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Round 6 versus Bulldogs

Luke Bowden

First Grade
Messages
8,433
When I'm not at work I'll clip it. It was definitely there during the first 5 rounds. Eels ran at him with success for a start. It was just covered by the team being overall dominant. It'll be another one of those things like tago where everyone except the specific people on this forum don't admit the issues for fear it means you're not a big enough fan
Second rowers running at halves is every teams weakness.

That’s kinda why they run that line.

we shouldn’t be letting him get isolated, it was more evident tonight because we didn’t control the middle, which left the edge exposed. That’s what we usually do to teams.

Make as many clips as you like, it won’t change anything, if we get rolled through the middle like that.
 

Oldpanther86

Juniors
Messages
1,211
I know it was only one game but there were some pretty concerning elements of last night which need to be remedied if we want to win this comp. Ordered from what I'd consider most to least important.

Yeo was really... un-Yeo like. He still made some trademark runs but he looked flustered and rushed. Hes very clearly the soul of the team and you could feel the rest of the team mirroring his energy. Mistakes, missed tackles. Its not his first such game this year either. By far the biggest concern.

Weve played loose so far this year. Quick passes, offloads, running it on the last. Lots of risk. Its looked amazing but I think we saw why that hasn't been a feature of our game regularly. It looks great when the opposition lets it happen but when you have less space and/or the passes don't stick it looks terrible. We looked like the Storm often have against us in recent years. Yes we were (technically) chasing the game but Pantherball has been this decade's gold standard for a reason and I hope we have a bit more faith in it to get us out of tough situations.

Nath was extremely poor. He put one outstanding kick in the first half. From our 40, hit the grass, turned Tracey around completely, had him playing the ball 5 meters out, our defensive line surging forward and the whole Dogs pack lumbering back. Contrast that to his end of sets in the second half when the game was still very close. Little dinks behind the line. Running it on the last. Midfield bombs coming down on the 30. What do you know, the Dogs middle came home far stronger and their edges had the space to out us to bed. Its not that complicated a game. No idea why we went away from what has worked unbelievably consistently for the past 6 years. He played like a kid in his 20th game.

Talagi was really poor. I'm not on any hate train. I still really like the kid and overall his defense has been ok, but I think he and Casey will continue to be the weakness in our line that gets exploited when our middle falls apart and opposition backlines get space. Their failures are really a symptom of other problems though.

Phillips looked out of his depth physically. There's obviously a player there, and he's looked great when we we've skiing downhill this year. But he was dominated a few times in a way a NRL middle really shouldn't be. Needs another year to fill out before he's a consisistent option. Not sure where Henry's at but I think we want a bit more from those minutes.

Good news is a performance like that has come at 5-0 so we have space to fix things that we didn't have when we played poorly last year.

This was well said i don't hate him as a person and think he has a lot of potential but the current problem is frustrating to watch in the heat of the moment.

Oh cmon. People can have a different opinion about footy without it being some weird parasocial psychological thing.

I had someone say to me pretty much that last night. I wasn't accusing anyone and never would. You're all beautiful Panthers to me whether we agree on the football or not.
 

Oldpanther86

Juniors
Messages
1,211
Second rowers running at halves is every teams weakness.

That’s kinda why they run that line.

we shouldn’t be letting him get isolated, it was more evident tonight because we didn’t control the middle, which left the edge exposed. That’s what we usually do to teams.

Make as many clips as you like, it won’t change anything, if we get rolled through the middle like that.

None of those structural things change that he's currently a terrible 1 on 1 defender. It's not like it can't be fixed but it is a problem. Either way If a team goes to our right then shifts back to Talagi It's almost free points right now.
 

age.s

First Grade
Messages
9,240
I had someone say to me pretty much that last night. I wasn't accusing anyone and never would. You're all beautiful Panthers to me whether we agree on the football or not.
I saw that. It deserved a laugh or heart emoji and move on.
 

Oldpanther86

Juniors
Messages
1,211
The whole pack apart from Leota and Garner were a bigger problem.

Mostly Yeo. The comment on Phillips being too small i disagree with. Smith worked really hard in defence i found myself appreciating him more than normal. Yeo let the middle fall to bits because he was the weak link and Ivan left him on. I love Yeo to bits but that was catastrophic from him.
 

tripster

Juniors
Messages
1,966
Why wasnt Burton binned when Garner was tackled short of the line by Tracey got up to play the ball and Burton belted him ?
I had exactly the same reaction. It was absolutely unbelievable. Garner makes a break, almost scores, gets tackled, gets up to play the ball and is then knocked over right in front of the ref. It was a bin every day of the week - an absolutely shocking call that nothing was done. The only reason it didn't seem to receive any commentary was because Nathan managed to kick the ball to Jenkins for us to score.
 

Black Magik

Juniors
Messages
962
Bulldogs played well and took advantage of the defensive inabilities. They can say they beat the 2026 Premiers now.
 
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