Round 2 vs Souths

[LINESPEED]

Limited game time affects match fitness? What do ya reckon it’s doing to poor, young Lomax? He’s not playing reserve grade, huh?

It’s all about fuc*ing & demoralizing the young backs to keep his centre pair in place at all costs - that’s the bottom line.

That’s why he won’t move Widdop or Norman to a centre spot - or move Lomax to 3.

No spine issues then.
No current mess at all
Just better defence & attack FFS

He’s prepared to sacrifice the whole team & season - and lose 3 rep juniors - to protect the Chosen Ones

All else is a smokescreen
& Waterboy’s a raging & deranged Fuc*wit about to come seriously undone

And take our wonderful club with him

 

[JohnnoMcJohnno]

Gees you lot crap on. Its two games in. Cowboys were 0 from 3 in 2015 and still won a GF. We have our two best forwards out.

There's positives. The Lafai-Perera combo looks good. Blake Lawrie, Host and Kerr all show enthusiasm just not quite there yet. Norman and Hunt both showed some good touches. It'll take time for the team to gel. Show some faith.

 

[SaintPauli]

Limited game time affects match fitness? What do ya reckon it’s doing to poor, young Lomax? He’s not playing reserve grade, huh?

If you don't play on from bench, my understanding is your then available for reserves selection. If zack has no game time that is totally ridiculous.

Dufty to fullback.
Lomax to center
Widdop to 5/8
Aitkin wing
Norman to bench utility

 

[41yearsaint]

I understand what you're saying but in the examples you provided, McCrone was a halfback who was transformed into an tradesman like hooker. We then tried to turn him into a half back again and Widdop actually chose him as his halves partner because the theory was that McCrone complimented Widdop's style of play!
With Benji I disagree. Benji is also a 5/8 so the combination was wrong to start with.
That was evidenced in many games they played together.
McGregor was never able to sort it out and as a result that combination also failed.
Benji has gone on to prove that he is not a spent force by any stretch of the imagination.
What you are ostensibly saying is that Widdop has been hampered because he has never had a specialist halfback to partner him.
He won a premiership playing second fiddle to Cronk at Melbourne but Cronk is halfback royalty so I'm not sure that proves much.
In the fair dinkum department and with hand on heart, where do you rate Widdop in the list of 5/8's that are running around this season? I'm taking about:
*Keary
*Cody Walker
*Green
*Munster
*Milford
*Malone
*Johnson
*

1. Keary, next blues rep.
2. Widdop, Wayne gave Mary advice before the game. Deaf ears.
3. Green. Underrated.
4. Malone. No.3 or 2, if on fire.

 

[Saint_JimmyG]

If you don't play on from bench, my understanding is your then available for reserves selection. If zack has no game time that is totally ridiculous.

Dufty to fullback.
Lomax to center
Widdop to 5/8
Aitkin wing
Norman to bench utility

My understanding is that Zac was picked as 18th man for the last fortnight, didn’t play reserve grade last week, and won’t play this weekend either.

Happy to be corrected.

Regarding Aitken, I wonder if anyone noticed him and Ravalawa changed over in defence a number of times, particularly in the first half?

I predicted this a while ago, although I had hoped it would involve Lomax.

 

[qld redvee]

my observations from last night : use of bench and timing of bringing players on NOT TOO LATE
when duffty came on much too late it appeared that EVERY play the ball had to feature duffty getting the ball - if he has to be that involved for 15 minutes can it be classed as panic?? or if he is that integral to game plan ( what a dirty word) then obviously he should be the starting fb and allow norman the number 14 as reserve
I think Luc needs to reggies and bide his time with korbin to the bench next week for a power sub.
and I too thought our RAV 4 looked a tad slow out on the wing
If only the first half didnt end HUNT looked pretty good

 

[hazzbeen]

my observations from last night : use of bench and timing of bringing players on NOT TOO LATE
when duffty came on much too late it appeared that EVERY play the ball had to feature duffty getting the ball - if he has to be that involved for 15 minutes can it be classed as panic?? or if he is that integral to game plan ( what a dirty word) then obviously he should be the starting fb and allow norman the number 14 as reserve
I think Luc needs to reggies and bide his time with korbin to the bench next week for a power sub.
and I too thought our RAV 4 looked a tad slow out on the wing
If only the first half didnt end HUNT looked pretty good

Rav ain't the answer , he is so slow reacting ....

 

[Carlton]

Aitken and Ravalawa to Canterbury Cup with Lomax and Pearson replacing them. K Sims to the right edge with Host on the bench. I think these changes will go a long way to addressing our soft right edge in defence.

Possm Host wasnt the problem, while he was on he wass having a blinder. He hasnt done anything that would have him moved back to the bench.

 

[Carlton]

Widdop is not a fullback. Full stop.
He might be leaving at years end BUT I'd like us to win more than lose more games too!
Dufty playing 10 or 15 minutes each week will make him loose match fitness and that is digging our deep hole even deeper.
Coaching staff at this point have lost the friggin plot.

The issue is we dont have a top flight fullback at the club.

 

[Dennis Papaioannou]

1. Keary, next blues rep.
2. Widdop, Wayne gave Mary advice before the game. Deaf ears.
3. Green. Underrated.
4. Malone. No.3 or 2, if on fire.

Very good summation.
I love Green because he truly is an organizer and is unflappable.
Keary is a standout and Maloney is just a hard headed competitor who knows how to win football games.
Widdop is a great player and has great skills. He is just not a dominant personality on the field.
I would have him at #4

 

[Objective View]

Gees you lot crap on. Its two games in. Cowboys were 0 from 3 in 2015 and still won a GF. We have our two best forwards out.

There's positives. The Lafai-Perera combo looks good. Blake Lawrie, Host and Kerr all show enthusiasm just not quite there yet. Norman and Hunt both showed some good touches. It'll take time for the team to gel. Show some faith.

Johnno the dumb c#nt.

Straight Shooter

 

[possm]

Given his success and rapport with Peter Doust, you wonder why Bennett didn’t decide to come back.

We all know about the failed 2014 attempt. Was it a case of “been there, done that”, money, or something insidious only known to a certain amount of people?

Perhaps it was a combination of all three or none at all?

We’ll never get the full picture.

Sigh

Bennett likes to be in control of player management and his squad. The Millward set up would not suit Bennett or any other top grade coach. Just imagine, would Bennett have signed:
Allgood
Latimore
Maranta
Runciman
Ravalawa

Would Bennett have Aitken and Lafai in his top 30 and would he put up with the defensive lapses of Dufty and Leilua?

 

[possm]

Gees you lot crap on. Its two games in. Cowboys were 0 from 3 in 2015 and still won a GF. We have our two best forwards out.

There's positives. The Lafai-Perera combo looks good. Blake Lawrie, Host and Kerr all show enthusiasm just not quite there yet. Norman and Hunt both showed some good touches. It'll take time for the team to gel. Show some faith.

For goodness sakes, it is there for all to see and has been there for a few years now. Mary cannot coach, make selections, manage a bench, recruit players or get his players up for games.

 

[Old Timer]

Not kidding just asked to rate Widdop.
So you're saying Widdop is streets ahead of all those on the list?

IMO better than those I mentioned and nit far behind the others
Without Widdop’s input (under difficult circumstances) our last 4 seasons would have been way worse
A good player surrounded by very iffy partners and abjectly horrible coaches
A lesser man would have failed or bailed much earlier.

 

[JohnnoMcJohnno]

Johnno the dumb c#nt.

Straight Shooter

Love you too OV.

 

[JohnnoMcJohnno]

For goodness sakes, it is there for all to see and has been there for a few years now. Mary cannot coach, make selections, manage a bench, recruit players or get his players up for games.

Sure, but to listen to some of you, our season is already over. So is 2020 apparently. And it's hardly Mary's fault that JDB was stood down, Korbin Sims can't playplay, and one of Frizzels testicles has come loose.

But go ahead and wallow in misery and negativity if you want after a grand total of two games.

 

[Belta]

It wasnt Hunt running up that caused those tries it was Luc standing back and planting his feet. He looked scared to move up and meet Sam Burgess and waited for him to come to him.

Aitken is a disaster in defence, on a number of occasions he chased players in field and made a tackle inside two of his own defensive line and then was slow to get up at marker, on each of these occasions souths moved the ball straight to the vacant space in our defensive line where Aitken should have been.

Agree to disagree and not wanting to debate but imo Luc was at fault in sams first 100% but the very next try when burgess threw it 2 metres forward to walker. ( Of course it was never mentioned in the commentary as sams the ‘best forward to ever play the game’) Hunt raced up and took no one. I’ve always been a believer if you race up you’d better be sure you get your man.

If it’s a rarity I’d overlook it, but imo I’ve seen Hunt do this too many times, again just my opinion and I’ll leave it at that

 

[Carlton]

Agree to disagree and not wanting to debate but imo Luc was at fault in sams first 100% but the very next try when burgess threw it 2 metres forward to walker. ( Of course it was never mentioned in the commentary as sams the ‘best forward to ever play the game’) Hunt raced up and took no one. I’ve always been a believer if you race up you’d better be sure you get your man.

If it’s a rarity I’d overlook it, but imo I’ve seen Hunt do this too many times, again just my opinion and I’ll leave it at that

Hunt hadn't moved up out of the line it was Luc not moving. The player inside Luc (I dont remember who it was) was also ahead of him. The problem wasn't there when Host was on, the defensive line was moving up and meeting the attack. Also Host was making the effort to get across and help not taking it easy because the ball had moved past him.

 

[True_Believer]

I agree however I'm a great believer in playing specialists in specialist positions.
Nona was a specialist 5/8 and could not (IMO) have played in the team with Widdop however there were plenty of opportunities to use him when Widdop was injured. That never eventuated.
So in our case Widdop plays off the cuff and Hunt is the organizing half?
I think there is some confusion there as to who is supposed to do what.
Widdop will mostly finish off the sets especially close to the line.
Hunt often plays off the cuff.
There doesn't seem to be any structure.
Probably doesn't matter when the halves have plenty of room created by a dominant forward pack but the opposite when we are under the pump.

One of the first interviews with Ben, his comment was around Mary telling him to make the team his. I believe that was meant to be his role and I believe he did that for the first half of the year. SOO stopped that in it's tracks - as we all saw.

Suddenly he's starting to doubt himself and the team suffered as a consequence. Not throwing Ben under the bus at all, but when that sort of shit happens, he needs to take a cup of cement and harden up. He needs to take some direction from Maloney who makes a mistake, shrugs it off immediately and moves on. That's what we need. Once we get Ben doing that, I don't think it matters who partners him as they will be free to do what they want knowing he's got control of the team and the game.

 

[possm]

Sure, but to listen to some of you, our season is already over. So is 2020 apparently. And it's hardly Mary's fault that JDB was stood down, Korbin Sims can't playplay, and one of Frizzels testicles has come loose.

But go ahead and wallow in misery and negativity if you want after a grand total of two games.

Mary has to take responsibility for not having his team up for round one and round two.