LOL at Pou pou. I think it would have been much more frustrating watching on tele. At the ground it felt like we were part of that Manly-Parra history. I enjoyed the day, and still think we can go alright. If I was watching on tele I would have been throwing stuff around the room.
This is a different team to the Parra teams of the last few years and I don't know why people are surprised at the way we play tbh. This team has a lot of kids who won the lower-grade comps, and they did it without having to dig too deep. They were too good for the other lower-grade teams. Hagan's Newcastle sides also played with that "you score one, we score two" mentality. So the week-to-week battle and the ability to be up for the entire 80 minutes was always going to be a struggle. This doesn't mean we can't win the comp. It's just a different way of getting there.
The comparison to '05 is interesting though, because it shows how the two teams differ. In '05 we really built into a solid unit. We had a structure that allowed us to turn the screws on teams so that we would run over the top of them by the end of the game. But as we saw this didn't help us for the big games when teams stood up to us.
This side is based more around natural ability. Sure, they haven't really put together a consistent 80 minute performance yet, but neither did Penrith in '03 - until the Grand Final, a game in which they played with much more intensity than any other game that year. We can make it to the second-last week of the season (and possibly even the GF) on natural talent alone, but we need something extra to win it.
Have we left it too late to really aim up find that bit of extra tenacity that we need? Possibly, and possibly this side won't blossom until next year. But the good thing is that we have a tough few games ahead. Our draw might be the biggest aid to our cause, as it gradually prepares us for Finals Football.
And we definitely need our senior forwards back on the park. The guys that step up from Prems are good players, but they aren't Premiership winning material yet. We might be able to carry one of them for big games, but no more.