Titans Game Thread

[Karmawave]

The main problem was the defensive effort surely?

Dumb mistakes and poor defence.

How does chopping and changing certain positions change the fact that Brad Meyers of all people runs over front rowers to score tries?

How does the predictable calls for replacing a hot/cold Ben Rogers ( who was just plain awful today ) with one of the NRL's biggest speedbumps solve the fact the defensive effort was truly awful?

Will be interesting to see the changes, especially after Smith went on record this week saying that Walsh was one of the 3 shadow players and not Supersub?

At the end of the day, teams who have Top 4 aspirations simply can't defend that way, and make mistakes that way.

Its only early, first week, but there were signs there today that need to be fixed ASAP, or it may be a long long year.

 

[Adsy]

We only lost by 14 today cause Gold Coast didnt turn up until the 30th minute.

 

[Frederick]

Haven't seen the game, not going to watch the game. But looking at the stats on NRL.com...did Ciraldo get on the field at all? Or did Smith operate with a 3 man bench?

 

[Frederick]

Wait, nevermind. He made 13 tackles, but didn't touch the ball in attack once

 

[perverse]

The main problem was the defensive effort surely?

Dumb mistakes and poor defence.

How does chopping and changing certain positions change the fact that Brad Meyers of all people runs over front rowers to score tries?

How does the predictable calls for replacing a hot/cold Ben Rogers ( who was just plain awful today ) with one of the NRL's biggest speedbumps solve the fact the defensive effort was truly awful?

Will be interesting to see the changes, especially after Smith went on record this week saying that Walsh was one of the 3 shadow players and not Supersub?

At the end of the day, teams who have Top 4 aspirations simply can't defend that way, and make mistakes that way.

Its only early, first week, but there were signs there today that need to be fixed ASAP, or it may be a long long year.

i'd be stoked to see walsh on the field next week. anyone but rogers. and you're 100% right in the fact that the defensive effort was (at times) shocking, and cost us the match. the fact is... there's no way to change that. there's no doubt it was close to our best forward pack on the field today... and the very same forwards were going great last year and playing really good football.

however, i'm starting to miss royal and white already. i think we might need a bit of taufua next week. we're a better team than what showed up today.. but our forwards had no direction, our defense was atrocious at times and we just kept on giving them back the ball.. over and over and over and over again. the common denominator in our whole performance was attitude. our attitude stunk.

 

[Hanscholo]

Yet to see the game but im shocked Rogers was kicking.

 

[perverse]

Yet to see the game but im shocked Rogers was kicking.

he only kicked 2 or 3 times the entire match... but they sure were doozys.

 

[Yosh]

Waow I am scared to watch the game. How do you throw away a game when you dominated nearly half of it? Anyways room for improvement, BSmith is known for slow

starts aint he?

 

[Stuzmeister]

This has got to be the most frustrating game. HOLD ON TO THE BALL

That sums up my opinion on the game.
Hold on to the ball, get rid of rogers and put mullo back to 6.
IMO we didn't have a halfback out there today. We had a 5/8 playing in the 7 jersey and a hack trying to play 5/8 in the 6.

 

[Hanscholo]

First game up. No favours to us really starting on the GC, our first few games are extremely tough. The NRL policy of not playing day games in QLD during March seems to have been forgotten, and 1pm...nice work.

Uate has massively suspect defence, we all know this but unless he gets a chance to improve in the top grade I doubt he will ever meet his potential and he is probably worth investing in. Rogers, can be brilliant, and can have off games, certainly I am surprised he had kicking responsibility at all...his kicking has never been good.

I watched the Souths Roosters game this afternoon. Souths were looking great, the roosters look like they were playing their first game for the year. I guess in round one you can forgive an away loss, in the heat against a very strong home team. Looking forward to watching the match.

 

[bluesbreaker]

How does the predictable calls for replacing a hot/cold Ben Rogers ( who was just plain awful today ) with one of the NRL's biggest speedbumps solve the fact the defensive effort was truly awful?

I dunno, but i'm pretty sure he couldn't do much worse. Rogers let two tries just stroll past him today. For someone who people rate as lock, he's one sh*t defender.

 

[IanG]

What was in their water bottles when they had their 20 Minute First Half Drinks Break?

 

[Joker's Wild]

How's that McMinus going for us?

LOL

Won a bucket-load on Uate to be first tryscorer though. Money in the bank, that guy.

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

Oh well.

Your single synaps is showing mate. Broken records are less repetitive and predictable than you

 

[jb2]

Mullo, Pato and Gids were reasonalbe today, but I was just absolutely appauled with todays performance all in all.
Watched the game on Fox sports and the first 30 minutes was reasonable in patches particularly in defence.
They were up 14 - 0 and the game was there to be won !

From there they just completely clocked off.
It seems that unless the opposing team is really giving it to them from kickoff they just have no passion or drive at all, based on 2008.

I did like a comment Gorden Tallis made at the end of the game saying that Gidley would be great at number 6 as he would be so much more involved than at fullback but then Brian Smith could not use the constant 6 & 7 merry go round with the likes of Mullo, Deraeu, Rogers and who ever this Walsh guy is.
( I have only ever seen Walsh play once in first grade game but all he seemed to do was pass the ball to someone else as quickly as humanly possible, so not sure if he is going to be a goer or not )

Then maybe a fullback option could be Wes.

Next weeks Monday night game against Cronulla will be a really hard one especially if they turn up anything like they did today

 

[Serc]

First game up. No favours to us really starting on the GC, our first few games are extremely tough. The NRL policy of not playing day games in QLD during March seems to have been forgotten, and 1pm...nice work.

I had a massive rage about this when the time was originally scheduled...

Let me put it this way - today could've been much worse, the conditions (temp, humidity) were below average for what they normally are in March. In fact, aside from it raining (to get things cooler), you couldn't get much better conditions for playing footy this time of year aside from a cold front passing through yesterday and getting the really dry air behind it today (which is a rare event in March as opposed to August)

Anyway enough weather rambling - I've played touch footy during the day just the once (and never again!) in the summer months here and you run out of puff so much quicker, the difference is amazing! And before you think I'm about to say we wouldn't be as prepared for it, conditions in March in Newcastle are not THAT different to SEQ, a little bit hotter/more humid on average.

But all my contradictions above aside...I still think the conditions were a significant factor in our lethargy compared to the Titans, their little players were loving it as we tired from what I could see in the stands.

Speaking of which, I'm not going to comment on much else before I watch the full replay but a few things I actually noticed about the football from the stands today

Mullo did the best he could while playing in the wrong position (AGAIN)

Gidley was underdone as I expected given his off season, so I'm not gonna be too harsh on him.

And when we were 14-0 up, it was an odd feeling - wasn't confident at all as I hadn't seen anything particularly impressive to that point. THEN the Titans woke up and the rest is history of course.

 

[chinorocks]

Just watched the game as I had to work today. Most of my thoughts have already been covered.

1. Rogers is a bum. Who cares if Scotty is a speedbump (which I don't think he necessarily is) he sh*ts all over this guy. He can't kick, he can't tackle and when we we're actually on top, he had no interest in touching the ball, ever.

2. We need more props. We had NO go forward early in the second half, kicked from inside our 30 at least 3 times. Houston was alright, but I'm not convinced he's a prop. After Tolar and Cross there's not much else. Heaven forbid what will happen if one of them gets injured. if anything Simmo should go to prop before Houston as Simmo isn't as dangerous out wide as he once was.

3. As soon as Wes or Vuna is back Uate will be dropped. He is a complete liability defensivly and doesn't involve himself in attack enough to make up for it. It was hot as all hell out there today, yet our wingers did jack sh*t dummy half running to help out our forwards.

All in all it was a very very average performance. When you consider we we're almost fullstrength (only Wes would get picked by everyone here of the players unavailiable) it doesn't look good for the rest of the year. We need more forwards and we need a halfback, desperately.

 

[IanG]

As I said I left the club with 10 minutes to go cuz I was worried that I'd throw my empty ginger beer bottles at the TV. Just bloody frustrating.

Hope Brian Smith has a thing or two to say about getting a good lead and then clocking off. No when you get a good lead you keep going while you still have the momentim. Put them to the sword. Just like that game in Townsville several years ago when the Knights led 48-0 at half time

 

[Sacrolishes]

1st game of the season..It was dissapointing we didnt hit the ground running.

Ben Cross has always been a let down in my opinion..for a guy that size, he should be brusing defences not getting driven back 5m's each time..And his brain farts with the offloads..he has to learn when to do it safely...NOT with 4 defenders around you!

I dont agree with people sayin Simmo is past!... No way..the man saves our arses countless times in defence..and will put his hand up to make hit up at the 1st and 80th mins of the game!!

Congrats to tolar..he has stepped up a level..team was on front foot when he was on..lost without him..but steadied with him back!

not going to say too much about everyone else, except yeh Rodges..sh*t man!!..what the f**k was that for your first hit out in new colours.. He'll be there most likely cause of smith being stubborn (Pleading to be wrong) But sh*t!!

As everyne has said. I too believe we were lossed without Dureau.. He steadies Mullo's game... Mullo with dureau next to him, can relax and take advantage of more time! Both can control one side of the ruck and set up backline plays on either side..That's sh*tted me the most..we had no set plays.. compared to Goldy who had decoys and second man's running left right and centre!

Bring back Dureau..Karma i dont give a sh*t about the tackles he incompetes..AT LEAST HE HAS A GO...THE HEART ON THE GUY IS A GIFT FROM THE FOOTY GODS....and sometheing the boys could've had....let alone id would have LOVED seeing Scotty kicking for Uate in final minutes accross field rather the Rodges..would have landed fair in Uate's lap haha!!

Ok im done..hec..bit longer then i wanted!

 

[antonius]

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.

Tolar went off after the first drinks break with damaged Knee, club doc thinks it may be a similar injury to Gidleys last year (cartilage deficit) which would mean an extended stint on sideline. He's having scans today according to the Herald.
I think my prediction about Rodgers may be way off base, he was horrible. Mullen 6 Dureau 7.
Team absolutely got cooked both by the Titans, and the weather, not much else to say really.

 

[Jono078]

Jesus Christ...

Our front row looks shocking all of a sudden...

I guess we have Taufua and Wicks to come in but Tolar is a bif loss.