Round 2 v Bulldogs

[ACTPanthers]

Obviously watched the game on tele, being stuck here in Canberra, but it was our home game right? Bulldogs fans were VERY vocal to the point I could hear Bulldogs chants more than any other - Lots of Panthers jerseys, not many voices though.

 

[hindy111]

The dogs hammered manly.
Soward should of run it on last.Forcing dogs to go 98mtrs.They would of perhaps forced an error .Hard to go all way from there.Soward played the percentage game all game so why not at end.Giving away 7 and a 20 tap crushed them.
In saying that dogs manage to get a repeat set and mbye gets to line by an inch. Unlucky on 3 little things at end that could of went your way.
How long is wahre out?
Whats tmm defense like?
The points will come but need to play with more risk and throw ball around.Dogs defense is best in league id say thou.And moylan and segs add a lot.
I agree wallace is boring and slow.And tyrone even thou i suggested at 5/8 was playing like a 2nd rower still

 

[Frankus]

Our front row went really well last night. RCG and Sam had great games. Wallace was solid too. Soward is looking good. Needs to do things at speed so when he does take the line on himself, it isn't so telegraphed.

Poor decisions from our medical staff, coaching staff, silly on field decisions but mainly poor defence cost us that game.

Playing Whare was a mistake. Simple as. That cost us an interchange and contributed greatly to us being done at the death.

Taking the 2 points when we were up by 12 and again by 8 was just stupid. Both times we were a good chance of going over. I don't want to crucify Soward for kicking the ball dead in our last set, but that was a silly decision.

Over 60 missed tackles in our first two games. What the f**k has Griffin been coaching all offseason? Our motto should be: At Penrith 'Defence' is just something between us and the neighbour.

 

[mxlegend99]

Every side would kick to turn a 12 point lead into 14. A Wayne Bennett side would have turned also turned an 8 point lead into 10. The 2 points were guarantees. A try is not.

If we didn't kick them and don't score we would have lost before the conversion. We had a slim chance he would miss and get golden point atleast.

Our defence was poor but it was due to fatigue and poor management of interchange. We had to leave a hobbling player on the field for 10 minutes due to a wasted interchange taking off an injured Whare who most people knew wasn't fully fit to play. That injury was always odds on to happen. It lefy us shuffling an already shuffled backline and then sticking with an injured Blake. Ofcourse the reshuffles and injured player would make our defence worse

 

[leaguegod692]

not every side, i think the dogs had a chance against manly last week but decided to keep the pressure but i do agree kicking from 12 in front is fine


the 2nd kick wasn't a good call, was a scrappy start to the half but panthers had a few sets on the dogs line, it gave their forwards a chance to rest and ultimately get back into the game

 

[betcats]

It was a complete waste to take the two there, it did not make the dogs job and harder and would of been a massive relief to them.

Our attack is so easy to shut down because without Moylan teams just shutdown Soward and we have nothing.

 

[Copperhead]

Can anyone explain to me the value of using players the way we have with Akauola and JFH?

 

[mxlegend99]

It was a complete waste to take the two there, it did not make the dogs job and harder and would of been a massive relief to them.

Our attack is so easy to shut down because without Moylan teams just shutdown Soward and we have nothing.

If our attack is easy to shut down wouldn't 2 points be more valuable then zero points?

Broncos will take the 2 nearly every time despite having more attacking spark then we do. We had many other opportunities to score and failed. Why do people automatically think we score on that opportunity? More likely we would have played the ball, made an error on the 3rd or 4th tackle and thought we should have taken the 2.

We got a penalty about 40 out where I think we should have taken the 2 last night. It would have put us up by 6 if we had kicked it. Instead we went for it and came up with nothing. Based on Sowards goal kicking this year, I rate his chances at kicking it.

 

[umina panther]

Mansour deserves a wrap for his last 20mins

 

[betcats]

If our attack is easy to shut down wouldn't 2 points be more valuable then zero points?

Broncos will take the 2 nearly every time despite having more attacking spark then we do. We had many other opportunities to score and failed. Why do people automatically think we score on that opportunity? More likely we would have played the ball, made an error on the 3rd or 4th tackle and thought we should have taken the 2.

We got a penalty about 40 out where I think we should have taken the 2 last night. It would have put us up by 6 if we had kicked it. Instead we went for it and came up with nothing. Based on Sowards goal kicking this year, I rate his chances at kicking it.

We had them on the ropes there. Keep the pressure on and see what happens. When our attack is so average we have to take advantage and score tries when we have set after set on their line and the defensce looks gone. As soon as they took that 2 I had a feeling we would lose, it was a big white flag.

Soward putting that ball dead was a massive choke as well. I know he played well but he f**ked up when the game was there to be won. That ball going dead gave them a free 30m before tackle 1. Take that off and it is a much easier set to defend.

 

[umina panther]

Agree the kick was bad but it definitely was the right option

 

[martielang]

Disappointing result but I saw plenty of good signs. Our forward pack, on a 5 day turnaround where they played in 35 degree heat, were phenomenal I thought. Merrin adds a serious amount of go forward to our side and our props ran hard and hit hard all night.

I thought Griffin got his changes right for the most part. Brought on Cartwright at the right time and Taylor when we were starting to drop off tackles. Nothing he could do with the Whare situation, he was told he was right to go, he improves our side, why wouldn't he pick him?

Wallace was decent, Soward terrific, Peach probably didn't have his best game but its understandable.

Hopefully not a serious injury to Blake, the kid is looking like a handful every time he touches the ball. Seems to be an eerie silence coming from 'hes not good enough, he never will be' brigade that were so vocal less than 6 months ago.

We can beat Brisbane even with the injuries. Looking forward to it already.

 

[hindy111]

Should of been 2/2. Unlucky not to be.Then everyone would have a different attitude

 

[Munted]

Agree on Blake, looks like he is growing into his skin. No longer holding the ball outwards with one hand and i wasn't holding my breath when he ran to the line last night as he seems to have better control with the ball and his body.

Forwards aimed up for the most part, Wallace was 'solid' at hooker. Nothing flash but also didnt throw a fwd pass which seggy is always good for.

Overall our attack was flat, we didnt ask questions of the doggies defence. Did we run a set play? Christ the U10's run around Vs Canberra worked and we didnt even give that a run last night!

 

[betcats]

We had attacking sets were we just took 5 one out hitups and kicked. I am almost certain we did not run one play.

 

[betcats]

Agree the kick was bad but it definitely was the right option

It is the right option if it comes off but that kick was way to big. IMO it is far less risky to just try and run it. Worst thing that happens is we hand it over and they have to go 100.

 

[ACTPanthers]

We had attacking sets were we just took 5 one out hitups and kicked. I am almost certain we did not run one play.

Hook said in the interview at the start we'd be playing a "boring" type of footy - I'm assuming the above was on purpose to "tire out the opposition forwards" (FTR I'm not agreeing with it)

 

[betcats]

If the plan was to tire them out we had the perfect chance to do so with Tolmen going off after 15 minutes but it didn't work. We looked like the tired team out there.

Honestly this is the NRL and our coach's plan was to tire the opposition out by playing boring footy, wtf how much is he getting paid to come up with that? How about picking and coaching a side that can win games by scoring more than the opposition.

 

[Devilous]

A funny feeling losing that game, our forward pack really ripped in, we took it the Dogs pack. McKendry had his best game in years, can't really say a bad word about any of the forwards. Even Taylor only playing 15-20mins really helped with some great tackles towards the end.

Defence was reasonably good, we did miss a lot of tackles (more than double the Dogs I think). I'm just going to put that down to a five day turnaround after we played in 35degree heat because in the last 20mins we had absolutely no energy left. The right side defence will need fixing up though, we have been leaking tries down that side in our first two games, we need Whare back to full fitness.

Another pleasing thing was Wallace at hooker, it wasn't razzle dazzle, it wasn't fancy and he is never going to dummy it and dive over the line but it was straight, clean passing to the guy who it was supposed to go to and it generally got us on the front foot going forward.

The only really big problem we have is, No Moylan = No points. The amount of ball we had in the opposition 20 and came away with no tries was painful. We had nothing, I can't even remember us trying a backline move to try and get an overlap. The only move we seemed to have was give an inside ball to Cartwright and have him run to the other side of the field and hope he finds a gap and that's not going to win you a competition.

I really feel we are close to being a really good side, we just really need our attack to work itself out, that's the big challenge for Griffin over the next few weeks. If he can do it, we will be in the top 8 easy. If not it's going to be another frustrating season.

 

[betcats]

Even when Cartwright was running across filed trying to create something there was no one running into a hole or giving him any options, everyone just stand and watch. It was a master class of how not to score from us last night.