Round 7 vs Roosters

[Dragon David]

You should have watched, it was our best portion of the game, we threw the game plan out the window and went wide - made line breaks, scored a try, forced a bunch of line drop outs - madness.

Extremely disappointing game. Wrong game plan, wrong time to make big changes and any time's the wrong time to make Norman play half back, he was totally lost, totally ineffective. NFI.
We didn't play any footy until the last 10 - 15 minutes, just one out runs by the forwards over over ad infinitum and the " belt them into submission " ploy was obviously not working almost from the start.
The only good thing was our new fella Billy Burns, he's about a foot taller and 10 kgs heavier than I thought, tackling machine. Didn't make many metres but will be better for the run.
I'll just put that game behind us and hope we resume normal programming next week, We lost an away game to a better side, bad luck, move on.

The new use of the bunker after tries are awarded is about the most f*cked up thing to happen to rugby league in a 100 years. Bird didn't knock on, no separation and the attacking team is supposed to get benefit of the doubt anyway. F*cked up, seriously.

The commentators Media Bukkake for Sam Walker was embarrassing, get that man a raincoat. OMG he's a magician, who knew you could throw long passes OMG like twice OMG, next Immortal !

By the sounds of it, I missed a good ending. Clune should have been brought in much earlier. He has had experience in the halves moreso than Bird recently and he has generally filled in quite well with Hunt out. Clune would have matched it with the young kid Walker all day. Bad call by Hook to change and bring in other players when we just needed a little tweaking after the Warriors loss. When will coaches learn?

 

[thebigredv]

By the sounds of it, I missed a good ending. Clune should have been brought in much earlier. He has had experience in the halves moreso than Bird recently and he has generally filled in quite well with Hunt out. Clune would have matched it with the young kid Walker all day. Bad call by Hook to change and bring in other players when we just needed a little tweaking after the Warriors loss. When will coaches learn?

Clune started to make some things happen at the end of the game and he started the rava try with great vision.

Yes, I concede the scoreline may have been closer if we had stuck with usual. Maybe...but I still like that our coach has essentially said what we currently have without Hunt is not up to par with the 'Big 6'. He explored something, it didn't work well but you can hardly regret what could have been.

Any combo with Norman in it isn't going to beat a good side.

 

[Captain Apollo]

Charges out of yesterday's game -

Pereira has been charged with a grade-three careless high tackle for his controversial 34th-minute high shot on Roosters skipper James Tedesco and will be banned for three games with an early guilty plea or could miss five if he challenges the judiciary.

Ravalawa was handed a grade-two shoulder charge offence for a 13th-minute hit on Josh Morris and is looking at 2-3 games out.

Dragons lock Tyrell Fuimaono is facing a fine between $1350-$1800 for his careless high tackle on Tedesco in the second minute of the SCG fixture.

Source: https://www.nrl.com/news/2021/04/23/round-7-charges/

 

[Forbes Creek Dragons]

By the sounds of it, I missed a good ending. Clune should have been brought in much earlier. He has had experience in the halves moreso than Bird recently and he has generally filled in quite well with Hunt out. Clune would have matched it with the young kid Walker all day. Bad call by Hook to change and bring in other players when we just needed a little tweaking after the Warriors loss. When will coaches learn?

Bird actually looked really dangerous to me in the first half. I wonder if a Clune/Bird combo would be better.

 

[Forbes Creek Dragons]

Charges out of yesterday's game -







Source: https://www.nrl.com/news/2021/04/23/round-7-charges/

What about Crichtons shoulder charge on Clune?

 

[Dragon David]

We have lost 3 games 2 of which we could have just as easily won.

Yesterday was our worst performance of the season in losing to a real premiership contender and has to be seen in that light.

We will look very good against the worst teams, look competitive against those that are similar to us and look ordinary against the top teams unless of course they have a very off day.

Our energy levels will ebb and flow depending on who we play as the best sides play at a much higher energy level than middle dwellers like us and we will also suffer in the big games due to a real lack of high quality depth.

To be really honest if you don't have a couple of fast big poppa Polynesian forwards you are going to struggle big time up front.

"To be really honest if you don't have a couple of fast big poppa Polynesian forwards you are going to struggle big time up front."
I, like many of us in this Forum agree with you OT. We will continue to languish if we don't. To me we are still recruiting rejects and the sooner we can recruit above average players, the better.

 

[Dragon David]

Bird actually looked really dangerous to me in the first half. I wonder if a Clune/Bird combo would be better.

The problem with this combo is that Bird is not a kicker and I think it important that both halves have a good kicking game for both sides of the field.

 

[thebigredv]

What about Crichtons shoulder charge on Clune?

Im not sure you understand how the system works. If you are affiliated to Nick Politis or Craig Bellamy you are exonerated.

 

[Dragon David]

What about Crichtons shoulder charge on Clune?

There were a few dubious Roosters tackles I believe on the Dragons players. I didn't see the Clune incident as I became too disappointed with the way we were playing and turned off the TV with 15 minutes to go, my bad. As usual, like the Radley outcome, the Roosters culprits will come out squeaky clean and NFA will be taken.

 

[Coffs dragon]

Our team was outplayed & out enthused by a injury ridden Roosters team that seems to have deep reserves in back up quality.
Unfortunately the Dragons have little in back up with our Reserve Grade team floundering as a bottom dweller playing like shit.
With suspensions and the inevitable injuries, I sense trouble on the horizon with confidence slipping away.
We were a early shock value pace setter, but the race is long & burn out has been our past nemesis.

 

[thebigredv]

As for selections I think most people are overlooking the biggest mistake of all. Blake Lawrie. I know he only received a cork but he didn't look at all ready to be back. Haven't seen Blake's stats but they would be miserable, and he had zero impact in an area where we could have matched it with the Roosters if we serious. He was rushed back in whereas the club were careful to not rush back Hunt. Makes little sense to me.

 

[Forbes Creek Dragons]

There were a few dubious Roosters tackles I believe on the Dragons players. I didn't see the Clune incident as I became too disappointed with the way we were playing and turned off the TV with 15 minutes to go, my bad. As usual, like the Radley outcome, the Roosters culprits will come out squeaky clean and NFA will be taken.

Don’t see much difference between this and Ravalawa’s one other than this was high and wasn’t even a penalty.

 

[MarkD]

I would agree with that. Our bottom 3 would be Kerr, JP and Burns not in that order and in a very stacked field. Vaughan looked sluggish too as did Lawrie for the first time this season.

Can’t agree on Duff.... His attitude to D is terrible.

 

[Forbes Creek Dragons]

Can’t agree on Duff.... His attitude to D is terrible.

He was pretty good yesterday. The way we defended yesterday it’s hard to blame the outside backs even we were so compressed there is no way we can slide that fast and not have misses with outside backs like theirs. He made a few good takes and was our only spark late. I’m on the fence about Dufty.

 

[Illusion]

I would agree with that. Our bottom 3 would be Kerr, JP and Burns not in that order and in a very stacked field. Vaughan looked sluggish too as did Lawrie for the first time this season.

I for one don't see the love for Kerr , said this last year is ok but not someone we build our forwards around ..... There are better players than him ....

 

[Forbes Creek Dragons]

I for one don't see the love for Kerr , said this last year is ok but not someone we build our forwards around ..... There are better players than him ....

He’s looked good at second row but was terrible yesterday.

 

[Dragonslayer]

As for selections I think most people are overlooking the biggest mistake of all. Blake Lawrie. I know he only received a cork but he didn't look at all ready to be back. Haven't seen Blake's stats but they would be miserable, and he had zero impact in an area where we could have matched it with the Roosters if we serious. He was rushed back in whereas the club were careful to not rush back Hunt. Makes little sense to me.

Lawrie:
Played 50 mins
12 runs 130m (Vaughan 14 runs 115m)
30 pcm
28 tackles 0 missed (1 ineffective)

A little down on pcm but otherwise his stats were ok.

 

[TruSaint]

Gutted with the result, and a reminder that the top teams are so much deeper in their talent pool.

I do hope that our coach persists with Bird at 6.

 

[matPORTS]

My take:

First of all I agree with the opinion that yesterday was our first real hiding against a genuine premiership threat (even though they may have injuries to key players racking up), and we need to look at that on its merits (the losses against the Sharks & Warriors could have swung in our favour).

I'm not sold on the late positional changes prior to kick off, and nor was I sold on yesterdays game plan. While I'll compliment the coaching staff for 'trying something' (which is much more than we've seen in the past seven years), this wasn't the game to be doing that. Had Ben Hunt been ready to go, okay that's a different story (looking forward to him coming back on deck).

Our 'attacking weapons' (and that is probably an over compliment for some here) unfortunately are very rocks and diamonds - Dufty, Lomax, Rava, Norman.

Our forwards continue to try hard - particularly Mac, Sims, Fui, the bench warmers. Blocker and Vaughan need to step up further.

For the first 20 minutes and about the last 10 minutes (when we were forcing errors and repeat sets), we were arguably the better team.

An observation on the other side - Joseph Manu could easily play number one for any other club in the competition in the process of a re-build looking for a full back. He was brilliant after Tedesco went off. While I'm trying to stay away from the 'Dufty no love' bandwagon, this is probably the kind of player we need to be searching for in the market for 2022 and beyond (Ramsay and others are not ready to step up to the task of full back yet).

Overall - The top five as they sit now are the 'contenders' group. We are in the 'pretenders' group which are positions 6-12 (the 'wooden spoon' group is obviously positions 13-16). There is still a chance that teams can fluctuate in and out of these groups (we still have a long way to go including an origin period - teams can improve or get worse and how sustainable some teams injury lists are remains to be seen as well).

 

[Slippery Morris]

Very disappointing effort yesterday as Roosters were decimated by injuries and still outplayed Saints. The sin binning played a huge role but the tries the Roosters scored were pretty soft and there is no excuse for that. I was still confused how Bird's try was disallowed but hey that had no bearing as Saints scored straight after anyway but again shows how nit picky the VR is when it comes to Saints. What a joke. Anyway it saved Saints for losing by a bigger margin as Chooks would have have more time to snag another try.

At the start of the season everyone would have marked this game as a loss. Saints could have won this with the chooks injuries, but with all the changes Hook made maybe the thinking behind it. Lets try some stuff for this game as it will be a good time to see what happens. A win would be a huge bonus. A loss would be expected anyway.

It's the next 2 games Saints cannot afford to lose and will be key. Winning the next 2 games keeps them into the top 8 before the dreaded State of Origin when all teams will struggle and that would be the aim for sure. If Saints beat all the other sides out of the top 6 (Souths, Panthers, Chooks, Storm, Eels and Raiders), it will guarantee top 8 for sure so they cannot afford to lose these next 2. Saints beat Eels which made up the Sharks loss but then lost to the Warriors who surprise surprise had a faultless game each season which happens to be against Saints the last 2 years.

Hunt is back and hopefully the JDB will be over or close to it this week if not definitely next week which will be huge for Saints. Not saying JDB will come in and make things happen but roster will be closer to being settled with him in or out. 2 seasons and 9 rounds later for this to stop lingering. We may see a suprise new recruit pending the JDB result.