Yeeeeew! It feels great to finaly get that winning feeling back! Finally! It was an ugly win but the way we've been going, I'll certainly take it.
Tbh, I'm not sure how we won lol. I actually thought we looked quiet flat and weren't very enthusiastic for most of the game, we just looked like we were in slow motion for much of it. Thankfully the Dragons were aswell for most of the contest. If they were on tonight we would have got smashed. But yea, it was pretty dour from both sides. That was, up until around ten minutes to go, I thought we were gone and had already kind of exepted the loss but to the boys credit, they really switched on and played brilliantly. It was prehaps some of the best footy we've played all season that last ten minutes. I was honestly about to scream on that last play, no idea how the Dragons didn't score. Thank god it went our way.
I thought our defence tonight was still not where is should be as we missed so many easy tackles and conceded some soft line breaks. The right edge was very shaky which is understandable I guess.
A real positive was our dicipline. We really respected the footy and made minimal errors which was good to see.
Johnston: Was good. He was more involved in attack than normal. His running game was solid but we saw his passing game in a new light. Apart from that first pass, every other one was on point. He had a hand in some nice tries and created a lot of space for those around him. It's an area of his game which he's developing which is great.
Goodwin: Amazing. The effort he put in tonight was first class. He took those runs no one else wanted to take and every time he managed to evade tackles and looked very dangerous. He made a few good defensive reads. The play to keep the ball in which lead to Sutto's try was amazing and the match winning try was so good to watch too. One of the best games I've seen him play.
Fuimaono: The runs he had were very powerful and he got us a good roll on almost everytime but as was the case with both centres, he didn't do enough work to help out the forwards. He's such a damaging ball runner that we need to use more of.
Hunt: As above. I've been saying this for a while about Hunt. Needs to step it up.
Graham: Was solid. Nothing special but solid. It was great to see him debut and get a taste of NRL and I must say, I didn't realise how friggin tall he is! He may have not made an awful lot of metres on each run but I thought he showed a lot of ticker and his workrate was high which is something we've been lacking in the outside backs. Made a few defensive errors but I can forgive the debutant for that.
Walker: Was good. As always, he looked dangerous and created a few chances. His kicking game was good and I noticed we was pushing up in support for offloads which is good.
Reynolds: Apart from the last ten, he wasn't that great. His kicking game is shot and he just doesn't have form. It's a shame as he's one of our best and when he goes well, the whole side follows. Most of his kicks were poor and he didn't build any pressure. Reyno stepped up in the last ten minutes though and that conversion was a thing of beauty......
T.Burgess: Not much to say as he didn't get as many minutes. He was solid in the stints he did have though.
Cook: Electric. Cook needed to take his chance and he did that. He was great, better service, got the forwards rolling and really tested the defence when he ran. Hs try was awesome as was Sutto's try that he played a big part in. No idea why Madge took him off for a period there, a top performance.
Musgrove: Should've had the starting spot three weeks ago. He ran so hard and was very aggressive. He;s just what we need in a starting role, his impact was huge.
Sutton: Very quiet for much of the game and did nothing. His try was brilliant but that's all he really did.
Crichton: St George did a great job of containing him and he was kept quiet based on his usual standards. However, a quiet Angus Crichton is still bloody good! His runs were good and you could see he was trying.
S.Burgess: He tried hard and was still good. Had a higher workload than last week but you can see he is not 100% as he just doesn't have that huge impact because of his injury.
Farah: Not great. Was kind of useless. When Farah came on, we really slowed down and the Dragons almost killed us off. Farah did nothing tonight and I have no idea why Cook was taken off for him.
Turner: Was good. Had some solid runs, was reliable in defence, did his job.
G.Burgess: George has been improving. We was good in this game as he ran hard and he seems to have that leg drive back which is awesome. I wasn't happy with a few of his efforts while defending though.
Murray: Really good. Got more minutes which is what we want leading into next year. The kid is a workhorse in defence and every run he took was great.
Can't be completely happy with the performance but a win's a win and it's just soooo good to be back in the winners circle!
