After watching the replay, here's my full report,
Mitchell: A beast once again!! Just some freakish stuff on show from him on Thursday night and it was for the whole eighty minutes. The only thing he did wrong was being out of position on a scrum play in the first half which meant benji got smashed and lost the ball. Apart form that, it was a brilliant display. He was heavily involved and went looking for the ball, continually pushing up around our halves and Cookie which is what you want to see. He set the tone with his kick returns, I don't recall one return he did where he didn't either break a tackle or poke his nose through the line, so strong. Showed brilliant vision for AJ's try, a long cut out pass without even looking to put Johnston over untouched, that was beautiful. Scored a try of his own through some more freakish ability in the second half as he took a pass from Benji which put him on the outside of Deardon but still did plenty of work as he shrugged off two tackles to slam the ball down. Capped off his night with yet another freakish display, towering over Brisbane to take a bomb above the line and then with four, yes four, defenders hanging off him, he found the turf. Then finished with a field goal that was never in doubt. What a game from Trell, up there with our best, if not the best on the night.
Johnston: A really good, solid game from AJ and he was consistent throughout. Just missed out on a try early off that cross-field kick from Reyno, that was unlucky but played a hand in Benji's try by taking a similar kick a few minutes later. Finally got one of his own as he finished a beautiful pass from Latrell. The rest of his game was good, he looked elusive on a few of his kick returns and didn't get rag-dolled in contact like he has in the past. Saved a certain try by knocking down a Deardon cut out pass in the second half.
Gagai: Another huge game from Gags, he played out of his skin. Showed great strength, vision and skill for benji's try to take the pass from AJ, stand in the tackle and then deliver the try assist to Benji in what was a try of the year contender. Settled into some really hard work after that as he did his job getting us out of our own end through some really quality runs that had 100% commitment and effort in each one, this was the case for the full game. A barnstorming, freskish effort late in the first half to beat a few tackles, cut straight through the Broncos defence and then deliver his second perfect try assist for Reyno. What's more, I was quite impressed with his defence as he made some brilliant reads to shut down plays down our left. Great game Gags!
Graham: Speaking of great games, how bloody good was stretch on Thursday night?! Wow, that's certainly the best game I've seen him play in a fair while. 16 runs for 195 meters says it all, that is a huge effort from a centre! It wasn't just the volume of runs he had either, it was the type of runs he had. I honestly think in every single one of those runs he looked really threatening as he poked his nose through the line every time. Ran a great line in the second half to take that pass from Benji and power over for his first try off the year, that was strong. He did make a couple of errors, a forward pass and a knock on but I can kind of forgive those. For so long we've all been talking about how Cammy needs to get better at setting up his winger and he needs to work on his catch-pass, well these two errors were catch-pass errors and while he didn't execute it, it's a sign he's working on that part of his game which is a good sign. Significantly, his defence was outstanding too! Nothing was getting past him. This has been another big improvement on his game too as he made perfect defensive reads almost everytime something came his way. Great stuff stretch!
Mansour: A good, solid game from Sauce which is exactly what you want from him. Took a lot of strong hit ups to help out the forwards coming out of our end and finished up with 126 meters off 14 runs in the end which is a good result. A few of those runs were close to the line where he cut back inside and threatened to power over. His handling was on point yet again, taking the high kicks that came his way as well as a few bad passes and I can't fault him in defence at all.
Marshall: Stepping in for Cody was always going to be a huge challenge but such is the legend of Benji Marshall that he handled it with ease and ended up having a stormer of a game. Our attack perhaps didn't look quite as potent without Cody but we still piled on 35 points which shows Benji still did a great job and he had a hand in most of our tries. Was great to see him score one himself for his first try in the Red and Green, and that was awesome vision to indentify the space outside of Gags an double around to take the pass. After that, he continued to be a threat all game. I really liked the variation of his passing game because early on, he was throwing a lot of short passes. many of which lead to half breaks such as the brilliant ball he threw to Hosty that saw him almost go through. But then he changed it up late in the first half as we attacked the line. benji identified that the Broncos defence were anticipating a short pass, so he skipped out Hosty and threw a long ball to Gags, this caught the defence off guard enough to allow Gags to slip through and set up Reyno's try. Once again, he did a similar thing for our first try in the send half, throwing a longer pass to Trell which just allowed him to get on the outside of Deardon and the rest his history. But again Benji changed it up, back to a pearler of a short ball that saw Graham slide over. Good on attack and pretty solid in defence too, a really good game from Benji and once again, he's showing us why he could be the signing of the Season.
Reynolds: It was a little bit of a rocks and diamonds game from Reyno but thankfully, I think it was more diamonds than rocks. I will say this, he is certainly not distracted by all the contract talk and that is a credit to him. Anyway, I think early on, he kind of tried to over-compensate for Cody not being there and he perhaps over-played his hand a little. However, once he settled into a rhythm, he did a lot of really good stuff, putting in some nice kick that slowly suffocated the Broncos. It wasn't the perfect kicking game as there were still some sloppy ones and kicks that missed their mark, I won't even go into the terrible bomb he put up early in the second half that went nowhere, and his kicking game was not up to his usual standard. Wasn't bad in defence with the only bad point coming when Brisbane scored, that was a poor effort at a tackle from him along with Jaydn. However, I don't think Ren had a bad game. The highlight was that fantastic support play to run off Gags and run in to finish the play with a try. Also, the first to kick a two point field goal under the new rules, of course it had to be Reyno!!! That was an amazing strike, so powerful and clean!
