Tonight we were outclassed in every aspect and while the defeat was bad I think it is important to look at things in perspective: we are a pretty young team that is improving who were playing against arguably the best legal, performing Melbourne Storm unit that they have fielded. Moreover, these sorts of results happen from time to time. I'm not saying that they are enjoyable, they just happen when your season is over and you run into a quality unit that has everything to play for. In saying that, I think teams need to be more proactive in stopping the big 3. In particular, the way you nullify Cameron Smith is to constantly run at him and force him to defend. If you can get him making 50+ tackles and get his body aching from have big men run at him then the fatigue is going to impair his judgement and errors will creep him. Moreover, if you force him to make tough defensive reads by constructing set plays targeted at him then you also give him something else to think about. In short, you need to do things to get his mind away from controlling the game for Melbourne and what I have listed are just some of the ways you can do this.
I know plenty of people are going to whinging about Maguire and how he should be sacked but I actually like what he is doing in planning for the future. Although many people may not realise it, Maguire gives young talent a chance and during his tenure there have been numerous players that have come through under him that have gone on to have successful careers whether it be at Souths or another club. Hence, Maguire and the club have realised that there is a dearth of talent on market at the moment and instead of paying overs for mediocre players i.e. Aaron Woods, they have chosen to invest in highly promising young players. If I'm being honest I don't think we will make the 8 next season but I do feel that the season after we may well finish around 4th to 5th. Its no coincidence that our best and most enthusiastic players on the night were both Cameron Murray and Crichton. I also think Campbell Graham did well and would have learnt a lot.
In terms of the game itself, I thought Henry Perenara had a shocker AGAIN; he is just lucky that the outcome of his decisions were academic as the game was decided. How he managed to come up with a penalty try for Robert Jennings I will never know. Yes Jennings grabs Vunivalu but Vunivalu had already made a play at the ball! At what point is Jennings allowed to tackle Vunivalu? If Jennings hesitates and gives Vunivalu more time then he scores? Moreover, it wasn't conclusive that Vunivalu was going to score.
I also thought Perenara's general policing of the ruck was poor and contributed largely to the frustration of Sam Burgess. I actually didn't think that Burgess 'head slammed' the Melbourne player, nor did he elbow him in the face. I thought it was just a good hard tackle but a skipper trying to do the best for his team. Like I said, we would have lost either way and these decision didn't affect the outcome of the game but you would have for Perenara to be refereeing in a game that is in the balance.
Overall, I think we will bounce back next week. We have proven in the past that we are capable of turning things around after a humiliation. We did it last season after we were humiliated by the Raiders and almost beat the Storm - Damian Cook gave away a penalty on fulltime and Cameron Smith kicked a field goal in extra time to win it! Parramatta are a decent side but they have their weaknesses. Hopefully we are astute enough to realise that kicking to Semi Radradra is not a sensible idea and that Mitchell Moses is still weak in defence.
