The most underated pack

[imported_Roopy4246]

Matt Parsons - was the Dally M prop of the year in 99 playing for the bunnies. His 2000 season and the early part of 2001 was marred by injury, but he is now at his punishing best.

Danny Buderus - The Australian hooker - and rightfully so. Some others run the ball better from dummy half, a few might do more tackles, but no one distributes the ball better and no one else is the complete package that Buderus is. He works his arse off in both attack and defence for 80 minutes most games.

Josh Perry - Josh is big, strong and fast but has lacked confidence in his own ability for a good part of the season. In recent weeks he has started to feel what it is like to dominate opponents, and the big guy likes it. Sending Rodney Howe to Disneyland earned him a suspension, but he learnt that he is the biggest, meanest guy on the field. He has a touch of the Les Boyd about him that will come out in the next few years. He will hopefully control the aggression a bit better.

Steve Simpson - At the start of this season simmo was concentrating on playing no frills football with a very low mistake rate. He was always a workhorse in defence and took the ball up strongly in attack. Since being selected for the country origin team he has grown in stature by the minute. He now regularly breaks the line, offloads etc, and yesterday he ran down the sharks winger. He still has a very low mistake rate but he now has all the skills to go with it.

Ben Kennedy - The hardest worker in the team. Kennedy lost his rep spots this season but will make the kangaroo tour on the form he has been in since missing Australian selection against the kiwis.

Billy Peden - Hasn't had his best season but is putting in when it counts.

Glen Grief - Used to tear the Knights apart when he played for wests years ago. His time at the Knights has been one injury after another but he is in the best form of his career right now. This will be his first and last chance at a grandfinal and he wants it bad.

Clinton O'Brien - Another old prop who wants a title badly. He has had an up and down season, going from being our best prop early in the year to a long spell in first div later on, but is now hitting the sort of form that saw his play SOO a few years ago.

Paul Marquet - For years he was the 'hard man' at the Knights. He played the best football of his life in the 99 finals series for Melbourne, and yesterdays effort was just about his best for the Knights ever. He will play his last game of football next week and wants to leave a winner.

Daniel Abraham - a former fullback who converted to the second row about halfway through the season. He has added a lot of spark to the Knights defence and his try scoring feats are legendary already.

The Sharks pack was rated by many to be in the top few packs in the comp - well - they got their arses kicked last night by the most underated pack in the comp.

 

[Johns07]

I couldnt of said it better myself, Roopy.
I dont think there is a team in the NRL that they havent ran over with our forwards (except Nrth Eagles [but i cant remember why it was we lost to those bastards]
Yet every commemtator, and ex-player etc has critisised our forward pack for some damn reason.

Lets make the 2001 Grand Final a final they wont forget (or the opposition forward pack wont remember. he he he)

 

[imported_Roopy4246]

Well the pack that nearly everone declared was Newcastle's achillies heal at the begining of the season has won us the grandfinal.
The pack has been holding its own against almost everyone for most of the season. The low point of the season for the pack was probably the game against Brisbane in the first round where Grief, O'Brien and Simpson were all injured early and the other guys just couldn't hold a rampaging Brisbane in the second half. After that game its been all up hill with notable performances against Melbourne and the Warriors for the pack.
The finals series has seen the pack blossom. The game against Cronulla was a bruising affair in which Matty Parsons and Josh Perry monstered their more fancied opposites. Martin Lang often looks like he can run through brick walls, well Matty and Josh must form a wall of steel because he never looked like busting them, big Matt buried him.
Danny Buderus is the heart of the forward pack. Some of the big units tend to lack a bit in the mobility and workrate departments and Danny fills that gap for 80 minutes. He doesn't hit hard, but he hits often. Brad Drew looked very dangerous in attack for twenty minutes or so, Danny worked like a Trojan in attack and defence for 80 minutes. I know who I'd rather have.
Simmo is the seasons big improver. I put up a thread on WORL before SOO 2 saying that NSW could do worse than look at Simmo. I was roundly rubbished for the suggestion. I wonder how many see the merits of the lad now, a few more than then I bet. Simmo must be a chance to make the Kangaroo tour.
One amazing story in the Knights pack is Daniel Abraham. He has played like a champion in the forwards for the last few games and, by my reckoning, the grandfinal was about his 13th game as a forward. In the Cronulla game he was all over Preston Campbell like a rash when he was on the field and in the grandfinal he gave the same treatment to Brad Drew. The one on one tackling skills he developed as a fullback are still with him and he is bulking up so fast its frightening. I think he will be prop size by next season, he would already be 105 kg easy. A tackling machine and also a tryscoring marvel. He was averaging over a try a match in reserve grade since switching to the forwards, including scoring a triple in one game.
All the other forwards put their hands up in the grandfinal. Billy Peden, Ken Bennnedy and Matty Parsons were all awesome. Several of the forwars deserved the Clive Churchill medal more than Johns.

 

[imported_Roopy4246]

This thread deserves another run.

The guys have taken their form from the finals series, and built on it.

Daniel Abraham has improved out of sight - and how good is Parsons going. I wouldn't swap him for Webke on current form. The young guys in Newton, Morris and O'Doherty are all getting better by the minute as well.

I heard several times in the off season that the forwards had gained great momentum from winning the grandfinal and were training the house down. Well, the results of all that training are there to see. The guys all look to have improved 20% or more.

The Knights team that got to the finals last season was a great attacking team, with fantastic backs and good, honest forwards. That team has gone missing and been replaced by a team with a pack that could monster the Addams family. Truely scary.