Round 5 v Souths

[Smurf]

Gutted again
No wonder we are getting smashed
We had 5 forwards play last night who are way way off the pace
Macca
Lawrie
Ford
Sims
Kerr

 

[Illusion]

Gutted again
No wonder we are getting smashed
We had 5 forwards play last night who are way way off the pace
Macca
Lawrie
Ford
Sims
Kerr

The game has change you need fast big Athletic players nearly in all positions ...... So those players mentioned which is Athletic Kerr? Big but not that sort of player ..... Woods, Macca, Maguire when he comes back Nah ...... Wrong type of players for the modern 6 again game .....

 

[qld redvee]

I am also disillusioned after what we served up last night..
Aaron woods replace with George Burgess
sloan back for mbye
ford replace with moose
bird back to edge - bud to 5/8

start of the year we all were thinking top 8 as ALL positions had depth .. Well we are looking pretty thin and players are just not putting in .. And we have dusted off that dragons footy game plan of stand shallow run slow and then a horrible kick to end the set.....

where do we go to ?? - Hook MUST make changes we have fallen apart in the 2nd half last 2 games and last night we were lucky to make it to half time we were a rabble at times

 

[Slippery Morris]

We can now see why Newcastle did not want Macca and Sharks not want Woods. Both slow and not the type of player required for the game played today. Rubbish. Kerr is in the same boat. Saints had a slow ineffective forward so they doubled up and got Woods. Wow how bad is that.

One of the worst games played by Saints and Souths were not that much better and that is saying something yet Souths still won. Souths would have gotten flogged if they played a better side as for Saints they should have conceded another 40+ scoreline.

Let's extend the coaches contract on the back of winning a couple of trials when in NRL he has won 1 game in 15 or so games. That is pathetic.

 

[TruSaint]

The game has change you need fast big Athletic players nearly in all positions ...... So those players mentioned which is Athletic Kerr? Big but not that sort of player ..... Woods, Macca, Maguire when he comes back Nah ...... Wrong type of players for the modern 6 again game .....

Indeed.

No need to go back decades to know the game has changed dramatically. Even over the course of the last 2-3 years, blind Freddy can see its a much faster game and the 9 role is being dominated by the likes of Cook, Grant etc.

Our opposition have little to worry about re our dummy half. Add to that our lumbering forwards ( with the exception of maybe Sua ), our line speed is woeful.

 

[mickeylane]

In a

Radical yes. But desperate times need desperate measures. We need to reinvent our backline. Lomax at the back where he can best utilise his step and blinding acceleration. Plus he is safe under the bomb. I can see him doing some damage chiming into the backline and splitting defenses. God forbid not having to use his brilliant (at times) but risky passing game. Sloan has playmaking skills too so find room for him in the middle while Amone would be better served in the centres where he has more room to move and showcase his individual skills. One thing is a dead cert.. this backline will be given better service than it has been having to date.

Lomax
Rava
Amone
Suli
Ramsay/Moga
Sloan
Mbye/Sullivan

funny way this backline has merit .. will need fine to gel but agree w Lomax a better fb than a centre.. bigger body as well at the back ..

 

[mickeylane]

Ho

Indeed.

No need to go back decades to know the game has changed dramatically. Even over the course of the last 2-3 years, blind Freddy can see its a much faster game and the 9 role is being dominated by the likes of Cook, Grant etc.

Our opposition have little to worry about re our dummy half. Add to that our lumbering forwards ( with the exception of maybe Sua ), our line speed is woeful.

Hook gambled on building a team around size.. he forgot the speed side of the game is also king .. just look at the Panthers game template along w Parras basically this years grand finalists.. that’s the playing model these teams have adopted..

 

[justadragon]

Piss hook off now, get Sowie as interim coach to get the speeeeed back into all the plays. What’s to lose?

Piss hook off now, get Sowie as interim coach to get the speeeeed back into all the plays. What’s to lose?

soward has already said he wont do it, he is now the AC of the sky blues and wants to focus on next nrlw comp

 

[Illusion]

We can now see why Newcastle did not want Macca and Sharks not want Woods. Both slow and not the type of player required for the game played today. Rubbish. Kerr is in the same boat. Saints had a slow ineffective forward so they doubled up and got Woods. Wow how bad is that.

One of the worst games played by Saints and Souths were not that much better and that is saying something yet Souths still won. Souths would have gotten flogged if they played a better side as for Saints they should have conceded another 40+ scoreline.

Let's extend the coaches contract on the back of winning a couple of trials when in NRL he has won 1 game in 15 or so games. That is pathetic.

Been saying the same , SAY NO MORE ..... no one is listening , they just keep wasting years no where near a top side ....... a team of ready to retire players that no one wanted ...... A coach that has been ok in the past , but as the game moved on he hasnt ...... But what can we do when you have a bunch of guys on the board that have failed for 12 years ...... Wheres Webby in all of this been very quiet ..... Young , Gordon , and now Doust back on the board ...... we are no chance ......

 

[Blood Shot Eyes]

One noticeable issue last night was JDB .....he looked totally buggered 1 minute after he came on....in particular the second half......I realise he missed a few years in footy as far as timing and hes 2 years older but his body hasnt had the rigors of continuously playing...maybe its our losing culture thats affecting players performances..who knows tbh

 

[Rocket Rod]

soward has already said he wont do it, he is now the AC of the sky blues and wants to focus on next nrlw comp

Bummer…. He’s too smart for this lot anyway, maybe sometime in the future though

 

[Blood Shot Eyes]

Just a terrible thought... ..atm we only have just a couple of suspensions to deal with..... I wonder whats going to happen if and when we get any injuries to key players......then again do we we have any !!!!!

 

[Illusion]

Just a terrible thought... ..atm we only have just a couple of suspensions to deal with..... I wonder whats going to happen if and when we get any injuries to key players......then again do we we have any !!!!!

Sorry mate , you said key players , where ...... ?

 

[be55]

WOW...Where to start...IMO...

We were disgraceful last night. Plain and simple. The fact that Souths weren't much better was the only thing that stopped the score from being a complete blowout. Make no mistake, if we had played a red hot team last night, like a Melbourne at their best, we would have been completely blown off the park. It would have been a cricket score.

When you look closely at the stats coming out of the game, we lost the middle again. Simply put we are struggling to make metres and opposition teams are finding it way too easy to roll through our middle and get quick play the balls off the back of that. The Souths forwards (bench included) ran for a total of 1012m compared to our forwards 780m. And you look at the average play the ball speed, theirs was much quicker than ours. We can't seem to stop the opposition roll on when it starts. And you'd think this would develop as the game went on but last night it was evident in our first 20 minutes. We gifted them many quick play the balls which allowed Cook to make some big runs straight through our middle. It's very worrying to me that even with our coach's words still ringing in their ears in the early minutes of the game, we still can't seem to slow the opposing teams play the ball speed down with aggression and numbers in defence. If we can't start to win the ruck or even be competitive it's going to be a very long year for us all.

I was never one that fell into the talk that we were going to turn into world beaters this season but i did think we'd improve. It's round 5 and honestly it's hard to see where we have improved at all. And i'm not even talking about results, i'm talking about the style of football we are playing.

When Mary left i thought we would see an end to the unstructured, rudderless rabble that we were during his tenure. When we ran one out. When we seemed to have no attacking structure. When we seem to have no game plan. When we just spread the ball from side to side with no depth or decoy runners to pull apart defences.

Hook said in the pre-season that they had worked significantly on our attack. We are 5 games into this years comp and i can't see it. I thought there were some promising signs in the Charity Shield but the last few weeks have reminded me a lot of the crap we dished up on the field during McGregor's time in charge. Really hoping things change, and fast, because if they don't this could end up being one of the worst years in our club's history.

Hoping for all our sakes that they can turn this around...AND QUICK

 

[jeffdragon]

No team in the comp fears the Dragons anymore, no team!

Only the fans fear the dragons.
Fear how bad it gets year after year, week after week.

 

[Illusion]

Just heard the presser Hook said we were better than last week , gee that makes me feel good ......

 

[redandwhite4evr]

Many problems with this team. In attack. Hook seems to have transferred the road toll message (speed kills) into his coaching methodology and tried to move to a power game instead. The new mantra seems to be age trumps youth and power trumps speed. Reid Mahoney last week and then Cook last night gave both their teams zip and threat out of dummy half while our attack was pedestrian and lumbering. If there was a NRL team spine 4x100m relay tomorrow, the four Dragons representatives who started against the Rabbitohs, ie Mbye, Bird, Hunt and McCullough would finish stone motherless last- and by some distance.

Hook- old son- your power game ain't working. By the numbers, predictable, supportless, one out, ineffectual running, and then slow, clunky side to side attack with block plays you can see coming a mile away aren't fooling anyone. Lomax, no doubt inspired by Rava's fearless charges and try scoring feats, seems to have developed into a mistake- ridden, one trick, battering ram with a flick pass to Rava out wide and ball hog hit up man in the centre. So much for Funky Fittler's assessment of him as the "special one". He should be the last person to be having a sledge of Dufty.

We have been found out from our early season success which had many (including me ) predicting a top 8 finish. This has always been a limited team with many average players (Josh Kerr leads the mediocrity and gets a gig in rep teams only because he's indigenous) and the players some have coming to our rescue ( Fui and Moose) have abysmal disciplinary records and are hardly world beaters when they do manage to stay on the field. But now, (and it pains me to say this because I was a supporter of Hooks) I have to say, we also have a limited coach whose attitude in relation to youth seems little different from his pathetic predecessor. As some have already observed, Norman was retained last season despite reaching new lows in performance level, but after a game in a Wollongong gale and swamp, Sloan, a match winner is dumped for reported communication issues in defence.!! The first test Mbye had in one on one defence at FB yesterday- he failed.

Time to admit that your spine is quadraplegic Hook- forget your obsession with power and age/experience and think speed and skill. Restore Tyrell to FB, Amone (or Sullivan once he's had a few more KOE games under his belt) to 5/8 and Muhleison with Amone/Sullivan to dummy half. Macca, a good defender, could play no 13 (like McInnes). If Bird wants to play 5/8 and doesn't like being retained as an edge forward and (slow) back up centre- tough. He's a good player- but not one we can build a team around.

 

[SaintPeter]

Yes yes yes agree with all the previous posters we lack speed in everything we do.
Painfully obvious.
Unless this is addressed and soon it’s looking like another disastrous season.
Lawrie to reserve grade

 

[Dragons73]

Still dumbfounded by the decision to re-sign Hook so soon…after losing 8 straight last year, it’s not as though any other club would seriously have considered signing him.
It’s becoming clearer by the week that he couldn’t coach a passionfruit vine over a backyard sh*thouse.
He’s completely out of touch with the modern game: probably writes up his game plan in hieroglyphics.

 

[Dragon David]

Oh woe is us. Where do we go from here? Have we been savagely hexed by a voodoo woman to make the Dragons play with no enterprise and pride instilled by poor training standards and coaching skills which we have lacked for sooooo many years it is not funny.

So many changes have to be made from players to coaching staff. They just have to be done. No good saying it is only round 5 done and dusted and we have another 19 games to go because the indications are quite evident that our ability to win games has disappeared.

We play too slowly in all areas of our game. We do not have any player who has speed to burn, we have slow coachers (and slow coaches) all over the park and you cannot win games just by bashing and barging.

So damned frustrating our club. Nothing really to look forward to.

The Dragons - who are you anymore?