Round 4 V Tigers

[Panfa]

Luai to 6 maloney to 9 it worked for wallace im sure jimmy will work at hooker.

 

[Matthew Ellis]

Can only think it must be for defence purposes, Maybe to help Kikau?

Kikau is probably the second worst defender in our team so it makes sense.

 

[TeamSatan]

I thought Kikau knocked it on at the 10m line tbh.

f**k, I thought Katoa played well tonight, not sure why he’s getting hammered tbh. Imo proved he’s well ahead of Egan at this point.

Easy to say after the last 5 mins, but I actually thought Cleary had a much better game then previous. Much more direct with the ball.

Katoa ran the ball never.

A basic grunter reserve grader. No more.

The Ben Garcia of hookers.

 

[Matthew Ellis]

Luai to 6 maloney to 9 it worked for wallace im sure jimmy will work at hooker.

Maloney has trouble tackling second rowers and centres. He'll get destroyed with props running at him 5 times in row.

 

[Fangs]

Can only think it must be for defence purposes, Maybe to help Kikau?

Cleary switching for defence as well?

Whatever it is its destroyed our attack. We look impotent.

 

[The Realist]

I vote dropped.

I think MWZ as a winger would be better. Buta wing demotion is better than nothing.

MWZ is a top bloke, met and chatted with him numerous times. I was genuinely happy for him when he finally made grade. Personal feelings aside - he is barely an adequate 1st Grade winger.

Our Depth just sucks. How many centres/wingers juniors do we have running around in the NRL that are easily better than him. A few years back we had Robert Jennings waiting in the wings, Burns and a few others. Sivo looks to be considerably better as well. Even George Jennings is a better winger despite being a current reserve grader at Parra.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Luai to 6 maloney to 9 it worked for wallace im sure jimmy will work at hooker.

You need to be able to tackle at hooker, Maloney would be a huge liability in the middle of the field. They’d run at him all day.

 

[Matthew Ellis]

Katoa ran the ball never.

A basic grunter reserve grader. No more.

The Ben Garcia of hookers.

It's a hooker's primary job in attack to engage defenders to create space for those outside or inside you when the guy playing the ball wins the ruck. I'm sure there's reserve grade hookers that get tackled taking more runs than Cameron Smith but that doesn't mean the guy that takes the most runs is the best in the world.

 

[tripster]

Top post by Tripster saying exactly what I was thinking and observing with the 3 big points.

1. Line Speed in defence was awful and we hung back and waited for the Tigers players to hit our line. We consistently conceded an extra 2-3 metres per tackle AND often conceded a quick play the ball as well. Complete contrast to last year.
2. We aren't running onto the ball well at all.
3. We are nowhere NEAR as fit as last year.

One additional thing I noticed that nobody else has mentioned yet is that shifting Kikau to partner Cleary has hurt us. Cleary seems to be unable to draw players in and put Kikau into gaps. It also broke up the deadly Kikau/Blake combination. After a poor performance we often hear Supporters say, 'The coach isn't the one playing and dropping all the balls' etc however this is one thing we can DEFINATELY attribute to coaching. Ivan is not coaching for the Panthers. He is coaching for his son. A completely objective coach would have Kikau outside Maloney and inside Blake at least in attack.

Glad that it isn't just me and that others are seeing the same things. I also agree with you about breaking up the Kikau / Blake combo.

I hope I am proven wrong but I think we are in for a season where we scrape home close wins from time to time, but never dominate any teams and our pack goes backwards.

 

[BxTom]

I have just got home after the game. The drive was long enough for the golden point win euphoria to have worn off and for reality to have set back in.

I was absolutely furious by the 75th minute. We were complete shit. The only thing that kept us in the game was luck that the Tigers missed so many goals, including one from right in front and a field goal that bounced off the posts. It was hard to find much to like about how we were playing. In no particular order:

• we kept dropping the ball or pushing the pass (and it going forward) for no good reason. We should have been holding onto it and building pressure. I don't know how many errors we made by the end of the game - I lost count - it was more than 15.
• we had no line speed for almost the entire game. We hung back in defence. We appear to play a slide and scramble type of defence now rather than a fast up and in defence. It means we concede a lot more metres than we did last year, and we aren't doing any damage with our defence.
  
• further to the previous point, there is no aggression to our defence. The way we approach the ruck is technically much better - we are much better drilled using three people in the tackle, and our wrestle is better. But we are not even trying to hit hard and win the battle physically.
  
• we aren't getting a roll on up the field like we were last year.
• we are much less fit than we were last season. Forwards were often walking back on side, and during golden point we were totally gassed. It barely mattered last year how much ball we had during a game, we always had petrol in the tank.
  
• we lack a leader in the middle who can read the game and adjust how our team is playing during the course of the match. It was completely obvious that the referees were allowing a very slow ruck. Tigers were lying all over us. However, no one in our team had the brains or leadership to say to our guys - look, the ref is allowing a slow game, we should do the same with our ruck. We were letting the Tigers up in tackles much more quickly.

It is plain to me from our first four games that we have gone backward compared to last year. We get the two points tonight, but it was a fluke. Our win against the Knights was also a fluke.

I hope this post comes back to haunt me come the end of the year - and please, everyone on the forum should feel free to rub my face in it if I am wrong - but we do not look anything like a top 8 team and we will not make the 8.

Hate on Hook all you want but he had produced a super fit side that beat teams with physicality and aggression. That's no longer how we will play.

By last year we had a pack that played with real mongrel - and our forwards have shown they are suited to that style. All we needed was a decent half behind that pack and we found a way to score points, even if it wasn't always pretty and even if we struggled inside the 20m. Think back to the Dragons game at Penrith and the Warriors game at Penrith. We belted both of those teams into the grass with our line speed and aggression in defence, and eventually the opposition was so bruised and battered space started opening up when we had the ball.

Our forwards are a shadow of themselves from last year. They approach the ruck in a more drilled way, and scramble better, but there is no aggression and we are nowhere near as fit.

The players are either not wanting Cleary snr or not wanting O'Neill's interference is my guess.

 

[The Realist]

I thought Kikau knocked it on at the 10m line tbh.

f**k, I thought Katoa played well tonight, not sure why he’s getting hammered tbh. Imo proved he’s well ahead of Egan at this point.

Easy to say after the last 5 mins, but I actually thought Cleary had a much better game then previous. Much more direct with the ball.

I was watching his game closely tonight and Katoa was excellent. Quick accurate bullets right at a catchable height. Good decision making and rock solid in defence. Got pinged for a forward pass that wasn't, but didn't get pinged for one that was in the lead up to our field goal. Would have had a try assist if it were not for Mansour being ordinary.

 

[martielang]

Katoa ran the ball never.

A basic grunter reserve grader. No more.

The Ben Garcia of hookers.

If you base a hookers performance purely on his run metres, Nafe Seluini would be the Panthers GOAT.

He played well, seems to be an easy scapegoat.

 

[Matthew Ellis]

One additional thing I noticed that nobody else has mentioned yet is that shifting Kikau to partner Cleary has hurt us. Cleary seems to be unable to draw players in and put Kikau into gaps. It also broke up the deadly Kikau/Blake combination. After a poor performance we often hear Supporters say, 'The coach isn't the one playing and dropping all the balls' etc however this is one thing we can DEFINATELY attribute to coaching. Ivan is not coaching for the Panthers. He is coaching for his son. A completely objective coach would have Kikau outside Maloney and inside Blake at least in attack.

Cleary and Maloney moved sides because Maloney is our worst defender, Kikau was our second worst last year and Yeo is our best and Cleary is one of our best. It's the best decision defensively and the opposite in regards to attack. 95% of teams that have made the top 8 in the NRL era prioritise defense over attack. You can argue it's not worth it in your opinion but that doesn't make it a fact.

 

[TheEroticGamer]

Hahahahahahahahahaha eat a dick Paul Kent you midget.

 

[franklin2323]

If you base a hookers performance purely on his run metres, Nafe Seluini would be the Panthers GOAT.

He played well, seems to be an easy scapegoat.

He threw a good pass to Mansour but he was predictable

 

[franklin2323]

We moved the halves... So why did Blake and Whare change sides? Blake is wasted now

 

[franklin2323]

Blake and Whare swap I'm struggling to understand.

Seems everyone is except Ivan

 

[tripster]

The players are either not wanting Cleary snr or not wanting O'Neill's interference is my guess.

I am not sure what it is. I suspect a big part of it comes down to two things:

1 Our approach to strength and conditioning (the change in strength and conditioning coach) and how hard the coach trains the players. Griffin must have been absolutely flogging the team to get them into the shape that they were - a 'take no prisoners' approach to training. It obviously took a few years to get them into peak shape. It wasn't a fluke that we conceded the least amount of points in the second half of games of any team last year. It was because we were so much fitter than the opposition, and our advantage only magnified as the game went on. I can understand how being absolutely flogged at training, and being told you can't go out late, or drink, would cause disquiet amongst some players - there are plenty of people out there who just don't like hard work. Griffin did his best to push them out, but you can see some laziness has already crept back in. RCG must be loving having Cleary back because he I expect he doesn't have to train anywhere near as hard. Think about what Peach looked like under Cleary. He had a gut and came off the bench to play second row. Griffin got him lean and playing in the centres.

2. The philosophy as to how we play the game is different. I heard one of the players say, in an interview last year, that Griffin said in the dressing room on one occasion something the effect of "We are going to bash these guys for 80 minutes, bash them right off the field and into the car-park outside, and then keep bashing them when they are out there". It is easy to roll your eyes at something like that, but that attitude was apparent in how we approached the game. It is rugby league after all. It is a physical game. We don't play like that now. We aren't trying to dominate the opposition physically. Perhaps it comes from the fact that Cleary was not a forward when he played, and views the game from a different perspective to someone who battled in the middle, I really don't know.

I love Penrith and really hope I am wrong, and that Cleary finds a winning formula, but the early signs have me full of despair.

 

[Kilkenny]

I had to leave with 8 minutes to go so heard the end on the radio. Happy with the two points. I thought our defence was excellent even if some on here don’t agree. Could be the gutsy win to turn our fortunes around. Not pretty but fought it out to the end. Well done.

 

[franklin2323]

I am not sure what it is. I suspect a big part of it comes down to two things:

1 Our approach to strength and conditioning (the change in strength and conditioning coach) and how hard the coach trains the players. Griffin must have been absolutely flogging the team to get them into the shape that they were - a 'take no prisoners' approach to training. It obviously took a few years to get them into peak shape. It wasn't a fluke that we conceded the last amount of points in the second half of games of any team last year. It was because we were so much fitter than the opposition, and our advantage only magnified as the game went on. I can understand how being absolutely flogged at training, and being told you can't go out late, or drink, would cause disquiet amongst some players - there are plenty of people out there who just don't like hard work. Griffin did his best to push them out, but you can see some laziness has already crept back in. RCG must be loving having Cleary back because he I expect he doesn't have to train anywhere near as hard. Think about what Peach looked like under Clearly. He had a gut and came off the bench to play second row. Griffin got him lean and playing in the centres.

2. The philosophy as to how we play the game is different. I heard one of the players say, in an interview last year, that Griffin said in the dressing room on one occasion something the effect of "We are going to bash these guys for 80 minutes, bash them right off the field and into the car-park outside, and then keep bashing them when they are out there". It is easy to roll your eyes at something like that, but that attitude was apparent in how we approached the game. It is rugby league after all. It is a physical game. We don't play like that now. We aren't trying to dominate the opposition physically. Perhaps it comes from the fact that Cleary was not a forward when he played, and views the game from a different perspective to someone who battled in the middle, I really don't know.

I love Penrith and really hope I am wrong, and that Cleary finds a winning formula, but the early signs have me full of despair.

Anyone that says they aren't comcerned are kidding themselves