Titans Game Thread

[aqua_duck]

Very disappointing performance.
Rogers is the worst player in the NRL period, I would take Tim Winitana, Ben Kusto, Joe Williams, Brad Tighe, Reegan Tanner over Rogers. His defence is awful, discipline is awful and kicking game is even worse. He was just about the Titans best player.
De Gois was a big disappointment. I honestly expected alot more, missed tackles, his distribution was average ande was lucky to get away with that knock on 5m out from his own line in the 1st half. If this form continues I'd like to see what Ndaira can do.
Ben Cross is massively over rated. Dropped balls, pushed passes, missed tackles. That try Brad meyers scored was the most pathetic bit of defence I've seen in a long time, even more disappointing the players he beat, Cross, De Gois and Kidley, 3 of our most highly paid players.
McManus and uate were very quiet. Uate had massive problems under the high ball and I think is over confident. He needs to learn that he doesnt need to jump 10 ft in the air and catch it AFL style, and McManus had his worst ever game in 1st grade

 

[Matt23]

Our fitness looked crap...as usual :roll:

 

[Dutchy]

Rogers is not a five-eighth, and Mullen is not a half. We had no direction in attack for a lot of the game, and we couldn't get out of our own half to save ourselves

I said in another thread the perfect combo for Newcastle is 6 Mullen 7 Dureau and I got flamed.

 

[Radioactive Man]

Mad Dog was quiet today as well, looked a bit worse for wear at the end of the game as well.

 

[aqua_duck]

I actually wouldn't mind a spine of:
1.Gidley
6.Mullen
7.Dureau
9.Ndaira

Would give us so many more options, Ndaira from what I've seen has a decent kicking game out of dummy half, much better than De Gois, and Dureau is 15 times the player Ben Rogers is period.
Might lose abit in defence but Rogers and De Gois were pretty inept defensively today

 

[CJG 182]

Dutchy, you're 100% right about the combination.

Unfortunately people don't like to mention Dureau because everytime they do Karmawank comes in and knocks his rocks off to whinging and bitching about how bad Dureau is. It ruins a lot of conversation... and probably keyboards.

 

[Spike]

I didn't notice Rogers was out there until he kicked the ball out on the full
Uate is still a myth imo

 

[Danish Moo Cow]

I didn't notice Rogers was out there until he kicked the ball out on the full
Uate is still a myth imo

Yet only one winger had a hand in gifting 3 trys to the other team?

Oh well.

 

[IanG]

Not happy boys. I'm f**kin' filthy.

Leading 14-0 at one point then itr was just more of the same sh*t. Clocking off and going to sleep after getting a good buffer. If Brian Smith wants to shot them down in flames for something then that's one thing for starters.

Really I'm sick to death of it. Just like the Cowboys game lats year when we led 30-0 at half time, then let them back into it.

Did the heat play a role in things? Maybe but that's no excuse. Handling and defence after racking up the lead left alot to be desired.

In fact I left the club with 10 minutes to go cuz I was worried I'd throw something at the TV set.

 

[God-King Dean]

lolRogers.

 

[Adsy]

I think a few of our better or more senior players looked a little short on match fitness. I think this could be why Gidley was so quiet.

Seriously did Rogers touch the ball in the first 40 mins? Definately didnt in the first 30 and thats when we jumped to a 14 - 0 lead. In the end the pressure of running the whole team got to Mullo and he lost faith in every one else and started just tucking it under the arm and running. Which is a shame cause he put patop and housten through great holes early on in the game

 

[Super Sub]

That was the worst game we have played since 2007, what a disappointment.

Rogers has to go, he added nothing to the team today and only made it harder for us to claw our way back into the game with pointless penalties, poor tackling and a seriously below par kicking game.

Scotty needs to come back I think, what annoys me is that Rogers got the spot for round one in the first place while pretty much all of the progress that Scotty made in 2008 seems to have been forgotten. He played his behind off last year and then Rogers takes his spot off the form of one trial match. What a joke, Let Scotty organize the team so Mullen and Gidley can run the show the way they are used to.

Apart from that it was a pretty poor game from everyone, Mullen and Gids did their best with very little support. Uate was so bad under the high ball I was scared to watch whenever they kicked it up there, he doesn't appear to be that coordinated, he just leaps up hoping for the best without any real footy catching technique at all.

What really stinks about this is that we were dominant for half an hour, line breaks aplenty and good meters from everyone and then after they got that first try the flood-gates opened up and we were buried. There was just no intensity from us after that, we need to do what we did last year, do everything at the end of the game with the same intensity as we did at the start of the game.

Anyway I'd rather have a poor first up effort because it can easily be fixed, if we started playing like this later on in the season when we need to play well to make the finals then we won't cut it, this way at least Smithy can whip them into shape in the first few rounds.

 

[Alex28]

I think one game is too early to write off De Gois - I'd put it down to new team/rustiness.

The key positions really should be:

1. Gidley

6. Mullen
7. Dureau

9. De Gois

Why Rogers continues to be considered a NRL quality player I do not know. Rugby League Week got it sadly wrong - he is the worst buy of the year.

 

[perverse]

wow.. the team played so badly i don't even know where to start. i'm filthy about just how poor we were. usually i'd cop a 14 point loss to the tits up there no worries.. but not the way we played.

1. Gidley - bad game. will improve... but had a very poor off season and it shows.
2. Uate - terrible under the high ball... but we all knew this. not many wingers would have scored the try he scored (he carried bailey over the line... with 2 other blokes too). is he worth it? i dunno...
3. Sau - i didn't think he played too bad really. was great work to draw 4 blokes for uates try and aside from that i thought he was pretty solid.
4. Mad Dog - barely in the match. did well to set up our last try.
5. McManus - worst game i've ever seen him play. bar none.
6. BEN f**kING ROGERS - get him off the field. immediately. i didn't realise just how abd he can be. walsh and dureau are 10 times the option he is on the field.
7. Mullen - still not a halfback. tried hard... but not a halfback.
8. Tolar - had a decent start to the game.. then i barely noticed him.
9. De Gois - possibly my biggest disappointment. had an extremely ordinary game.
10. Cross - went ok... but nothing special. obviously didn't deal with the conditions well and had a poor start... however he came good and got through some work. still need more out of him.
11. Simpson - as has been previously stated in the thread... he's looking old. i can only remember him taking 3 or 4 hitups... and they were mediocre.
12. Paterson - needs to lift his workrate. his orders are possibly quality over quantity this year though.. and when he did chime in, both offense and defense, it was quality.
13. Taia - was good i thought. we really seem to miss him when he's off the field.

14. Hilder - i think he's wasted on the bench, and after de gois' performance today i'd almost put him as starting hooker next week. can get through a mountain of quality work and has good service from dummy half.
15. Houston - i actually thought he went well from the front row. probably my pick of the forwards today. always seemed to geth is nose over the advantage line.
16. Faaoso - big metres when he ran it. solid defensively. our best impact forward option by far. earned his keep today.
17. Ciraldo - ciral-who? did he touch the ball once?

all in all bitterly disappointed. rogers is not a 5/8th option... and mullen IS NOT A HALFBACK AND HE NEVER WILL BE.

EVER.

HE WILL NEVER BE A HALFBACK.

 

[Whats Doing]

It was f4cking hot out there today but no excuses.

We dominated the first 30 minutes, look like world beaters and then took the foot off the throat.

We tired badly in the forwards and let in some soft tries.

Uate had a shocker as did McManus and Rogers. De Gois needs to lift his game as his passing was very ordinary.

The backs didn't see the ball in space and we were dominated by Prince and the Rat.

We will get better with more match condition but even after one game, changes are needed.

It was good to catch up with Pika and Serc.

 

[macavity]

bold AND underline

should have been caps and italics if you really meant it.

 

[Alex28]

Didn't Meyers stroll past Cross to score? He was pretty poor today. There wasn't much out there today to give much heart about the rest of the season - probably only Junior Sau...the rest were quite poor.

 

[Karmawave]

How's that McMinus going for us?

LOL

He's never convinced me either.

Ordinary with a capital O.

 

[IanG]

So where to from here?

Hope this isn't what we can expect for the season

 

[perverse]

So where to from here?

Hope this isn't what we can expect for the season

they need to have a long, hard look at themselves in the mirror. they also need a halfback.

but the forwards need to go forward and we need to stop dropping the ball. plain and simply, we got the little things completely wrong and it cost us. it was a miracle we only lost by 14 points.