Another good team performance. A few errors at a bad time hurt.
Those saying we didn't miss Soward :lol:
Our kicking game was our worse feature tonight. Pretty much every kick went to Slater I can't remember them coming out of their corners too many times.
Even the charged down FG. Soward stands 10m back making a charge down difficult.
As for dropping guys watch how woeful our lower grades are no one's coming in on form. Injuries are about it.
Things like: we score get it to 8-6. Wallace early kick straight to Slater compounds it by a penalty. Next set they score. 17all let the kick go in to touch etc. Still can't fault the performance.
We most definitely missed Soward. He is the guy we needed to keep the ball away from Slater, and when Slater was in the bin he's the bloke who could have punished the Storm with his smart kicks and probably seeing opportunity for another 40/20. John did next to nothing for us.
My ratins of our 1-7 last night:
Moylan - 7/10 - He setup 2 of our tries and comes into the backline plays as the most dangerous attacking player in the opposition 20. He has a good long pass on him and the defence never know whether to rush in on him or drift out to defend the pass. Should have had 3 try assists.
Mansour - 7/10 - Another try means he has probably already equaled last years tally. Having Whare at centre and Moylan in backline movements creates so much space for him. Just a shame he isn't quicker or he has another try atleast IMO. But his work in relieving our forwards and creating second phase play makes him one of our more valuable players IMO.
Whare - 5/10 - Didn't seem as good in attack or defence as usual. Not sure if that was because Moylan just kept cutting him out in going to Mansour, or if he was just having an off day or what. He wasn't bad as such, he just wasn't his usual classy self.
Idris - 7/10 - Pretty good involvement for his first game back. He seemed a handful when he ran the ball and best of all the defence marked up on him in numbers and his winger was pretty much left unmarked. It's great to finally have a centre pairing that means we can attack either side of the field.
Naiqama - 6/10 - Saved his first decent game for his first grade debut for us. I thought he could have been better still... his kick on the last that went dead and his being tackled in goal moments later were pretty much what swung momentum to the Storm. Not sure if Simmons would have made either decision the same way. But after that he was much stronger, he positioned himself well and didn't make any errors. Scoring a couple of easy tries and should have had a hat trick. His speed and strength should allow him to finish off a few tries that Simmons couldn't. So I hope he can build on this performance and prove himself worthy of staying in first grade.
John - 4/10 - Did pretty much nothing in attack. Ran the ball once for 7m gained, kicked the ball once for 13m gained. Moylan did the job that John should have been doing
Wallace - 6/10 - Could have been an 8/10 if he was slightly stronger in goal kicking. He could have been the match winner, but none of his kicks were easy. He slotted a nice field goal that SHOULD have sent us into golden point. So he did reasonable under pressure there. His effectiveness just isn't the same when Soward isn't there. Still looked good for us and nowhere near the useless nuffy that people claimed he was when we signed him. I think our plans for Soward/Wallace as a halves combination will be very effective. Especially with Moylan adding another dimension to our attack. It's a structure that worked well with Soward at the Dragons... so hopefully we can get it working well for us.
I'll only bother rating Lewis Brown from the forwards... 3/10. Only for his defence. His attack gets a zero and would probably be a minus if we're being fair dinkum. He added nothing to our attack and actually set us back with his errors. His 36 tackles are a pretty big mountain of work, but with Docker and Taylor in our second row that's not what we need him to be doing. Especially when he's good for a couple of penalties.
