Unlucky tonight lads, did well to hang in there. I think the key is patience, it took us a while in 2009 before we got used to what Bennett wanted, he said constantly as long as u get ur defense right in the early rounds the attack will come later on. From what I have seen the knights defense has been pretty good so the attack will follow, anyways good luck for the rest of the year hopefully we meet in the finals
Cheers mate. I hope you're right about that. Usually I'm pretty positive after a loss but jeez it's hard to after a game like that. The refs were about equally terrible for both sides as well so that certainly didn't help things as a spectacle.
The Dragons line speed was terrific and they were dominating us on almost every hit-up which must be a concern for our forwards. I thought the Dragons were allowed to lie on the tackle pretty much as long as they wanted which helped with this as well.
There is nothing wrong with our backs IMO. Boyd is still playing a bit average but I have no doubt he will get there, our try showed what we will be able to do when we are on song. If anything they don't get enough ball but I guess that's part of our more conservative gameplan. Unfortunately on a night like last night when your fowards are getting dominated every hit-up, it results in zero attacking potency. Our forwards, while (mostly) all very good players individually, do not provide enough impact, creativity or aggression as a unit.
I don't like to pinpoint individual guys for the sack very often but Hilder just doesn't look effective any more. I also struggle to see what Cutherbertson provides except the odd decent offload. Perhaps he would make a better backrower than prop? Maybe we should give one of the young guns a crack against the Panthers, I can't see how they could do much worse than those two.
I also think we can probably only carry one out of Costigan and Houston in the starting backrow as well. Most other backrows have an impact-type player eg. a Mateo who offers more than just being a tackle machine. The closest we have to this is Taia which just isn't good enough really.
Any people still think Beau Scott was a bad signing? He chewed up our boys and spat them out last night.
So really, it boils down to the fact that Bennett has improved our defence markedly, but our attack is a lot more conservative and less adventurous than it has been in the past. Add to this the fact our main attacking structures are yet to gel and get any sort of consistency, and it results in what we are currently dishing up - boring but ineffective, and a bit depressing, footy. All that being said, I am not all doom and gloom and am confident we will turn it around. That's just the situation as I currently see it.
