Probably should put my thoughts elsewhere and elaborate a little more... but the Roosters were stretching the sh*t out of Illawarra. Those early shifts were punching holes in the Dragons which they could do little about, considering their strengths were in the middle. It wasn't until the exact moment the rain came and the Roosters shifts were too difficult that the Dragons looked mildly capable of competing in the match (if you take out the obvious Brett Morris run through the 6th tier).
We'd have beaten them with Payten in the side to orchestrate the attack. I don't think most of you guys (with the exception of Hybrid and a few others [sorry if i can't remember names]) realise how important his play was to our attacking structure.
Even so, we'd have beaten them any way if we weren't trashed from that Roosters game, and the following harsh match in Canberra.
Illawarra held on against us. If Farah doesn't bugger that kick up, they stay on 6, even taking into account our inability to muster much attack. If Marshall doesn't go out on the full, they don't have a free shot at FG. Compare our efforts to charge down half a dozen attempts against the Roosters to not having the fuel to even consider one against the Dragons. Were we fit, we'd have slaughtered them. We had two realistic chances all game and scored 2 trys. They couldn't compete when the going got real... as it was, we just didn't have any thing left to throw at them that which we did at the Roosters.
As it was all year... we and the Roosters were the best teams, under normal conditions, to win a premiership. By normal conditions, i mean an even head to head battle with common weather conditions. We had the attack and the bollocks to outscore them, and were undeniably doing it, even as f**ked as we were. It's hard to deny we wouldn't have beaten them with a fit and firing squad, considering we went within 1 point walking wounded.
The Roosters were defending aggressively and pulling the Dragons all over the park until it got wet. On legit trys, with normal goal kicking, it should have been 12-0 at half time. That's a huge lead to the Roosters in normal conditions, especially considering they don't seem to start playing till the second half. The previous two occasions in 2010, they'd lost, narrowly, because their halves had been pressured in the middle. That wasn't occurring this time with the early shifts and arcing runs.
Until it rained and these tactics became impossible, I thought the Roosters would win, counter to my pre-game thoughts that the Roosters halves would get done by aggressive defence.
I've never said this before, and it's harsh... but Illawarra are the only disappointing premiers I can remember watching. It's a shame as pre-rain, it was looking like a classic.
zzzzzzzz *slept like a baby on the way to a grand final* hehe
