Round 19 vs. Warriors Discussion + Voting

[00digger00]

McCollough 3. He was deadly out of dummy half. His kick game was spot on and NO dumb grubbers at the try line. Well done son.
Parker 2. Same as every week. I know it's impossible but the man puts in 110%
Petro 1. Made some really tuff runs and had a bit if sting in his D. A good captians knock.

Thought we played really well as a team last night. They kept coming and we kept turning them back. I think I only sore one bloke drop off a tackle which is great to see. You could see this frustrate them with some stupid off loads in the 2nd half.
In attack we just need to find that last pass!! A couple of times in the last weeks we have had the defence on the back foot and sliding, but we don't find that pass that puts someone over. (something dazza wrote the book on) I think with a little more depth in our lines when we are in the 20 we can fix this.
LET'S GO BRONCOS!!
Hope Copley is alright. Was pretty funny listening to Dazza saying he is getting strapped and coming back out........ Stitched up!

 

[Bretto]

So many things I want to comment on.

Happy with the 2 points, let's start there.

Massively wrapped we managed to win with no specialty winger playing on the wing. We had Alex Glen and Ben Te'o on the wings FFS.

The bad:

Justin Hodges. I think maybe he's carrying a couple shoulder injuries or something, particularly his left shoulder. Every time someone steps back on his inside, all he can do is just hang his arm out. He made a mountain of missed tackles last night. I hope he sorts his shit out before the finals.

Peter Wallace. Needs to find something or be punted. He tries his heart out, but a bit like Mitchell Pearce, lacks the finesse of the really good players to put a shine on things.

The good:

Andrew McCullough. Took those silly grubbers and ball hogging plays close to the opposition line out of his game, and really had a stellar performance. Almost 50 tackles, that glorious 40/20, and a bunch of good dummy half runs.

Corey Parker. Absolute machine. Again, nearly 50 tackles, high teens for hitups, stinging defence. I really hope he stays fit for the rest of the season.

Josh McGuire. Still taking leaps and bounds. Basically carries us through the middle these days.

Ben Hannant. This guy has a motor for days. He came up with a couple of big defensive plays last night, and had some really strong carries in the dying minutes of the game.

That last play had my heart in my mouth, and when I saw Vatuvai regain that ball I thought he was going to score for sure, but a massive defensive play from Hoffman, to hit him hard and drive with his legs to stop him, then Beale on the other side; he was the only Bronco within cooyee of the ball, with 3 Warriors players stampeding down on him hard. It was fantastic defensive play from both players, and showed true heart and determination to want that win as bad as they did. Maybe next time Norman will just kick the ball out.

I thought Gillett maybe found a bit of form. He showed some good footwork and speed down that left edge, only to make a meal of the setup, but still, encouraging signs. Hunt made an immediate impact off the bench. Line break straight up, and a few good line break assists - he offered something off the bench, and I can see now Hook is using Hunt, McCullough, Wallace and Norman all at the same time towards the end of the last couple matches, using McCullough as kind of a running backrower/lock. Dodds offered heaps of spark off the bench too. He hit hard in defence and looks to be making a claim for a permanent bench spot.

I think the boys will be well happy with that win, considering the semi final type of feel the game had to it. It was a really hard and grinding win. Very satisfying.

3. Parker
2. McCullough
1. McGuire

 

[Leagueaddict]

Yeah great gutsy win for the boys in trying conditions. Norman played better and so did Gillett but Gillett seemed flat footed a lot of the times when he got the ball. Glenn i thought was strong along with McCullough and another great effort from McGuire and the workhorse Parker. Dodds just keeps improving and Beale played well. Hodges as noted was playing like the walking wounded and Wallace was a touch better than last week but not much creativity going on out there. To be fair the weather dictated terms in a big way.

Kiwis gave it to us getting a heap of repeat sets but good to see us hang in there under sustained pressure. Can't wait to see what we've got next week and hopefully on a drier surface.

3. McGuire
2. McCullough
1. Parker

 

[GoTheBroncs]

3. McGuire
2. Civo
1. Glenn

-5 Hodges
-2 Wallace
-4 Hoffman

All of the forwards were extremely outstanding. Dodds had his best NRL game. McGuire more than justified his starting roll. It's the backs that let us down...

It is good to get the two points, but imo Warriors were the better side (I guess it squares the ledger for us from the Manly game). Someone mentioned above that we played smarter football in the wet. I could not disagree more, the Warriors were smart, when they couldn't score just grubber in behind the line and secure another set. Perfect wet weather football. Us? Well we keep trying that 'ol high ball which more often than not gets us nowhere. Imo the Warriors biggest mistake was selecting Manu to play

Still no structure in attack, our only try comes off a deflection. Warriors two very nice tries off structured plays. Can't understand why we're not improving in that area, but I think Wallace's lack of skill contributes. As well as a general lack of cohesion.

Hodges... wtf... I really do hope he is injured, otherwise it just looked like he didn't feel like getting wet. We need him firing, he is our only real player that can do something out of nothing.

Hoffman... Yes he made a good tackle at the end, but apart from that had an absolutely horrible game. Imo his poor positional play went a long way to us potentially losing the game. Even when we have an awesome defensive set, he still can't get to the ball on the full.

Sorry to be so negative, but that type of performance won't beat Storm/Bulldogs/Manly. Our forward pack was very very good though.

 

[Behold]

Okay okay a lot of whinging about our attack, I am not a massive fan of Wallace but could a lot of our issues be solved by swapping Wallace back to the left side and Norman to the right. I am not 100% clear on why we moved Wallace to the otherside other than to take pressure off Norman as Lockyer's replacement. I think Wallace would play better on the left with Glenn being his easy go to option 10 out from the line, Norman would play better with an Australian backrower and Australian centre outside him. Also Norman's cross field low kicks he pulled out against the Raiders would work better going to Glenn/Reed/Copley/Maranta whoever is going to be on that edge now than Hodges/Beale.

On last night game if I could give three points to one position instead of player it would be to the hooker. Both Macca and Hunt did good work out of dumbie half.
3. Parker
2. McCoullogh
1. Glenn.

Even though Dodds didn't make anywhere near the tackles of some of the other players I thought he was our best defender last night. He works the hips and actually stops players making metres while in contact which is something that has been letting us down lately everyone is tackling high and letting the attacker keep running. The positional switching between Glenn/Te'o/Gillett was really good to see last night after Copley went off. Hoffman is definitely carrying some sort of ankle injury, every game once he tries to twist in a tackle he comes up lame. I think we should stop expecting him to play like a K Hunt use too or even what Boyd did for the Dragons Hoffman should be our fast running option up the middle/support player on the breaks and have Parker playing the flat ball with Norman behind him offering depth, we don't need to do what every other team in the competition does. Particularly when we have a very short side, Norman and Wallace shouldn't be going down that side cutting out space for the centre and wing they need to leave it to macca or Hunt to be creating that option. I don't think we are going to be grand finalist this year but definite top 4 our major problem this year has been having to fix our defence part way through the year and this has given us no time to develop our attack.

 

[AceAv]

I think it would be beneficial letting Beale run at FB and giving hoffman a couple weeks to get better. Teo proved he can play centre well and Maranta should also go wing

 

[hellteam]

For sure, we need to get Beale involved more he's our only player with actual pace at the moment