We had a couple of trys disallowed, one of parra's was freakish. I think on balance the score flattered parra. I think the knights were the better side for the most part. The difference in the end was Mateo who had an outstanding game 10/10 performance from him. He gave Dureau and Mullen a never ending nightmare with his running and offloading as we expected, and he skipped around Wicks to setup Finch's try.
If mateo wasnt out there we would have won by 12+ imo.
Not withstanding those points we did make a lot of errors late. Patterson, Fa'aoso and Lulia with some tough drops late in either normal or extra time that were costly. If Patterson holds onto the ball in the 77th minute we win, its that simple. Mullo grazing the post for the winning field goal late as well.
To me that was our first honest hard hit out for the year, the other games lacked intensity, that was a much higher quality game, especially the first half. The second half was sloppy, the ball seemed to be wet and both sides made error after error with the ball.
The highlights for me were how we gathered out composure when we were losing the ruck and got dominance back. Also how we managed to get outside Parra often, how much space we created for Lulia. How we hung into the match when it was looking bad for us. And last but not least, our kicking game was absolutely sensational. Mullen made Smith look 3rd rate.
Im upset we didnt bag 2 points because we all know how valuable wins are however you get them. I am very happy however with the progress of the side to date, they are looking like top 8 material, and i didnt expect that.
