Your post shows that you are just an 'armchair athlete.' How do you quantify heart and desire? Yes we were thrashed but players scrambled and put in. Just because a team gets thrashed doesn't mean they weren't trying. Sometimes you just have bad days at the office, others you just run into a quality unit. I think Saturday night was a bit of both. I can remember in the late 1990s, early 2000s those ordinary Cowboys teams with Scott Prince in them would have those games two or three times a season where they would slam 50 on a quality opponent (mainly St George-Illawarra if my memory serves me correct) Does that mean those quality teams weren't showing heart? Of course not! Yes we can be critical of the team but to say they don't care or didn't show heart is a massive insult.
As for Madge not punishing poor performances, I'm not sure where you got that from. He's dropped George Burgess to reserve grade earlier this year. David Tyrell has been dropped and so has Kyle Turner for their mediocre efforts. You have to remember that you can't drop everyone! I think what you mean to say is that there are some players who Madge selects who you feel should be dropped. If you are referring to the likes of Sutton then I agree!
The Burgess twins have been decent. I think there problem is that they are mentally weak and have let all this criticism get to them. Their handling has improved this season and they have run into form late in the season. You refer to 'putting out good numbers' as if it is the only thing that a good prop should be judged on and that is your mistake. Statistics have their places but first and foremost you should be watching the quality of a props carriers and what they do in defence. If you've had a look at the Burgess twins' work over the last few rounds then you'd realise they have been playing decent footy. In saying that, their early season form let them down and there is plenty of room for improvement in them without a doubt. I agree with Spud Carroll's assessment in that losing 5kgs would really help their mobility.
I laughed your point about bringing in James Graham or Brett Morris instead of Farah because they are both going into a rapid decline. They would both command big money, similar to what Farah is on and probably wouldn't do any better. In other words you'd be robbing Peter to pay Paul with that one! We are only paying Farah approximately 200k of his salary at present with the Tigers paying the rest. On the whole he has decent without setting the world alight. Cook looks a slightly better option at hooker because he is able to inject pace into our team and get our forwards moving in the right direction. The club are supposedly shopping him around for next season because they don't want to be paying 900k for a player who is 33-34 and I think that is a good decision.
I never said Adam Reynolds didn't do those things; all I did was make the point that Reynolds (and others) have conceded a lot of seven tackle sets this season. If you read the paragraph before I said that our last tackle options have been horrendous all year and Adam Reynolds is culpable for much of it given that he is in the team for his last tackle options. Again if you knew how to read, I never said that halves didn't need to have kicking games. What I said was that many modern day halves rely on one aspect of a halves role. Also, many of the players you've mentioned are mediocre kickers. For instance Corey Norman is more a ball runner - similar to Cody Walker.
The problem with Adam Reynolds' kicking this year has been his positioning. I have felt there have been times when he has stood too close to the rucks, other times he has stood too far behind and others he has been up too much. Another issue is that when close to the opposition goal line he will look up at a defender coming at him and grubber straight into his legs. Again this is more down to positional play than anything. I know it sounds nit picky but these subtle nuances are the difference between good halves and the great ones. Cooper Cronk is a great example! He always positions himself in the right spot to execute his kicks.
