Round 26 V Manly

[TheFrog]

Eels had not only won abput 11/12 but blown teams off the park doing so.

Funny you should say that. We had seven in a row before the current issues hit. Whether they can be satisfactorily resolved by next week is problematical.

Whether you beat teams by 2 or 40 is pretty much irrelevant. The Sharks won a swag of close ones last year. You don't need to blow teams off the park to win finals.

Panthers have limped into finals.

I'd suggest losing the last game 37-0 to finish 8th, where you have to play the same team again, who are in fact the minor premiers qualifies as "limping into the finals". Lucky it was St Choke. I remember it well. Parramatta were regarded as absolute fodder going into that match. Funny things happen when complacency hits.

The Dogs "limped into the finals" in 2014 as well. Lost the last game against the 14th placed team.

Whens Edwards back

Next year by the looks of it, but the official line is week 3. Maybe, at a stretch, because he's young and a good healer he could play in week 2 against your mob if we win next week. I doubt he would have made much difference anyway. It was the forwards who failed yesterday.

 

[OldPanther]

Which he had done previously and it has worked. But I don't think it would have made any difference this week. RCG still topped the metres for the forwards. Manly kept their defensive intensity up for pretty much the whole game. I think RCG would have had the same treatment if he came on after 20 minutes. We really needed another front rower to take the sting out of the forwards. We forget that we have two props out injured, one of them a seasoned, grizzled NRL veteran. McKendry isn't what he used to be, but he would have been real handy off the bench yesterday.

That's fair. With the injuries we need Tamou and Browne to play harder or put in reserve grade players who are hungry.

 

[tripster]

The thing the club needs to take out of that game was what happened when Katoa went to 9. Our halves suddenly had time and we had some zip out of the ruck. The same thing happened in the games when we have started Rein or Kota earlier in the year. 2 weeks ago(can't remember exactly which game) when Katoa started we looked downright amazing with how much time and space our halves had to ball play.

It was the first half against the Raiders when we played our best opening 20 minutes of the year and blew them away.

 

[mxlegend99]

Who was Hook going to pick to give us size and aggression on the bench in a crucial match? Latu and McKendry are injured. Kikau is a rookie and is error prone.

As for DWZ's terrible mistake, he has also been dropping the ball every other week so I don't blame Hook for trying Whare, who to be fair, was ok at the back. He adjusted our defence to help out Blake who was struggling with his shoulder. I think Walllace's busted hand and subsequent terrible passing and Blake's bad shoulder caused more problems than Whare at the back..

Whare was the worst possible choice for fullback.

We replace our best metre gainer with our worst (as far as backs go). He has f**k all experience there... and his last games there were by far his worst ever games in a Panthers jersey.

The game is as lot closer if we had DWZ at fullback. Blake on the wing and Whare at centre.the points stopped leaking when we made those changes. (Katoa replacing a busted Wallace helped too. Wallace shouldnt be playing... he's f**ked)

Whare is a centre and nothing else. He's shit on the wing and even worse at fullback. Not his fault. He tries hard..but he just isnt up to it.

We need him at centre next week. Blake on the wing and DWZ at the back. Unless Edwards or Moylan is fit... which looks like they wont be

 

[GongPanther]

Whens Edwards back

Announced today by Yeo that both Edwards and Moylan will start running this week.

 

[GongPanther]

Hook started Merrin and RCG last night and it backfired. They were no match for Big Jake.

What would have happened if they played off the bench?

Will be interesting to see what Hook decides to do if we are up against Manly again next week.

I really hope we play Manly again next week.We were getting them in the latter stages of the game last night,which would continue on with part 2.

 

[GongPanther]

Whare was the worst possible choice for fullback.

We replace our best metre gainer with our worst (as far as backs go). He has f**k all experience there... and his last games there were by far his worst ever games in a Panthers jersey.

The game is as lot closer if we had DWZ at fullback. Blake on the wing and Whare at centre.the points stopped leaking when we made those changes. (Katoa replacing a busted Wallace helped too. Wallace shouldnt be playing... he's f**ked)

Whare is a centre and nothing else. He's shit on the wing and even worse at fullback. Not his fault. He tries hard..but he just isnt up to it.

We need him at centre next week. Blake on the wing and DWZ at the back. Unless Edwards or Moylan is fit... which looks like they wont be

A few yeps from me. All this week is going to feel like limbo.If we make it as far has the game before the GF,I'll be happy.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

I really hope we play Manly again next week.We were getting them in the latter stages of the game last night,which would continue on with part 2.

We got at them because they totally stopped playing. They didn't need to beat us by 38 points.

 

[OldPanther]

Announced today by Yeo that both Edwards and Moylan will start running this week.

Wallace said the same thing. If they come back I dare say we play a LOT better. Just put Rein at 9 with Katoa on the bench and I will have confidence in the team to win.

 

[OldPanther]

We got at them because they totally stopped playing. They didn't need to beat us by 38 points.

I think bringing Katoa made a huge difference. The extra ruck speed and zip in his running seem to take them off guard.

 

[billypilgrimnz]

I think bringing Katoa made a huge difference. The extra ruck speed and zip in his running seem to take them off guard.

Maybe, but they clearly throttled back in the last 20 minutes.

 

[Copperhead]

Wallace said the same thing. If they come back I dare say we play a LOT better. Just put Rein at 9 with Katoa on the bench and I will have confidence in the team to win.

Just put Katoa into hooker with May to cover him and find another forward, because that bench yesterday made no meters.

 

[OldPanther]

Just put Katoa into hooker with May to cover him and find another forward, because that bench yesterday made no meters.

That's a good idea as well. Someone said Rein got hooker of the year so figured he'd benifit us.

 

[herbert henry1908]

I think bringing Katoa made a huge difference. The extra ruck speed and zip in his running seem to take them off guard.

I doubt Griffin has the balls to drop Wallace.

He'll reason that the team needs experience. And it's true we do need experience, but service out of dummy half is so vital you need to go with the best.

 

[OldPanther]

I doubt Griffin has the balls to drop Wallace.

He'll reason that the team needs experience. And it's true we do need experience, but service out of dummy half is so vital you need to go with the best.

If he did and we still lost I'd give him a lot of credit for having a go at it.

 

[martielang]

Yep Wallace should of been put out to pasture after the first month this year IMO.

One thing I've noticed is that we've stopped using Yeo and CHN on the edge. Both were making huge metres at different times this year and now all the seem to be used in is block plays or coming back inside. Hitting Yeo flat with someone running off his inside hip was a big play for us this year (we def started to overplay it).

 

[Doomednow]

Manly definitely wanted that more last night but we just looked so underdone, ill-prepared. Very lazy in defence esp Blake. Tamou back to being rubbish.

Wonder coach thinking Whare at fullback was a good idea jfc. Anyway, embarrassing game to try to introduce some Americans to the sport.

 

[chrisD]

Just put Katoa into hooker with May to cover him and find another forward, because that bench yesterday made no meters.

Throwing more props at the problem isn't a solution, it hasn't worked before and it won't again.

 

[tripster]

Throwing more props at the problem isn't a solution, it hasn't worked before and it won't again.

On that note, I still don't understand the logic behind RCG returning to the starting side for the Manly game. Having him come off the bench has made a noticeable difference the past few weeks, so it baffled me that we'd reverse something that was working before.

 

[tripster]

Yep Wallace should of been put out to pasture after the first month this year IMO.

Wallace is playing injured (and probably isn't even completely recovered from the groin injury that left him out earlier) and shouldn't have been picked for that reason when we have two viable replacements (Rein and Katoa, and Rein has big game experience).

That said, as to Wallace's form earlier in the year, in the lead up to Origin, he was pretty much a sure thing to be picked as NSW's no. 9 before injuring his groin.