The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

[Mr Red]

the good:
1. hmmm well we won.. i think though the tigers simply ran out of steam after several "grand finals" getting to this game.
2. running from dummy half and the quick play the balls in the second half... got the tigers back pedalling in defence and stopped them rushing up like they were in the first half
3. the form of the entire forward pack.. smith another blinder, creagh, costigan all went well.
4. the back three - boyd, morris and nightingale - without doubt the best back three in the comp... all had great games.

the bad:
1. Soward yet again, sure he kicked the field field goal but apart from that nothing much - missed tackles, bad defensive reads and a poor kicking game overall.
2. backline looked very disjointed - this was because the defence was rushing up, and this is where a smart half or five eighth should put in a little grubber or chip kick to get some doubt in the defence.. didnt happen
3. youngs play at dummy half was atrocious ... ran we he should pass and pass when he should run.. that forward pass was a shocker.

the ugly:
1. weyman's injury is getting worse, he really struggled tonight. wasnt as effective due to this.
2. losing both costigan and smith next season - we would have been in big trouble without them yet again... and hunt coming back isnt the answer..

 

[whitey]

Hi mate,

Shaun White here from Ch 9, in Sydney, I'm on the hunt for Dragons supporters for a story I'm doing tonight, if you can help me, or put me in contact with some supporters, that would be fantastic, if not no probs.

My number is (02) 9965 2196 or (02) 9965 2170

Cheers.

 

[saint-colesy]

What exactly are you after?

 

[juanfarkall]

The Good: We won.
The Bad: A punctured tyre on the DoubtLander this morning
The Ugly: The thought of driving back to Brisbane today with a spacesaver wheel

The Redemption: TopChick Jess at Mayfield SuperCheap who found Argy's at Glendale to repair the puncture as I type.

Soon enough the Ivan & Mick Reunion Tour will be back on the road at more than 80 km/hr.

 

[blacklock]

i felt we played well. two areas we need to be careful of....

1) penalties: we gave away a few penalties from the tigers end of the field which in every case lead to their tries (the so called indirect markers and then the late "hit"). Our defense is great. We dont need to offer teams a way out.

2) the fringe: every time robert lui had the ball and came dummying to the outside, there was space and we were backtracking. We covered them well, however as we saw in the last minute... the fringe always means we have to concede ground to shut down the attacking move.

That aside we went well. It was a hard game and definately tougher than what the roosters had to face. The tigers wanted it badly.

oh and a third point.... kicking to the corners is good for field position, but a few bombs would work a treat! Sometimes we were maybe 30 metres out and chipped it to the back field. A bomb would achieve the same result in addition to giving the defense more time to rush through.

go dragons!!

 

[hardbaby]

oh and a third point.... kicking to the corners is good for field position, but a few bombs would work a treat! Sometimes we were maybe 30 metres out and chipped it to the back field. A bomb would achieve the same result in addition to giving the defense more time to rush through.

Yeah I thought that as well. Popping it into the corner and smashing the next 3 play the balls guarantees good field position. But a well placed bomb landing just short of the try line should achieve the same result or better.

 

[Gaba]

I dont know why people are disappointed or say the roosters will put on points if the dragons played like that , the tigers played better then they did against the roosters.

The roosters like the dragons had a tough game against the tigers, roosters had 2 reasonable easy games , which they havent been tested.

The roosters have struggled to put on points against the dragons.due to the dragons defence can be maintained for 80 mins

Imo the dragons are in front of the roosters , due to the tigers game being a good workout last night

where the roosters had the tigers 3 weeks ago

 

[living the dream]

That game was so unconvincing.. neither was the Manly game, in my mind the Roosters should be favourites for the grand-final.

However despite playing crap.. we won.. and next week if a few balls stick, maybe we will get some points on the board early and go on with it, I couldnt believe it when I watched Cooper drop the ball twice tonight and us let in easy tries.. talk about finals pressure.. we were a shadow of ourselves...but next week the pressure is on everyone, its GF-Time!

Mate i have been looking at your posts quite closely and tbh your almost \impossible to please.I thought you guys played well last night against spirited opposition.I am a tigers supporter & have never posted on a rival forum but you need to lighten up.

Congratulations to all on your victory & good luck for next week.

 

[TheRev]

Mate i have been looking at your posts quite closely and tbh your almost \impossible to please.I thought you guys played well last night against spirited opposition.I am a tigers supporter & have never posted on a rival forum but you need to lighten up.

I take your point and I knew it could be perceived that way when I wrote that post, but unlike Tigers fans who recently got to see 2005, my finals memories are 92, 93, 96, 99 & 05 losses, its very hard to take these games lightly.

The Dragons guts, defense and determination is there in spades last night (like it was in 2009), and last night we played as well as we did in 2009, we just happened to win this time since we are a little wiser & luckily popped the first field-goal... but like a lot of Dragons fans I know we were lucky to win that game, we barely sent a left-hand raid at you guys all night, we had no gel in our attack, we didnt adapt to being rushed, and we got lucky, and thats tough to watch.

Luckily we have a chance to improve for next week in a pressure cooker of a game for both sides.

 

[living the dream]

I take your point and I knew it could be perceived that way when I wrote that post, but unlike Tigers fans who recently got to see 2005, my finals memories are 92, 93, 96, 99 & 05 losses, its very hard to take these games lightly.

The Dragons guts, defense and determination is there in spades last night (like it was in 2009), and last night we played as well as we did in 2009, we just happened to win this time since we are a little wiser & luckily popped the first field-goal... but like a lot of Dragons fans I know we were lucky to win that game, we barely sent a left-hand raid at you guys all night, we had no gel in our attack, we didnt adapt to being rushed, and we got lucky, and thats tough to watch.

Luckily we have a chance to improve for next week in a pressure cooker of a game for both sides.

Excellent reply,good luck you guys have every chance.

 

[smi962]

Tiger's tactics were excellent in defence by blitzing our halves in the first half. We looked totally disjoint, but the good thing was that the halves remained relatively well composed; didn't make any stupid errors that would cost us the game. This was what would have happened back in 2005.

I thought they recitifed it somewhat by playing slightly deeper in the 2nd half. We could have got more reward, however, Cooper made some uncharacteristic errors in promising positions.

Obviously, Roosters will probably try a similar tactic by reducing the time given to our halves/backs. Hopefully, we can adopt tactics to deal with this.

 

[Hollywood Dragon]

Tell you what was good, the electric atmosphere when the dragons ran out to the music "the saints are coming".......blairing music and dragons fans so loud as the boys came on to the field....bloody fantastic!

Anyone else have chills at this point?

 

[St-Benny'sDiciple]

Another good was that despite WB saying 2 weeks ago that if they want to give us a gift 2 points we are happy to take them" this game we didnt and chose to keep the pressure on. Once it resulted in a cheap turmover but the other resulted in a 6 pointer.

 

[j0nesy]

I'd say it would have been a different story if we were ahead on the scoreboard. I was still s little surprised to be honest.

 

[TheRev]

Another good was that despite WB saying 2 weeks ago that if they want to give us a gift 2 points we are happy to take them" this game we didnt and chose to keep the pressure on. Once it resulted in a cheap turmover but the other resulted in a 6 pointer.

Yeah behind by 6, im not interested in taking 2 points, we know we had to score tries. If were in front and in a GF id be more interested in the 2, as long as its a relatively easy kick, because you have to be honest, Soward kicks some cracking goals at times, but he is a 72% shooter (13th in the league).