Round 20 v Storm

[The Realist]

I have us bombing 6 tries. How many do you think we bombed?

creating chances wasn't the issue today scoring them were

That is ultra generous. I'd have us 'bombing' 2 whilst a 3rd (Burton break) is one of those 50/50's.

 

[franklin2323]

That is ultra generous. I'd have us 'bombing' 2 whilst a 3rd (Burton break) is one of those 50/50's.

There was the pass that JAC knocked down from Crichton to Staines

When Jennings fell into touch with the line wide open.

Edwards got belted taking the tackle with a 2 on 1 outside him

Twice Kikau had someone outside unmarked only to take the tackle or one time drop it

The Burton break was more then 50/50. He was tackled by the fullback. He had support we score under the post.

Do we count Staines into touch off the scrum as a bomb?

The 2 held ups I didn't count but on another day or a lesser defence they are scored.

Then of course the 2 we scored. That is plenty of chances created largly from the halves

So not bad effort that side of the ball. Given who was out

 

[panther.mike]

Was Cameron Smith in the bunker?

 

[franklin2323]

Was Cameron Smith in the bunker?

I forgot about that call. Thought the pass to JAC for the 2nd try was forward too

 

[Alintheeast]

Expectation is a funny thing, everyone on this forum knew in their heart or brain that this was going to happen. We didn’t have the troops to match it with them, everybody knew that. Imagine having to go a whole season knowing Penrith isn’t competitive under any circumstances. Imagine going through a whole decade losing 6 trys to 2 or there about every week, now that was hard.
team not dissimilar to today’s lost 4 trys to 1 to Wests 6 to 2 against Storm ain’t that bad.

 

[Girds89]

There was the pass that JAC knocked down from Crichton to Staines

When Jennings fell into touch with the line wide open.

Edwards got belted taking the tackle with a 2 on 1 outside him

Twice Kikau had someone outside unmarked only to take the tackle or one time drop it

The Burton break was more then 50/50. He was tackled by the fullback. He had support we score under the post.

Do we count Staines into touch off the scrum as a bomb?

The 2 held ups I didn't count but on another day or a lesser defence they are scored.

Then of course the 2 we scored. That is plenty of chances created largly from the halves

So not bad effort that side of the ball. Given who was out

Jac knocking the pass down was just good defence.

Paps was there when jennings fell into touch.

Olam whacked edwards before he even got the chance to look outside.

The burton break came out of nowhere.. youd be very lucky to ever have someone backing up on a play like that as it wasnt a set play and he hit the whole like a rocket out of nowhere.

It boggles my mind you cant admit cleary is soo much better than what was dished up by them tonight. No coincidence that since cleary has been out weve been poor and nsw lost without him? Nsw was full of star players yet couldnt get it done without nath...

Burton kicked it dead a number of times amd just gave melbourne 7 tackle sets. Luai played sideways and it took all the time and oppurtunities away from the outside men.

Youve been right about plenty on here.. you were adamant that nadens best spot was on the wing. I thought his best was centre. Well its proved that wings his spot. He was decent when he moved there tonight. Not having to make crucial tackles and decisions is good. He takes strong carries and adds a bit of spark in attack.

Just not sure why you are to stubborn to admit the importance of nathan and that weve been poor without him.

 

[maple_69]

We created a bunch of half chances and had things gone our way could have had maybe 3-4 and kept them to 5.

I was ok with that performance. We earned plenty of time in their 20 but couldn’t dismantle their defence which is basically meaningless. We matched their line speed and go forward without our two best go forward guys. We opened up fairly easily which is fairly concerning. Hopefully getting our middle back, Kiks a rest and Burton back to centre will help our defence.

I really liked Hopgoods work and Tago didn’t look out of place. Moses also stepped up I thought.

 

[The_Frog]

I forgot about that call. Thought the pass to JAC for the 2nd try was forward too

There were about 3 forward passes in that try.

 

[age.s]

The Jennings "try" was bombed. If he's a foot deeper and comes on to it at pace (like a good winger should) he almost certainly scores.

The others were all the kind of half chances that go begging for every team in every game. Storm has a few that didn't bounce for them too.

 

[age.s]

There were about 3 forward passes in that try.

The aerial challenge on Naden looked pretty suss too.

 

[franklin2323]

Jac knocking the pass down was just good defence.

Paps was there when jennings fell into touch.

Olam whacked edwards before he even got the chance to look outside.

The burton break came out of nowhere.. youd be very lucky to ever have someone backing up on a play like that as it wasnt a set play and he hit the whole like a rocket out of nowhere.

It boggles my mind you cant admit cleary is soo much better than what was dished up by them tonight. No coincidence that since cleary has been out weve been poor and nsw lost without him? Nsw was full of star players yet couldnt get it done without nath...

Burton kicked it dead a number of times amd just gave melbourne 7 tackle sets. Luai played sideways and it took all the time and oppurtunities away from the outside men.

Youve been right about plenty on here.. you were adamant that nadens best spot was on the wing. I thought his best was centre. Well its proved that wings his spot. He was decent when he moved there tonight. Not having to make crucial tackles and decisions is good. He takes strong carries and adds a bit of spark in attack.

Just not sure why you are to stubborn to admit the importance of nathan and that weve been poor without him.

it boogles my mind that refuse to admit we were missing 6 not just 1. Which has been my point all along. Not that we aren't missing Cleary but we aren't missing him alone. As such look off in certain areas

We were atleast 3 quality players short of competing today. Thankifully we get 3 back next week and the improved performance will show

 

[Westernised Panther]

I forgot about that call. Thought the pass to JAC for the 2nd try was forward too

It was f**ken forward!

Why do we bother having touch judges ?!?

 

[murraymob]

The most important thing to me was Coach Cleary after game saying it’s not good enough .We can’t fix any problems if we first don’t admit we have any.No use saying this playing was missing this player was missing.Next week just focus on attack start getting that back to where it was game by game

 

[murraymob]

Another positive I have not seen mentioned
No team that has let 50 in has gone on to win the comp .We only let in 37 happy days

 

[mxlegend99]

Another positive I have not seen mentioned
No team that has let 50 in has gone on to win the comp .We only let in 37 happy days

Yep. Our season could have been dead thanks to the curse if we didnt show a bit of steel defensively.

Amazingly we defended well. Very well at times. But Storm just fired shot after shot after shot and we just couldn't match it with them.

They have the best left side attack though and Fox is couldn't score against Staines. Olam against Critter. Both well handled. That edge even when broken recovers extremely well. Some rookie winger on the other side of the field had a field day against Rennings and Naden though.

If we could have built any pressure we could have been in that game. Burton and Luai just can't manage a game. We had a lot of good opportunities that were wasted through poor management and impatience and no ability to build pressure so we could fire shots at them repeatedly.

 

[murraymob]

The big thing that surprises me is our last tackle option when attacking the line for years we have done the cross feild kick with great success .We now only do the grubber kick through with little to no success .Lets get back to what works

 

[martielang]

Critta handled Olam with ease but the problem is Olam should be worried about how he’s going to handle Critta and I doubt he would be given Critta rarely involves himself or gets his hands on the ball when needed. Same could be said for Staines.

Surely Cleary and co. can think of a couple of plays where Critta/Staines are around the middle of the ruck. Or just play Edwards on the wing for a couple of attacking sets per half.

 

[Smug Panther]

Critta handled Olam with ease but the problem is Olam should be worried about how he’s going to handle Critta and I doubt he would be given Critta rarely involves himself or gets his hands on the ball when needed. Same could be said for Staines.

Surely Cleary and co. can think of a couple of plays where Critta/Staines are around the middle of the ruck. Or just play Edwards on the wing for a couple of attacking sets per half.

Edwards was on the wing at one point in the second half

 

[franklin2323]

I have never seen Ivan hook anyone nor fire up in a presser. Hopefully means changes are to follow the backline is the issue.

 

[tripster]

A few observations:

- I thought we won the contact in the middle and generally bent the line back more than they did. That was the most positive sign for me. They weren't able to dominate us in the forwards. When they did manage to break us in the middle it came off quick play the balls from Brandon Smith (some of which I thought were so fast they were not proper play the balls (because he hadn't got to his feet when he played it or he pushed the markers while playing the ball) but Klein let them go). We had plenty of time down near their try line. We did that without JFH, Yeo or To'o. In the second half the Storm also started to look gassed, but we didn't.

- the Storm had a game plan to attack our weaknesses, one of which is our play under the high ball generally on both edges (it is amazing more teams don't try that), and the pairing of Naden and Jennings. If we had Burton and To'o on that edge the game would have been very different. However, we need to work on defending the high ball.

- none of the 50/50 calls went our way on the day. We have a terrible record under Klein (I think we have won 33% or something like that of all of our games under him). The pass for the try where JAC put up the bomb was a mile forward (JAC was standing in front of Olam). Similarly, the Kikau "forward pass" that was knocked down by the Storm had only travelled a few centimetres before being touched. Of course, that sort of thing happens in every game, but I think it is unlikely that Klein will ref any of our games in the finals. Sutton is probably going to get the games we play.

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