Round 21 Vs Raiders Sunday 5th August 4:10pm Panthers Stadium

[snickers007]

The big question is around who drops off. It'll probably be Hetherington, with JFH back to lock, Yeo to 12 and CHN to the bench, but that feels extremely harsh. I'd have Hetherington over CHN at this point.

I reckon Leota may be on the chopping block.
Hetherington has been playing increasingly longer minutes, and has a bit more mongrel that Leota which I think will come in handy against a big Raiders pack.
CHN is a must IMO, as he can cover back row and centre, and his gap/line running is second only to Kikau.

Leota on the other hand has been solid at best since returning from injury, and only played 25mins on the weekend, despite starting.

My pack:
8. Merrin
9. Katoa/Egan (depending on Katoa's broken nose)
10. Tamou
11. Yeo
12. Kikau
13. Fisher-Harris

14. May
15. Harawira-Naera
16. Campbell-Gillard
17. Hetherington

18. Leota
19. Ellis

 

[betcats]

Kiks had run for 90m at halftime on Saturday so I don't think he was that off.

 

[BxTom]

RCG on cusp of return as Panthers return to full strength

Reagan Campbell-Gillard will only have to pass a series of contact sessions at training this week to play his first game since shortly after the State of Origin opener as the Panthers prepare to finally put their injury woes behind them.

The NSW prop, who was ruled out of the final two games of the Blues' Origin series win, has received a medical clearance to pave the way for a return against the Raiders at the foot of the mountains next Sunday.
The 25-year-old's return will co-incide with his weight returning to normal levels after immediately shedding up to eight kilograms in the wake of his broken jaw, suffered following a head clash with Roosters behemoth Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.

Campbell-Gillard has returned to non-contact training in the past fortnight, but having had the bands and splints removed from his healed jaw - and graduated from a soup diet - one of the game's best enforcers is on the cusp of a return.

Panthers conditioning staff ordered Campbell-Gillard to undertake a diet which included regularly feasting on fast food in a bid to expedite his return to his usual playing weight.
It means the Panthers are on the brink of boasting a squad which will be as strong as it can be for the remainder of the season after the recent returns of Josh Mansour and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak.

Only Dylan Edwards, Sam McKendry and Jarome Luai - all sidelined with season-ending injuries - are unavailable for Penrith in the finals run-in. Tim Browne was forced to retire after a freak bowel injury suffered in an Intrust Super Premiership match.
Campbell-Gillard's time out of the game wasn't wasted, with the World Cup winner putting pen to paper on a five-year extension last month.

His return to the field will be a timely boost for coach Anthony Griffin, whose side kept their top four hopes alive with a remarkable seven-minute burst to plunge Manly into further wooden spoon trouble on Saturday.

The Panthers play the Raiders, Titans and Knights - all sides out of finals contention - in the next three weeks before finishing their late season travel commitments with testing trips to New Zealand and Melbourne.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/rc...-return-to-full-strength-20180729-p4zua0.html

What about Wallace?

 

[Aliceinwonderland]

Leota I believe has struggled over the past couple of weeks. He looks as though his minutes are down too. So he make make way for Reg.

Jack seems to be settling down too which is good.

Tamou and Merrin's numbers were OK on Saturday too.

It will be interesting to see where the Peach plays next weekend too. I thought he was quite good at the back, well he stay there ?

 

[Blade23]

It will be interesting to see where the Peach plays next weekend too. I thought he was quite good at the back, well he stay there ?

Peach should stay at fullback. DWZ needs a bit more miles in the legs to be fully fit to play fullback.

 

[age.s]

Peach should stay at fullback. DWZ needs a bit more miles in the legs to be fully fit to play fullback.

Not to mention there's a large drop off from our top 2 wingers and the rest.

 

[Kev07]

Disagree with this.
The test of a skipper would of being to put the team first by sitting out and coming back at 100%.
Does himself and the team no favours playing injured.

 

[mxlegend99]

Disagree with this.
The test of a skipper would of being to put the team first by sitting out and coming back at 100%.
Does himself and the team no favours playing injured.

100%.

Its not in the teams best interest to carry a busted guy who is struggling with form and defence.

Rest him until he can be an asset to our team again. Tyrone May can cover him for a few games.

 

[betcats]

I haven’t been watching Canberra but what sides austim defending? Hopefully it’s kiks.

We seriously just need to feed those Fijians every time we get a roll on. Just keep going down their side the way Brisbane went at Jimmy two weeks ago and they will eventually get over them.

Also give Waqa clean early ball in good field position like on the sauce try, have him running onto the ball at pace like he did on that try. He’s to big and to much footwork to not f**k a defence up that close to the line if we give chances, Kiks inside him will always attract lots of defensive attention so there will be space for Waqa.

 

[betcats]

Having Waqa and kiks outside you would be a ballplayers wet dream. If Jimmy ever finds form again and we work out our defence we can win a premiership just off the backs of Waqa and Kiks, I honestly think they can be that good.

 

[betcats]

If peach is playing fb id like to see him getting inside balls through the middle. Paulo, Boyd, Papali...there’s a lot of big slow lumbering forwards in that pack.

I’m stuck on a train right now lol.

 

[OldPanther]

I haven’t been watching Canberra but what sides austim defending? Hopefully it’s kiks.

We seriously just need to feed those Fijians every time we get a roll on. Just keep going down their side the way Brisbane went at Jimmy two weeks ago and they will eventually get over them.

Also give Waqa clean early ball in good field position like on the sauce try, have him running onto the ball at pace like he did on that try. He’s to big and to much footwork to not f**k a defence up that close to the line if we give chances, Kiks inside him will always attract lots of defensive attention so there will be space for Waqa.

That's exactly how we beat the Warriors. Luai and May just directed traffic to Kikau and Blake all night.

Having Waqa and kiks outside you would be a ballplayers wet dream. If Jimmy ever finds form again and we work out our defence we can win a premiership just off the backs of Waqa and Kiks, I honestly think they can be that good.

One of the players(I think Yeo) said Nathan switched sides of the field late against Manly to that side and look what happened. A fit and firing Maloney would be pure destruction.

 

[Pomoz]

Disagree with this.
The test of a skipper would of being to put the team first by sitting out and coming back at 100%.
Does himself and the team no favours playing injured.

Kev07, I understand where you are coming from but its not up to Maloney to rule himself out, that's the coaches job. Hook has been watching him struggle with the injuries and decided to keep picking him. Maloney is showing ticker by playing when asked. Good on him. Tough little bugger.

 

[betcats]

That's exactly how we beat the Warriors. Luai and May just directed traffic to Kikau and Blake all night.



One of the players(I think Yeo) said Nathan switched sides of the field late against Manly to that side and look what happened. A fit and firing Maloney would be pure destruction.

That’s a good point re Cleary. I didn’t pick up on that. I think Maloney threw the nice pass to Waqa for mansours try tho.

 

[betcats]

100%.

Its not in the teams best interest to carry a busted guy who is struggling with form and defence.

Rest him until he can be an asset to our team again. Tyrone May can cover him for a few games.

Plus it throws Cleary in the deep end again and last time that happened was that warriors game. It will be good for him to play a game or two without jimmy, could be very valuable experience come finals time. That injury to Luai is really shit, I’d love to see cleary/Luai for a couple weeks.

 

[Fangs]

Kev07, I understand where you are coming from but its not up to Maloney to rule himself out, that's the coaches job. Hook has been watching him struggle with the injuries and decided to keep picking him. Maloney is showing ticker by playing when asked. Good on him. Tough little bugger.

Absolutely right.

If they are serious about winning the comp in 2018 then Maloney needs to be at his best. Can't win it without him. Rest him now.

 

[OldPanther]

That’s a good point re Cleary. I didn’t pick up on that. I think Maloney threw the nice pass to Waqa for mansours try tho.

Yeah that was Maloney. I can only assume Cleary floated across from time to time as a way to relieve Maloney as needed.

 

[franklin2323]

Absolutely right.

If they are serious about winning the comp in 2018 then Maloney needs to be at his best. Can't win it without him. Rest him now.

Gus said on that show he will be fit in a few weeks. So Atleast he isn't hurting himself worse.

 

[Fangs]

Gus said on that show he will be fit in a few weeks. So Atleast he isn't hurting himself worse.

Thats fine but if he is a passenger I don't see the point in him playing. Combinations are very important but they aren't any good if he isn't fit enough to play his part.

Season 100% over if his injuries get worse.

 

[mxlegend99]

Gus said on that show he will be fit in a few weeks. So Atleast he isn't hurting himself worse.

No. Just the team.

He's missing too many tackles and if even one of them is because he isnt fully fit then he has let his team down by playing injured.

We dont need him if he's injured. We have a fit and able player in Tyrone May. He and Cleary combined well 12 months ago under more pressure.

I can see why we would risk DWZ. I don't like it. But it's him or Crichton/Philips. That makes sense considering their form. His wasn't that good either though.

But Tyrone May is a fantastic player and is a resource being wasted while Maloney is injured. Just as Hook did with Wallace and Katoa last year. That cost us our season in the finals. Katoa was fit and in good form, Wallace busted and taken off for a head knock. We were on top and Hook sent Wallace back out and we lost the momentum we had.

Maloney is missing ~40% of his tackles. He's barely even slowing guys down at the moment. Lane looked like SBW on the weekend.