draw for us during the origin period, slots opening up for younger guys through injury or off field behaviour.

If he gets us to week 3 of the finals then I’ll be dishing out the credit.

We’re not talking about some superstar coach here.

The fact you believe you shouldn't get credit for fixing your mistakes. If someone learns and improves why shouldn't they be appropriately praised. I'd rather that than someone stubborn like Dragons coach right now.

We all make mistakes.


Failure is the greatest teacher and all that.

 

[OldPanther]

Why?

He played a big role in the team not being fit, it was finally his chance to hit the ground running with a good squad and he failed. I don’t think he deserves heaps of credit for correcting our path. We should’ve been competitive from game 1.

He also got lucky with a good draw for us during the origin period, slots opening up for younger guys through injury or off field behaviour.

If he gets us to week 3 of the finals then I’ll be dishing out the credit.

We’re not talking about some superstar coach here.

I agree with the second half of this. He shouldn't just get credit for an origin period winning streak.

 

[herbert henry1908]

The fact you believe you shouldn't get credit for fixing your mistakes. If someone learns and improves why shouldn't they be appropriately praised. I'd rather that than someone stubborn like Dragons coach right now.

We all make mistakes.


Failure is the greatest teacher and all that.

Not what I said.

 

[herbert henry1908]

It’s not clear he says learnt from his mistakes either, as franklin mentioned we won’t really know that until we see how we start next year.

We’ve improved to be sure, but how much of that is just the team getting fitter as the season goes on?

 

[Crashtest]

We’ve improved to be sure, but how much of that is just the team getting fitter as the season goes on?

Why are you so sure the team was unfit at the start of the season? Just because they trained in a different manner to Griffin doesn’t mean they weren’t fit, nor that fitness was a reason for the poor start to the season.

Alexander angrily refuted on Foxsports that the players weren’t fit enough. He said that he was there everyday and saw how hard they trained in the preseason.