I am sick to death of the stupid, idiotic football Parramatta have been playing. Especially yesterday. That game was there for the taking, all we needed to do was play well enough. Instead we played like a bunch of 8th graders with mental impairments and handed Penrtih a win they should probably never have got, especially with the state of the match at half time.
Wade McKinnon was our best player, don't get me wrong. But some of the things he did were just unbelievable! He raced out of the line for the first try, and Campbell scored the simplest of tries. Had he been back on the line, he saves the try and we at worst have a goal line dropout. He completely ignored support players on several occaisons where tries were there for the taking had we been good enough. His knock on after Gower went down; sure the ref got it wrong, but damn, how hard is it to catch the ball and eliminate the chance of that error?
Matt Petersen. Where was his mind yesterday? He seemed to be convinced the tryline was across the field rather than down it. He almost cost us a try with a shocking defensive read on Rooney, but then made up for it by taking the intercept. Unfortunately, he then thought Shane Rodney had signed for us mid-week and gifted the Panthers a try and the lead. They were never headed from there and we fell apart.
Eric Grothe cost us posession with some silly, silly passes. Not to mention his "defense" for the Hookey try, where he seemed to be running away from the Panthers players.
Tim Smith had an absolute shocker!! The worst game I think he's played for us. There was a period of four or five sets that he didn't touch the ball once, and when he finally did he dropped it. Not to mention his kicking game, the nothing bombs that were too low and too deep, his obsession with running the ball on the last and his embarrassing defense. I don't care how many metres you make, if you are running the ball on the last and don't score, it is a waste of a tactical opportunity. I saw him pass to Hindmarsh, Taia, O'Dwyer, and Stringer on the last, and the centres probably had as many last tackle touches as he did. Then there was his attempted intercept with Penrith running it on the last inside their own half. Had he let the pass go, Hookey is either forced to kick from the sideline or rounded up. Either way we would have had possesion, rather than gifting Penrith a chance to mount yet more pressure.
Nathan Hindmarsh was well below par too. He made errors, missed tackles and was generally a shadow of his usual self. Maybe he needs a rest, hopefully the bye will give him that.
Zeb Taia had a very impressive debut. Knocked on with his first touch but hey, that's how being nervous works. However, he gave away some dumb penalties at crucial times. Hopefully he was just overly keen and they will be out of his game next time around.
Add to that the way the whole side didn't see fit to even try once Gower went down, assuming the game was in the bag....stupid! The way the defense held off on Campbell and Wesser, giving them room to move...stupid!
The constant relieving penalties and errors...stupid!
Every one of the players out there yesterday has the talent and ability to play first grade football, and realistically we should have won, especially ater Penrith lost Gower. They just need to fix their mindset, and fast. Hopefully, with the bye this week, Smithy sits them down and has a long chat about the way they played yesterday, and they come back focused and able to play the way they did in the first half, and carry it on the the rest of the match. Only then will we win any games.
