Trial games ‘26

[Old dog]

Very poor game from Knights, definitely need Ponga, Sharpe and Gags to play Rd1

 

[Wizardman]

Trials are the ultimate optical illusion in rugby league. You are not going as well as it may seem nor are you going as badly as it seems.

You guys knew the two major problems coming into the first trial.

1. Building a halves combination.
2. Having some effective middles.

Here is the issue. Both of these issues take a lot of time to fix.

With the halves issue, you guys are basically starting from scratch. It is going to take some time to gel. Things in this area should improve as the season goes on.

Im less optimistic about your mids issue though. Your recruitment should have tried to get a good mid. Your only good one sadly is Saifiti. The rest of them are a combination of players playing out of position to fill that role as well as some youngsters that won't truly be ready this year.

Hope you guys make some strides forward this year.

 

[slotmachine]

With the halves issue, you guys are basically starting from scratch. It is going to take some time to gel. Things in this area should improve as the season goes on.

They might not if the coach wants to play Brown on his non-preferred side.

 

[Wizardman]

They might not if the coach wants to play Brown on his non-preferred side.

Note that I said "should improve", not "will improve". Smith is not Joey, but he is a step up as a player from Cogger and Hastings. I think the Knights will work out a superior flow in the halves to 2025. With the cash splurged there, they would want to be better there.

 

[Knight Tales]

We played the best defensive unit in the game. It is not exactly the end of the world. Would not have hurt if Dom’s try was not called back due to poor attacking reads at the line. The start against a side like this is everything. You have to find a way to put them on the back foot early.

 

[The Axe of Druss]

Trials are the ultimate optical illusion in rugby league. You are not going as well as it may seem nor are you going as badly as it seems.

You guys knew the two major problems coming into the first trial.

1. Building a halves combination.
2. Having some effective middles.

Here is the issue. Both of these issues take a lot of time to fix.

With the halves issue, you guys are basically starting from scratch. It is going to take some time to gel. Things in this area should improve as the season goes on.

Im less optimistic about your mids issue though. Your recruitment should have tried to get a good mid. Your only good one sadly is Saifiti. The rest of them are a combination of players playing out of position to fill that role as well as some youngsters that won't truly be ready this year.

Hope you guys make some strides forward this year.

There is no place for this kind of common sense and non emotional analysis here mate.

 

[mozza91]

So ... who's going halfway across the planet to watch these guys in Vegas?!

Thankfully not me..!

I feel for the poor souls that are. They weren’t worth the 15 minute drive to New Lambton yesterday let alone a 15 hour flight.

 

[perverse]

Trials are the ultimate optical illusion in rugby league. You are not going as well as it may seem nor are you going as badly as it seems.

You guys knew the two major problems coming into the first trial.

1. Building a halves combination.
2. Having some effective middles.

Here is the issue. Both of these issues take a lot of time to fix.

With the halves issue, you guys are basically starting from scratch. It is going to take some time to gel. Things in this area should improve as the season goes on.

Im less optimistic about your mids issue though. Your recruitment should have tried to get a good mid. Your only good one sadly is Saifiti. The rest of them are a combination of players playing out of position to fill that role as well as some youngsters that won't truly be ready this year.

Hope you guys make some strides forward this year.

Yes, the middles are the biggest concern by far. Our recruitment in that area has been straight dogwater. We can fix the backs, I'm not massively worried there - although I'm still uncertain if we have a halfback in the squad or not.

 

[Seage]

Yes, the middles are the biggest concern by far. Our recruitment in that area has been straight dogwater. We can fix the backs, I'm not massively worried there - although I'm still uncertain if we have a halfback in the squad or not.

We apparently have lots of blokes that want to play there. None that actually can.

And our forwards are diabolical. What idiot thought you needed to pull the trigger on a contract extension for Thomas Cant before a ball was kicked? Who were we trying to ward off. And if it is not resigning plodders like that, our strategy just seems to be to recruit B level rugby union players.

 

[The Axe of Druss]

We bought 5x props in the off season in a period where there were no elite middles on the market.

Not sure what else the club could have done for 2026 in that department

 

[Burwood]

The biggest concern is that nothing has changed since last year. Everyone knew that we’d be losing the battle for field position with a forward pack like ours, yet we are still seeing our fullback tackled in the corner 5m out, and then the next 3-4 hitups are our backs running it straight into a set defence and getting smashed trying to make it to the 20. No set plays, no offloads, no variation- just more of the same.

Also really concerning that we have a guy who isn’t a hooker as our starting hooker, being relieved by another guy who isn’t a hooker.

 

[slotmachine]

Will be interesting to see how Mooney goes today (noting the indigenous pack is a bunch of reserve graders).

To my eye he looks more of a finesse player with a bit of skill than a real hard runner.

 

[Yosh]

I'm assuming Holbrook wants Brown to play on the right because Ponga is clearly better on the left. Makes us more dangerous all over the field.

I'm happy enough to give Smith 5 to 6 games as our seven but if he doesn't improve considerably, Sharpe straight into seven for me.

Wonder why we didn't see Matt Arthur play more yesterday. I don't want to see Cant play hooker for us. Yuck.

 

[The Axe of Druss]

I think it's easy to forget that trials are primarily for...well trialing things. Cant going to hooker, Brown playing on the right, etc are things you can't test out anywhere else and it's far preferable to see if it doesn't work in a trial than in the opening minutes of Rd1.

Who knows if we saw much of our long term strategy yesterday, maybe we are as shit as it looked but I'm doubtful

 

[ryan.a87]

Agree

the optimistic side of me says Holbrook knows full well that brown prefers left and smith prefers right. He just want ed to get them out of their comfort zone for 60mins in a “real game scenario “ as they won’t exclusively be on their preferred side all game every game

 

[Knight Tales]

It was a smart move trialling against a strong Doggies team. They will be top four this year. How many times do we win a trial and get false hope, only for it all to fall apart a few weeks later. I know we got locked out but we now know what we are up against.

 

[Zoidberg]

I just saw a clip online of the game (didn’t get to watch it) where Marzhew makes a break down the sideline, passes back to Sandon and we manage to butcher the try. I noticed one of our support players taken out when he could’ve been in a position to get the ball. Looks like we got a penalty for that, but no sin bin? Was there talk of a professional foul?

 

[Nuke]

I know the play you're talking about, however I don't recall there being a penalty awarded to us for that. I could be wrong, though.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Ok so I watched part of the trial v Dragons and thankfully didn’t get a chance to watch the trial v the Dogs. Was it that we were trying a bunch of different and possibly more adventurous plays and they didn’t come off? Did we look like we were playing with an attacking mindset or was it basically AOB ball all over again?

I can be a bit more forgiving if we’re trying stuff and it doesn’t always work rather than not trying anything and basically plodding around for 80 mins each week which we did last year.

 

[perverse]

Ok so I watched part of the trial v Dragons and thankfully didn’t get a chance to watch the trial v the Dogs. Was it that we were trying a bunch of different and possibly more adventurous plays and they didn’t come off? Did we look like we were playing with an attacking mindset or was it basically AOB ball all over again?

I can be a bit more forgiving if we’re trying stuff and it doesn’t always work rather than not trying anything and basically plodding around for 80 mins each week which we did last year.

Not much adventurous about it, it was more like a bunch of plodders that have never met each other trying to make stuff work. You know, the usual basically. It was bitterly disappointing, even with low expectations. Oh, and we got monstered in the middle,