Round 2 vs Penrith

[SBD82]

I confess I am a Panthers fan and want to add a bit of balance to this discussion.

The 1st sin bin was contentious, but it was early enough in the game to give you a chance to recover. During that period the Panthers lost their halfback for HIA and were quite clunky in attack and To'o was on one leg. Furthermore, the try scored by Spencer Leniu was through the middle of your defence and had nothing to do with being stretched with a man down. It was just soft. Kikau scored 10m from the posts. Again, soft, not because you had a man down. You have to own that. The two tries were about mental fatigue, not the loss of a player. Your heads had dropped.

Contrast the second half sinbin. You conceded no points. You were up for it. Fired up, bashing the Panthers and right in the game. If you had that attitude for the first sin-bin, Leniu wouldn't have strolled though like he was out for a scenic walk.

The final penalty count was 6 - 7. The Dragons had possession for 31 minutes versus the Panthers 25 minutes.
The Panthers lost their star winger (he is normally worth 200m a game, the best in the NRL), and their number one prop JFH. It had a massive impact on the Panther's ability to roll down the field.

You didn't lose because of the refs, you made more metres, had more possession and made more offloads. You lost because you have a few rookies and aren't quite there yet with the tough mentality that teams like the Storm have. Last week the Storm lost three players including two to season ending injuries and were already missing a few star players and yet still won the game.

I am sure you will improve as your rookies get more game time and that will also help your mental toughness. You have a good tough pack and I think you will have a good year, good luck guys.

Couple of things.

1. The try scored in the middle by Leniu was absolutely because we were down to 12 men. Sloan had to defend in the middle in the line, and was forced to make consecutive tackles against big forwards. He made the first one, but didn’t make the second.

2. The storm weren’t playing the defending premiers.

3. We can own our performance. And obviously there are things that we need to improve. But what we can’t control is unbalanced refereeing. If you can’t see that you got the rub of the green last night, you need to get some perspective.

 

[Dragon David]

No...good rant. I will continue.
Bird was penalised for sliding is hand around someones neck, not even a hit
Burgess was penalised because Luai overreacted like he was shot to a flick to the face accidently.
We got a run of penalties towards the back end as we were chasing an exciting finish...surprise surprise.
Good luck to Penrith, they are the premiers and the media's favourites ATM including on field refs video refs who listen to media and over scrutinising the opposition.
It goes with the territory (as Holbrook eluded to but the tide will turn)
Just waiting for the Dragons to catch the wave

Here! Here!

 

[Dragon David]

A couple of observations:

Sutton is not a first grade standard ref and mixing him with Noyen as the video ref was a recipe for mind-boggling decisions.

Penrith scored 3 try's. The first a fortuitous charge down. The next 2 were while we had a key defender sent to the bin on a dubious call. They didn't score any points other than that.
We had 2 players sin-binned, our defensive hooker wirh a dislocated elbow and a couple of HIA's. Yes, To'o was also injured for the Panthers, but hardly a key defender. And speaking of HIA, their half back staying down for that oeriod of time would equal a Cat A result ie: cannot return ti the game, but low and behold there he was, backbon again.

There's a lot to like about where we are as a team, yes plenty of improvement needed also, but the framework is there. It's a 25 round competition, losing a game against the defeneing premiers in such circumstances, shows me we are a team on the move and some clubs will start looking over tgeir shoulders.

Great observations and comments.

 

[SBD82]

Here! Here!

Where?

 

[BBTB]

I confess I am a Panthers fan and want to add a bit of balance to this discussion.

The 1st sin bin was contentious, but it was early enough in the game to give you a chance to recover. During that period the Panthers lost their halfback for HIA and were quite clunky in attack and To'o was on one leg. Furthermore, the try scored by Spencer Leniu was through the middle of your defence and had nothing to do with being stretched with a man down. It was just soft. Kikau scored 10m from the posts. Again, soft, not because you had a man down. You have to own that. The two tries were about mental fatigue, not the loss of a player. Your heads had dropped.

Contrast the second half sinbin. You conceded no points. You were up for it. Fired up, bashing the Panthers and right in the game. If you had that attitude for the first sin-bin, Leniu wouldn't have strolled though like he was out for a scenic walk.

The final penalty count was 6 - 7. The Dragons had possession for 31 minutes versus the Panthers 25 minutes.
The Panthers lost their star winger (he is normally worth 200m a game, the best in the NRL), and their number one prop JFH. It had a massive impact on the Panther's ability to roll down the field.

You didn't lose because of the refs, you made more metres, had more possession and made more offloads. You lost because you have a few rookies and aren't quite there yet with the tough mentality that teams like the Storm have. Last week the Storm lost three players including two to season ending injuries and were already missing a few star players and yet still won the game.

I am sure you will improve as your rookies get more game time and that will also help your mental toughness. You have a good tough pack and I think you will have a good year, good luck guys.

No we lost because of that main referee Sutton.The stats can look all good at the end of the game,but it where & when they are given. That debacle of a 10min sinbin on Sua" after Penriff's half back
Milked a penalty, was a scam. Even Tallis & Marshall
Mentioned O'Sullivan milk a penalty. Sutton is not a 1st grade referee,& should be dropped. Penriff scored 2 tries while our man Sua' was in the bin..

 

[Dragon David]

Not about to quit on young Amone just yet....sure he needs some work thats understandable given his age and lack of 1st grade experience but with the amount of times we gave up possession through poor handling, two stints with 12 players, Panthers continually offside holding down and abysmal refereeing it was difficult to get any fluency and shape to our attack....and tbh Hunt imo is partly to blame , he continues to crab sideways in possession and at times runs to his teammates and just hands them the ball ...along with Norman they were both guilty of this...now Coreys gone its something Ben needs to eliminate from his game ....if Amone is to flourish and grow in his 5/8 role he needs good early ball from swift crisp passes to allow him to be more confident and creative..... we beat the Warriors and took the reigning premiers to within a converted try ....imo both these teams had far and away the rub of the green from the refs therefore the last thing we need to be doing is going into change mode......in ending if we had won yesterday we would be doing somersaults not backflips

Hunt admitted in the post match interview that he made blunders and blamed himself for not yelling out orders.

He needs to take more control and just run hard all day and pass quickly to his outside men. Most of his runs and passes last night were with his legs slowly moving making me think he was indecisive and that contributed to Amone not being able to combine readily with him.

In general play, we need for Amone to do a lot more kicks. If Sullivan comes in, he will provide a lot more variation in attack for us.

The team will be much better for this game. We also have only 3 more weeks to go before Moose and Fui return to strengthen our squad more.

Su'a and Molo are great additions. We need these blokes as well as Burgess, De Belin and Lawrie etc to continue in the vein they have shown when we play the Sharks who will be hard to beat.

 

[Dragon David]

Yeah we now seem to have a team that's starting to play with passion and aggression and a number of ref calls were against us infairly (especially where Lomax picked up the dropped ball and scored) Ref should have played on and have some luck (Kerr's double movement try) but both called back. To have to simply watch limp meek excuse post match interviews like last night was annoying. Hunt in particular doesn't seem to have a killer instinct in him. Show us some passion fellas. And for gods sake, can someone tell Fox post match interviewers that we can't hear the questions they ask the coaches. Very amateurish for a supposed professional media unit. Last night's interview sounded like Mabel the cleaner was vaccuming while the interview was on.

Exactly my sentiments Dragons4me.

 

[Lovemedragons]

Su'a no case to answer and Burgess fined $1,000 or can fight charge and if losses it's $1,500. What a joke for Burgess. Either he hit him high or late and should cop a week or whatever or he is free. It's like saying I'm sort of pregnant. You either are or you aren't. NRL admin is a joke.

No case to answer so what about Sutton and the bunker….changed the game with a poorly judged call, big disappointment to many fans. Certainly ruined my weekend!

 

[St Tangles]

All too often our attack gets bogged down centrefield because we have no one in the halves with ball in hand skill. Ben has a good kicking game, Junior individual skills but neither are creative such as putting a player into a gap. Does Amone need some time in ressies to work on his game reading and ball skills. Mybe is more of a playmaker, has vision and a clever kicking game as we all saw in the late Lomax try. He could slot into either 5/8 or hooker easily.

I think you can put some of our halves issues down to slow service from dummy half not giving them room

I think both Hunt and Amone had more room when Mybe came on at hooker

 

[be55]

Penalty counts are deceiving. It's matters where and when you get them, and should you have had more. So saying the 6-7 means nothing unless you also give context. I lost count of the times Kikau was lying on the player and looking around to see if the defensive line was set before getting off.

Exactly...

This incompetent referee allowed them to slow our play the ball down all night and then with 25 mins to go in the 2nd half, he bins Lomax and then in the very next set of six, with them attacking our line, he awards them six again for De Belin holding the player down. De Belin couldn't have moved any quicker and if you compared it to what he allowed the Panthers to get away with all night, six again should never have been awarded. He did everything he could to get the Panthers over the line.

I swear someone should have checked Sutton's shorts at the end of the game...I bet you would have found a TAB ticket with Panthers to win on it.

It was one of the most biased, incompetent refereeing performances i've seen in a long time.

That's not my bias talking...it's the facts.

 

[BLM01]

I confess I am a Panthers fan and want to add a bit of balance to this discussion.

The 1st sin bin was contentious, but it was early enough in the game to give you a chance to recover. During that period the Panthers lost their halfback for HIA and were quite clunky in attack and To'o was on one leg. Furthermore, the try scored by Spencer Leniu was through the middle of your defence and had nothing to do with being stretched with a man down. It was just soft. Kikau scored 10m from the posts. Again, soft, not because you had a man down. You have to own that. The two tries were about mental fatigue, not the loss of a player. Your heads had dropped.

Contrast the second half sinbin. You conceded no points. You were up for it. Fired up, bashing the Panthers and right in the game. If you had that attitude for the first sin-bin, Leniu wouldn't have strolled though like he was out for a scenic walk.

The final penalty count was 6 - 7. The Dragons had possession for 31 minutes versus the Panthers 25 minutes.
The Panthers lost their star winger (he is normally worth 200m a game, the best in the NRL), and their number one prop JFH. It had a massive impact on the Panther's ability to roll down the field.

You didn't lose because of the refs, you made more metres, had more possession and made more offloads. You lost because you have a few rookies and aren't quite there yet with the tough mentality that teams like the Storm have. Last week the Storm lost three players including two to season ending injuries and were already missing a few star players and yet still won the game.

I am sure you will improve as your rookies get more game time and that will also help your mental toughness. You have a good tough pack and I think you will have a good year, good luck guys.

Most Ok balanced argument but we got a few of our penalties late
The 50 / 50 calls including bunker reviews went your way last night, especially at crucial times or points in the game
Why Lomax could not play on and score a runaway try i dont know from a dropped ball
I agree you lost 2 star players and we nearly clawed the game from you, imagine if Lomax made that 20-18 with converting the last try and then late we got the penalty we could of levelled it up
Hypothetiucals I know and not worth wishing for
Now..for an away game you did OK from the officiating when we grew up expecting the advantage at home from the whistle blower.

 

[Dragon David]

If Koroisau doesn't get involved Kerr reaches out and scores. His actions constitute a professional foul, penalty and 10 minutes in the bin. Lomax doesn't move his feet, he leans left and braces, a penalty but not a sin bin. Su'a's hit is almost simultaneous and he makes contact but doesn't complete the tackle, only warranted a penalty if that but O'Sullivan milks it. Under the new rules O'Sullivan shouldn't have been allowed back on the field.

So now we have another official in the game, the Bunker Doctor and more dodgy calls and stoppages, the ruination of Rugby League continues. Get rid of the bunker, the doctor, the six agains, the Captains challenge and let us get on with the game ffs.

The wrestle and hold downs seem to have made a come-back this year and the refs aren't policing it, which just means it'll get worse and worse and in a few months the NRL will finally react and there'll be an over the top crackdown again. Penrith against us and against Manly last week got away with murder.

Well said Kit. The crackdown of the wrestle/hold downs will be when we start doing it. We cop it a lot and Hook should start yelling out - "We are as mad as hell and we are not going to take this anymore".

It is so hard for Dragons fans to watch the games we play because there is no fairness with refs decisions. Just like Holbrook said - decisions do not favour the "lower teams".

Every part of the game is scrutinised to the point that when a break is made and then a try is scored there is that suspenseful wait to see if everything was hunky dory and the try is confirmed or not.

When we had to listen to the radio if you couldn't go to the ground to watch and there was no TV coverage - which was years ago I know - there was no need to refer matters to bunkers, run replays so whatever the decision given by the ref, that was it.

Just let the game flow - mistakes with decisions are made but eventually they are evened out.

 

[Illusion]

Hunt admitted in the post match interview that he made blunders and blamed himself for not yelling out orders.

He needs to take more control and just run hard all day and pass quickly to his outside men. Most of his runs and passes last night were with his legs slowly moving making me think he was indecisive and that contributed to Amone not being able to combine readily with him.

In general play, we need for Amone to do a lot more kicks. If Sullivan comes in, he will provide a lot more variation in attack for us.

The team will be much better for this game. We also have only 3 more weeks to go before Moose and Fui return to strengthen our squad more.

Su'a and Molo are great additions. We need these blokes as well as Burgess, De Belin and Lawrie etc to continue in the vein they have shown when we play the Sharks who will be hard to beat.

Don't get me wrong , like I have said before Hunt is tough tries hard leads by example ( most times ) but for me when was the last time he guided us to victory in a tight game where it was there to win ? Again he plays much better from 9 and plays what he sees ..... Taking the pressure of him having to set up play and guide the team around from 7 he is less affective ...... So either Mybe to 7 or Sully or the reverse , not leaving Amone out but we have options in my opinion if Hunt went to 9 where he plays his best footy ......

 

[Dragon David]

Good effort last night.

Just a couple of brain snaps, and some dubious calls by the ref.

Thought the forwards went really well, and Mbye was terrific. Rav had a great game running the ball back , caught everything bar the one that could have won us the match.

He ran for over 180 metres.

2 players in the bin was the difference.

Side note, the crowd noise in particular in the second half was reminiscent of times past. Was awesome.

Ironic isn't it with Rava catching all of the balls and running the ball back but dropping an awkward pass from Lomax which if he did catch it would have won us the match - if Lomax converted it?

Let's hope we get the rub of the green next Thursday night at WIN

 

[Dragon David]

All too often our attack gets bogged down centrefield because we have no one in the halves with ball in hand skill. Ben has a good kicking game, Junior individual skills but neither are creative such as putting a player into a gap. Does Amone need some time in ressies to work on his game reading and ball skills. Mybe is more of a playmaker, has vision and a clever kicking game as we all saw in the late Lomax try. He could slot into either 5/8 or hooker easily.

I'm hoping Mbye will have a full game next Thursday.

 

[Rod Coil]

Just want an even break from the officials. No obvious forward pass tries, no offsides from charge downs being allowed, no players tackled without the ball while supporting Hunt, no touch judges raising the flag when the long kick does NOT touch the sideline, no holding down endlessly without penalty. As for the commentators and their bias calls, I can at least mute the tv.

You didn’t’ mention 2 sad sin bins for no reason. Highway robbery

 

[Blood Shot Eyes]

You’re right. They are a work in progress. They still need some time to be “unMcGregored”

"UnMcGregored".......I like that tag......hope I live that long lol

 

[Illusion]

Ironic isn't it with Rava catching all of the balls and running the ball back but dropping an awkward pass from Lomax which if he did catch it would have won us the match - if Lomax converted it?

Let's hope we get the rub of the green next Thursday night at WIN

Like you say lets " hope we get the rub of the green " because I can assure you the Refs and the Bunker have been rubbing something else .......

 

[Gareth67]

The 2 points on offer last night were there for the taking , however the boys had too much against them - the send-offs , bad handling at the worst possible moment and the fact that the Dragons are not as yet playing as a team .

Yes we have the young guns who have their moments of attacking brilliance , but overall we should be more coordinated. Being able to rely upon your teammates to to their bit in defense . For the big boys to be following the likes of Amone and Sullivan through any gaps which they may create .

This will come in time , however the coach needs to understand that the longer it takes for the players to gel into a team , there could be more 2 competition points that are not alongside the Dragons tally on the ladder .

 

[Dragons4me]

Good points. I thought we looked much better with Mbye at hooker, and Rav was fantastic up until the very end.

The crowd was great, but only a touch over 10,000. The time slot was crap, but I was hoping we'd have a few more, given the lack of games at Kogarah over the past 2 years, our re-build, fan expectations, and we were playing a Sydney team who are also the premiers.

Excellent post. Should have been packed ground. Disappointing but from all acounts crowd was vocal in their support. Thats good to hear.
But nothing like playing in front of a vocal mighty Red V crowd.