I've just watched the game minus the first 20min:x. I'm still pretty gutted, but calming down slowly. I thought we probably deserved to win that game, we certainly didn't deserve to go down with that scoreline at the end.
First the venting. Crap refereeing: the strip, and the forward passes not called in particular...grrrrr! Crapper commentary; Melbourne this, Melbourne that ...grrrrer!
Now as for Bluey.
The defence looks a lot better. The line speed was good, the line was mostly consistent, the communication was excellent, the work in the tackle was good, good chasing from most at marker, and there was equally good pressure on the kickers. I was pretty pleased with Benry who is adapting to the centre position hand dealt to him, and to some of the other younger players. Godinet and his partners on the left were guilty of not pushing up off the line and he'll need to improve on that, the Storm found us out there. Ta'ai is one of those who doesn't work well from marker. The job isn't finished when you've tackled the guy Ukuma, you need to give the dummy half a hurry-up too.
Errors at the back allowed the game to be lost at the end. I wasn't happy with Inu's dropped ball, but the risky passes for no conceivable gain from both him and Manu (who otherwise had a strong game) were inexcusable. I will concede that if we hadn't had to reshuffle when Locke went down, probably none of this would have happened. Bluey does need to instill in our guys a bit better judgement in these situations. Other than that I thought our errors weren't excessive even with some of the props receiving the ball just before they hit the line.
Attack. I thought it was okay, the forwards made good gains, dummy half running was fairly sharp, kicks were okay but not perfect, and there were some good lines run. I do think Tupou could have pinned his ears back for another in the first half instead of cutting back in, I hope he has enough confidence in himself.
All-in-all I'm not going to blame McClennan for this one. I thought the team looked good.
