While I am disappointed we didn't get the result, I'm not super upset and throwing my toys out of the cot like I normally would. It hurts to lose to the scum, really does and I didn't like watching that, however, in the end, I'm actually quite proud of that game and I think we can take plenty away from it heading into next week.
I will say that the first half was poor. We just weren't there physically. No line speed whatsoever (when it's been so good the past few weeks) and we just got bashed up the middle. As a result, our defence kind of folded and we conceded a few very soft tries which is super disappointing. It was weak and not good enough but thankfully, we were able to keep it to a respectable score.
However, I'm quite proud of that second half. From about the 50th minute, we really turned the tables and got on top of them to score a couple of tries and get ourselves back in that game. That was a strong fightback while still not really showing a lot in terms of shape and attacking flare. But we just didn't go up and didn't go away.
Now, I think there's some huge positives to take out of that. I may be clutching at straws here, time will tell, but I feel that that performance was tactical. We didn't use our left side AT ALL. Like, it was pretty much ignored. I think we went down there with shape three, maybe four times the whole game. There were so many times we were set up canter-field to go left, Trell and Cody were out there, but we went right to Lachie and Keaon instead. This happened so many times, too many times for it to be a coincidence. Normally, I'd be blowing up about not playing to our strengths, but I don't mind in this case. It was tactical, it has to be tactical because it was just so much different to the way we normally attack. It was almost as if we put the left side attack away and are saving it for next week. We clearly didn't want to give them a look and I think that's smart, hopefully.
It explains a lot in that performance too because it shows our mindset about this game. The club obviously understands that next week is more important so backed it off. By not going left like usual, we weren't doing everything we could to win so it shows a clear mindset about that game. It showed in other areas of our game too because generally, it didn't look like we got out of second gear and the line speed was way off. All the more reasons why I think this could have been a tactical performance, well, I hope so anyway.
Because of this, I take a lot of confidence. No Murray, Cook or Graham either yet still only went down by 10.
Next week is what matters.
