Where are we now?

[TimmyB]

So there was a lot of doom and gloom around a couple of weeks ago. After the limp defeat to Manly, I was starting to feel pretty fatalistic about the season as well.

To say that my outlook has changed sharply would be an understatement. I think we've been really, really solid the last two weeks. I felt our defense was a lot better than the 24 points we laid on. There were two pretty freakish kicks of bombs, one of which (Houston's) was close to impossible to defend. Just a case of being outleapt. The first try came after three repeat sets. To be honest, it was attack that let us down in the first half, not defence.

All in all a pretty good fortnight. I feel if we can do a job on the Doggies, we will have had a pretty good opening two months. Not perfect, but not bad either.

Thoughts?

 

[sando88]

i was shocked to read recently that tigers are one of the best defending teams from kicks

every time a bomb is put up our wingers freak out.. they hardly attempt to jump, they usually wait for it to bounce. this needs to be addressed!

my outlook hasn't really changed. i expected us to lose to manly with all the brett stewart hype, and whilst expecting a penrith win, well we always play sh*t against them. tigers are definitely starting to hit some decent form but, it'll be interesting to see if moltzen (didnt look good) and heighington are alright to play next week. 7 day turn around for both teams so thats good. also ennis could be suspended for the dogs which would be a huge blow! id rather him play and farah wipe the floor with him though lol

i normally like to tip against the team who has strung an unsual amount of wins together lol.. i cant see dogs winning 5 in a row, and i cant see tigers winning 3. but ill stay faithful and be tipping tigers in a solid low scoring game.. 22-12

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

I dunno.

I think we're still in limbo a bit. We've won a couple in a row but haven't been "on" for any length of time in either and we still defend like the '99 Magpies.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

I gotta say too that that was Bryce Gibbs' best game for years. Kept turning up on both sides of the ball and had that bit of mongrel back.

 

[Tigers_are_Pro]

Yeah, last years nuffies fired in a way.

Gibbs is still to undisciplined, but wow. Morris and Gibbs are getting it together.

Payne even played ok to some extent.

Halatau must go however, this man is plain sh*t.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

Yeah, Dene is barely first grade standard any more.

Anyone know if Tim Moltzen in ok, I was at the game and didn't notice him going off near the end until I saw it on TV. Hope he's ok.

If not though, Shannon Gallant was superb in the Magpies game. Made a try saving tackle on a backrower that I won't forget in a hurry. Gallant had to do a 360, chase and got him just before the line, then smacked him into the goalpost for a held-up over the line call. Fabulous.

 

[super_coach]

To wins on a trot and both could have gone the other way lets not get to excited. Okay we are going along alright but any team with players of the quality of Farah,Marshall,Ellis,Lawrence,Galloway and Rhino you would expect to be winning more matches than you loose. Injuries have been kind to us for once but rep season is around the corner and we might be tested than. The good thing with the salary cap bringing most teams together their isn't a team that if we turn up to play we cant beat.

 

[The Rosco]

To be fair, those 2 tries from kicks that the knights scored had a lot of help from the gale that was blowing at the Tigers backs.
Especially in the first try, we seemed to be set to catch the ball ( where it should have landed ), and the massive wind blew it back into the arms of Newcastle player.
Sure, we should have factored in a 40 knot wind . . . .

Anyway, it was a great win.
The whipping boys of the forum played well. Collis,Gibbs,and even(gulp)Morris all did good.

Bring on the dogs. We've got a good record over them recently, and we're in good form.

 

[N.C.]

Collis had a blinder, by his recent standards. I hope he takes a lot out of the game and we see more of his old form in the coming weeks. The list of hat-trick Tigers is not a long one, but he's in pretty good company now that he's on there...

A big factor for us is a more settled halves pairing than we've been accustomed to for some time. If we can keep these two together we'll keep ourselves in the running, as long as Morris sticks to the simple stuff like catching and running and tackling...

I'm not about to declare us top 8 contenders just yet but all our wins this year have involved sustained periods of strong defense and we have on the whole shown quite a bit of grit to get us over the line. The fact is that we could just as easily have lost to the Raiders, Roosters, Storm and Knights - coming from behind on each occasion and only securing the win in the closing period of the game... We've got some fight in us this year, as long as we can hang in there we can win games that last year we'd have given away cheaply. But this does tend to happen for us early in the season, and I'll be checking back later - say late July - before I get too carried away.

In the meantime what I'm really looking forward to is a totally dominant performance where we wipe the floor with our opposition on every play. I really hope we do this against the Eels. To me that is our great test this year. If we can get a good one back from Parra, I'll be pretty satisfied with our season!

 

[tiger_nick]

i didnt get too excited over our first 3 wins. the raiders let us back into the game, the roosters should have put us away in the first half and whilst the storm was a terrific win, it doesnt mean much if you dont back it up.

i was stoked with the win yesterday. even at halftime i wasnt too down. as said newcastles tries werent the usual soft ones and i knew if the penalty count and possession evened up we would be in with a good shot.

i disagree on gibbs. he gave newcastle a penalty that lead to the first try and their fourth. he also missed the tackle on de gois that lead to the first. i liked him off the bench last week, leave him there. halatau continued on his terrible vein of form.

morris was still meh, he stuffed a certain try midway through the second half after an offload. you couldnt see it on tv but we honestly had a four man overlap. he runs it, gets tackled and tries to offload, drops it only 5 meters out from the line.

but fmd i thought payne was great!! put on some massive hits and was actually effective in some hit ups, i thought id never see the day....

 

[Reek_Havoc]

Collis only had to fall over for his tries. Please !!

I'll stick with what I said at the start of the season. Tigz won't do anything with Morris at 6 and Collis in the centres. I'll stand by that.

I won't support the Tigz as long as that fool Sheens is still there. I'll stand by that.

 

[N.C.]

Collis only had to fall over for his tries. Please !!

I'll stick with what I said at the start of the season. Tigz won't do anything with Morris at 6 and Collis in the centres. I'll stand by that.

I won't support the Tigz as long as that fool Sheens is still there. I'll stand by that.

Collis had to be there before he could fall over for two of his three tries. The other he had to be there before a short sprint to the line. Like I said, a blinder by his recent standards. At least he got himself in there and gave himself his chances. We'll see if a few "easy" points help his form over the next couple of weeks. I wont hold my breath, but I was happy to see him on the end of a few, for a change...

As you were mate. Sheens or no Sheens, this is the club for me. I'll stand by that.

 

[sando88]

yeah i think knights expected us to send the ball to lawrence and tuiaki. so it was obvious tigers were gonna do the opposite. i was pretty pleased with ryan, finally showed he is good enough to be a regular 1st grader.

i also didnt notice gibbs.. gave away 2 crucial penalties. so iwas dissappointed.

the big suprise was payne.. he not only played well, but he impressed me

morris did alright. put up a few decent bombs. nothing i can really criticise

theres no doubt that we should really make thetop 8 at the endof the year. no key injuries and we will go a long way.

 

[magpie_man]

i don't wanna get too excited but the team seems to be gaining some confidence and stability, especially the likes of benji, galloway and lawrence. this appears to have rubbed-off on the likes of j-mo, collis and brycey gibbs in the past coupla weeks. still a long way to go, but then again there's still a long way left of the season, hopefully we don't get too affected by injuries.

 

[Tigers_are_Pro]

Tbh, if Payne can begin to live up to his 05 dragons standards, he could become a real good player.

 

[westie]

Collis wasn't special. BUT, he regularly gets himself in position to score those easy trys. He's a footballer, something a few in our team will never be. Would love to see him with a quality winger outside him again.

 

[Tigers_are_Pro]

Should put Lawrence on the wing, collis outside of him and then ryan inside tuiaki on the otherside.

Attack on Collis side, return balls on Tuiaki side with Ryan and Tuiaki making hit ups.

 

[Reek_Havoc]

For almost 2 years I have not seen Collis improve as a player. He has lost his pace. He has put on some big hits yes, but I've seen some players run around him as well. I just don't think he has the speed anymore to be of any threat. I'll stand by that.

 

[TimmyB]

You can't lay all Collis' foibles upon the shoulders of Beau Ryan ffs. If we are talking about football ability, Ryan's can't be denied. He's a clever footballer in the same way Covell is.

Collis doesn't look like the player he was early in 2006. He's never been the same since the injury he copped that season. Before that he was one of the most fluent and graceful runners I've seen. Looked like he was going to be an absolute star. For whatever reason he hasn't looked dangerous for a long time.

I still think he'll come good, whether it is with us or another club, who knows? It is certainly odd that he hasn't kicked on yet though.

 

[sando88]

Should put Lawrence on the wing, collis outside of him and then ryan inside tuiaki on the otherside.

Attack on Collis side, return balls on Tuiaki side with Ryan and Tuiaki making hit ups.

no no no.. lawrence would be wasted on the wing. needs to be hitting the holes when deep in attack, and be given alot more ball. i think if we had another big winger on collis' side we could be scoring alot more there aswell