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Round 21 vs Warriors

Saint_JimmyG

First Grade
Messages
5,067
The structure of our attack is of concern to me. When we are setting up our backline attack it looks too flat, clunky and slow.

Widdop seems to lack fortitude and has trouble coming up with the clutch plays. I think he needs to straighten the attack up.

Many on here are very critical of Hunt. I for one was very happy that Hunt was running the ball. He made a line break or two and looked dangerous a couple of other times.

The Warriors did score all of their points when Dufty was in the sin bin. If Lafai scores we probably would have gone to the break at 12-6, instead of 18-0. I also thought the video refs decision that it was a lose carry instead of a strip was puzzling.

We are too one dimensional. Dufty is our only spark in the backline. Aitken, Lafai and Nightingale all must be replaced ASAP and definitely by next year.

Mary continuing to select Aitken, Lafai and Nightingale should be his downfall. We need a new coach by next season.

No, Saints needed an established coach for the start of the 2015 season. Instead, it got another rookie sans any pedigree.

As mentioned elsewhere, the lack of cohesion in attack is almost identical when both Widdop and Marshall were the halves.

There’s more to it though. Why Debellin has an increasing role of being a conduit between the halves and the backline baffles me. It’s the same misguided crap that has stifled Merrin’s career. Jack D. plays his best footy bum up, head down and thunders into the defensive line without fear of self preservation.

Saints need to employ a more ruthless, direct and in your face mentality if it wants to resurrect its season.
 
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Saint_JimmyG

First Grade
Messages
5,067
I would try Nene at centre. At the beginning of the season, I even thought that we should give it a go. I think he would be better than either Aitken or Lafai. Centre is McDonalds preferred position and the position he played mostly in his juniors. He has a good build for a centre and could go well. If it worked then we could keep him there next year with hopefully Lomax as our other centre.

There is one issue with MacDonald at centre which sticks out like dog’s $&@?.

He cannot score a try from more than 20 metres out.

Bring back Eto Nabuli, all is forgiven.
 

Drag Queen

Bench
Messages
2,981
Dragons face tough questions after Warriors loss
Local Sport
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TOUGH DAY: The Dragons slumped to their fourth loss in five games against the Warriors on Saturday. Picture: Adam McLean

HE’S sick of answering them – most of the media are sick of asking them – but Dragons coach Paul McGregor knows there’s only one way to silence questions about whether his side are again suffering from the late-season yips.

There was no ignoring them following his side’s 18-12 loss to the Warriors in Wollongong on Saturday, their fourth defeat in their last five games, a second-half fightback not enough to overhaul an 18-0 halftime deficit.

Both early-season pace-setters came into the match with some questions to answer, with the Warriors having lost four of their last five, with coach Stephen Kearney blasting his side’s performance in their 36-12 pasting at the hands of the Gold Coast last week as "soft.”

He got the response he was looking for, with the win enough to force the Warriors back into the top four frame, while the Dragons are left teetering on the edge of the top four with four games to play.

A slide out of the finals is near impossible, but their grip on a prized top-four finish is very much in jeopardy despite a favourable run home, with McGregor aware the only place silence to talk is on the park.

“It’s not going away until you win is it,” McGregor said.

“I’ve got a different playing group and we’re in a different position to what we have been before, I don’t want to revisit it. Our vision’s on what we need to do, not a revision.

“However, everyone’s going to talk about it, it’s going to be raised again, because we lost. There’s nothing anyone can do except, when you go on the footy field and when you go to training, you work to fix your game.

“We can speak about it and we can practice it, but in the end, we’ve got to execute once we go out on the field. We’re all accountable for our roles so people in the team have got to make sure we stick to what the plan is.”

The Warriors built the handy buffer with three tries in the final nine minutes of the first half with Dragons fullback Matt Dufty watching on from the sheds after being dispatched to the sin-bin 11 minutes before the break.

His tug on the jersey of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck as the Warriors skipper pursued his own grubber proved the telling moment of the match, with the Dragons conceding three tries and bombing one of their own in the ensuing 10 minutes.

“It was [costly] in the wash-up,” McGregor said.

The sin-binning at that stage didn’t help. [We held the Warriors] to a zero scorline in the second half, we scored a couple of tries, we started to build pressure, our kicking game was better, we played through them a lot more.

“We controlled their offloads a lot better and made it a contest. Our second half was much better than our first and that’s where it’s got to start next week.”

The loss was compounded by an injury to Origin prop Paul Vaughan, who was left writhing in pain when he twisted awkwardly in a tackle from Adam Blair and Agnatius Paasi just 11 minutes into the match.

He hobbled from the park nursing knee and ankle soreness and McGregor conceded the outlook wasn’t positive in the immediate aftermath, with his star forward looking at at least some time on the sideline.

“It’s not great,” McGregor said.

“He’s got a boot on down there but he’s no sure whether it’s his knee or his ankle. He heard something pop and he’s in a bit of freeze mode at the moment.

“He’s concerned to be honest. We’ll have to wait until we get a scan and go from there but it doesn’t look promising at all.”

Both sides had opportunities early on but couldn't find the breakthrough, with Shaun Johnson settling for a 19th minute penalty goal to break the nil-all deadlock. Simon Mannring claimed the first four-pointer 10 minutes before halftime when he planted a grubber from Tuivasa-Sheck in the Dragons in-goal.

Dufty also got a hand to the ball, which was enough for the bunker to deny the try, but it earned him 10 minutes in the sin-bin for grabbing Tuivasa-Sheck by the jumper in the lead-up.

The Warriors twisted the knife, with Solomone Kata crossing in the very next set off an offload from Isaiah Papali’i. Johnson's attempted conversion was waved away keeping the score at 8-0 nine minutes before the break.

Isaac Luke extended the margin two minutes later when he burrowed over between the posts from a clever off-load from Jazz Tevaga, with Johnson adding the extras for a 14-0 lead.

The Dragons had the chance to hit back when David Fusitu’a spilled a bomb from Ben Hunt, with Lafai barging into the Warriors in-goal only to be denied by a remarkable try-saving effort from Tuivasa Sheck.

The home side's woes were compunded when Kata scored his second try at the other end in the shadows of halftime, with Johnson's sideline conversion mercifully waved away to keep the gap to three converted tries at halftime.

The hosts made light work of the deficit after the resumption, with tries to Cam McInnes and Luciano Leilua in the space of four minutes cutting the margin back to six with half an hour to play.

The home side had all the running from there, but couldn’t find the leveler despite a glut of possession, a jolting shot from Adam Blair on Jason Nightingale stomping out the Dragons last shot at pulling the match out of the fire.


https://www.illawarramercury.com.au...e-tough-questions-after-warriors-loss/?cs=302
There is one issue with MacDonald at centre which sticks out like dog’s $&@?.

He cannot score a try from more than 20 metres out.

Bring back Eto Nabuli, all is forgiven.
Beg to
What about Jordan P. He has two solid games on the wing.
Agree. Jordy had a decent game yesterday. He may have f**cked up once with an error but he looked quite comfortable in FG.
 

dannyt

Coach
Messages
14,475
Crush,

It’s not so much that I’m optomistic it’s more about it’s a game of footy mate. Anything can and will happen.That’s why I love the game.

We can still beat the lot of them this year - right up to the grand prize.

Sure I’m dissapointed with the last month or so of footy, guttered actually but there’s plenty of bad shit going on in the world, here in our land of plenty and in some of our personal lives as well.

Spare a thought for West Coast Dragon and it really isn’t so bad after all, and like WCD I’m not chucking the towel in just yet. I’ve seen some great Dragons footy this year unlike the last several years and hope we can see some more of that.

Despite what we think of our coaches (and it’s not just Mary) I’m confident we’ll play finals this year, we have some exceptional players and it’s a different ball game then.

Go Dragons.

Good point about West Coast for perspective.

I would like to think "We can still beat the lot of them this year - right up to the grand prize", but I doubt it. The footy we've played for 2 months is almost as bad as what was dished up when Craig Young coached us.

Even if we could, my opinion on mary's coaching ability would not change.
 

FlameThrower

Bench
Messages
3,557
After yesterday’s loss could not bother watching anymore NRL games - so flicked into Netflix and watched “Shutter Island”. Just like the character in the movie - he is denying his past and his state of mind and relieving the same events hoping for a different outcome. Seems like our “YMCA” of Young McGregor & Coaching Assistants- have the same denial syndrome.
 

ALSGI

Bench
Messages
3,101
Are you an employee of the club, sure sounds like it.
CC
No f**kcing way, I’m not an old boy or related to one. I even refuse to buy another membership until there is change from top down.

Doesn’t mean I need to slit wrists everytime they lose and not support the team, enjoy the ride whilst we’re still alive and kicking with some glimmer of hope.

There’ll still be 12 teams beneath us on Monday.
 

Blood Shot Eyes

First Grade
Messages
6,323
Now the dust has settled after yesterdays disappointing effort and trying to recover from 33hrs in transit from overseas I sit here this morning wondering what the hell happened to my team since I left 9 weeks ago.....then reality stepped in and I realised BSE stopped kidding yourself did you really believe things would be any different....we still have McGregor as Coach and his mentality and lack of coaching skills and vision... all we really added this season to our roster was an ageing pommie forward that imo is still struggling with an old injury and a half back that the master coach was experimenting with has a hooker....we have imo a centre pairing and an ageing winger that most club coaches would have replaced by now and thats for starters.......then something in my head says to me just over a week ago we rolled the Cowboys who everybody knows are struggling this year and last night they went within a whisker of beating one of the premiership favourites...and then you allow yourself to think just maybe with just a bit of tweaking maybe we can still be a threat...then you realise hang on we still have Mary and now our major go forward man is injured...
 

Drag Queen

Bench
Messages
2,981
When was the last time you saw MacDonald: a) score a long range try or b) break a tackle from s kick return?
Probably when he played centre for PNG if I'm honest. To be fair Nene is actually an extremely quick runner for his size. Are we getting the best out of him? Probably not.
 

Crush

Coach
Messages
11,211
No f**kcing way, I’m not an old boy or related to one. I even refuse to buy another membership until there is change from top down.

Doesn’t mean I need to slit wrists everytime they lose and not support the team, enjoy the ride whilst we’re still alive and kicking with some glimmer of hope.

There’ll still be 12 teams beneath us on Monday.
The beauty of sport is it aint over till its mathematically impossible.
It doesn't look good and everyone has a right to vent frustrations but we are still alive and kicking.
There is a temptation to bag the coach, players, club in the heat of the moment but when the dust settles its pointless.
We are all passionate fans that want the team to do well. Go Dragons.
 

ouryears

Bench
Messages
3,195
No f**kcing way, I’m not an old boy or related to one. I even refuse to buy another membership until there is change from top down.

Doesn’t mean I need to slit wrists everytime they lose and not support the team, enjoy the ride whilst we’re still alive and kicking with some glimmer of hope.

There’ll still be 12 teams beneath us on Monday.
We all support the team, however, be realistic about the screw ups happening.

The selections, game day strategies, preparation, old boys club, hopeless coaching, excuses by mcidiot, poor captaincy, etc etc

You can support the team but still be honest and frank.
 
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