Didn't think I'd put myself through it but I just watched the replay on FoxSports.
In a lot of ways it was befitting that they replayed the 2007 Round 1 game before the 9 telecast because there were a lot of similarities, none more so than the individual brilliance of Matt Bowen.
Watching the game again reminded me of so many moments where we just cost ourselves. Norman in particular probably came up with 3 plays that cost us - a dud pass to Hodges in the first half, a nothing chip straight to Graham & a kick into the in-goal when we had the numbers out-wide. I don't think it's fair to single him out of course, Thaiday, Parker, McCullough, McGuire & Hodges all came up with dud mistakes while we were on the attack but Norman really needs to learn from it. Otherwise, I was satisfied with Norman's game. He did a great job cleaning up a terrible Hunt pass from dummy half to give us the momentum for that miraculous Beale try (definitely not a forward pass), a great 70m kick that really got us out of trouble and of course that amazing switch play that was dare I say, Lockyer like.
In a lot of ways I think Corey Parker's performance summed up the team's performance. You look at him and generally he had a pretty strong game - a lot of runs really got us rolling and he came close to busting through. But some silly mistakes in both attack and defence made for a poor game.
A couple of interesting points...
- Thaiday just can't win when it comes to penalty goals. Last week he chose to back his team's momentum and was criticised. This week he made a common sense decision and he's been criticised. I certainly think we should have tap and gone on both occasions.
- I wonder if McGuire was hooked for that dud pass to Wallace? All he had to do was back himself and I reckon we were in the points that set.
- Macca's performance held up better than Hunt's IMO. Always thought his defence was superior but he really got us rolling through early and he was extremely unlucky not to have a Try Assist next to his name when Hannant looked to have crashed over. Him and Parker seemed to get tangled up a lot and they need to work on their combination. Hunt made a couple of good darts against a tired defensive line but he made a couple of bad options, especially in that Beale try set. I thought we were very fortunate to score there, it took something incredible from Reed to get us over as they had the numbers. So I'd still persist with Macca starting.
- Decided to check Yow Yeh's errors and I was right. Only made 2 all game and they weren't costly. In fact, the first IMO was the wrong call. JT kicked the ball out and if that isn't outlawed then it should be. It's just as dangerous as leading with the boot to prevent a try. The other came right when the game was over and he was trying to field Parker's kick off, not much he could have done.
- Petero played well on his return I thought. I'm going to go back to my original opinion and have him start over McGuire. His experience against the Knights in what should be a big game would be a huge bonus.
Heart-breaking loss, embarrassing that Bowen was able to score that easily but as fans these are the losses that we just have to wear and I hope it wakes the team up a bit. Definitely not the end of the world though, Cows would have beaten most tonight and we have a lot of room for improvement.
:lol:
