Watched this game fully expecting to get beaten. No Fifita or Lewis I thought outweighed their loss of Johnson.
The first 30 minutes was so hard to watch not because it wasn't a good 30 minutes but because I spent most of that time wondering if we would ever see the ball again. How we defended our line so long with them scoring just the one try I'll never know.
The Mannering try really annoyed me as they had worked so hard to keep them out. None of us on here could ever know how tired the players were in the first half, it was a monumental effort.
2nd half belonged to a kid named Valentine Holmes. It's amazing to think this kid has scored so many tries this season and yet I don't think we've seen half of the things he's capable of doing. A hint of that is in that amazing 80 metre run against the Cows a few weeks back. He's a special lad.
The Taga no try also annoyed me because the obstruction rule is so bad at the moment but as it stands it's a definite no try.
The refereeing still continues to be poor. There were two blatant forward passes, one by each team that the touchies missed. Can't believe they miss them when you can see they are right there. The howler was the pass from Tompkins to Mannering in the last few minutes leading to the Warriors no try at the end. They aren't capable of making a call without going to the video, they constantly miss forward passes and they are grossly inconsistent with holding down the player in the tackle. Today I saw penalties given for players hardly holding someone down and none for some that seemed to be held down forever.
So happy with the win and really looking forward to next week's game. It will be great to be back at home.