First Qualifying Final, 2012 NRL: Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks v Canberra Raiders @ Canberra Stadium, Sunday 9th September @ 4:00pm

[SharkShocked]

I've been a Gardner basher at times during the year.

Even I would risk him at the moment.

Yes we need to do well defensively, but if we can't score points, what's the point in defending.

Gardner would give us quite a fair amount in attack and realistically we will need that as the finals go deeper.

I'd rather risk Gardner and potentially have the ability to knock off teams in week 2 - 3 if he starts to improve and get his game back rather than win week 1 and fall meekly to a team in the second week because we are struggling to break them open.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

The Raiders have pretty poor defence however we don't really have the kind of unpredictable attack that can exploit that weakness.

If we had Gards, surely he causes them a bit of trouble.

That's the way I see it with this game.

 

[HaroldBishop]

Over the season they have poor defence, but over the last 10 rounds:

Cronulla For 183, Against 194
Canberra For 278, Against 178

 

[Mr Wright]

Over the season they have poor defence, but over the last 10 rounds:

Cronulla For 183, Against 194
Canberra For 278, Against 178

The regular season counts for nothing come finals footy time.

 

[HaroldBishop]

Disagree.

 

[Mr Wright]

Disagree.

Let me re phrase. The stats from the regular season mean nothing in finals footy. Obviously position on the ladder has some bearing on outcomes.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

The thing is the Sharks have good games and poor games and there's not a lot of grey in between.

If you took our stats from our good games we'd look really good. If you took the stats from our bad games, we'd be thoroughly horrible. If you combine the two together it's almost meaningless.

 

[slide rule]

We'll know within the first 5 minutes whether the good team or the poor team has turned up.

 

[HaroldBishop]

The thing is the Sharks have good games and poor games and there's not a lot of grey in between.

If you took our stats from our good games we'd look really good. If you took the stats from our bad games, we'd be thoroughly horrible. If you combine the two together it's almost meaningless.

True but you could say the same thing about Canberra.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

If we turn up right we beat teams like Melbourne. Canberra would be a walk in the park.

 

[HaroldBishop]

I agree, the key is if we turn up. I'm not so confident given our past two months but hopefully I'll be surprised.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

Yeah I'm not confident either.

The game againt Souths was a good blueprint though.

 

[HaroldBishop]

I used to like Canberra but I hate them with a passion since Fergo went there. I will not be able to cope if they beat us, and beat us well.

 

[MD9]

We'll know within the first 5 minutes whether the good team or the poor team has turned up.

100% this. Against Newcastle I think it was, our completion rate was 0/3 after our first 3 sets & you could just see what was going to happen.

 

[SDK]

The thing is the Sharks have good games and poor games and there's not a lot of grey in between.

Does that mean when they win it's a good game & when they lose it's a poor game?

There's plenty of grey in between with Sharks. There were games earlier this year Sharks just won, could have lost, should have lost, lucky to win etc. Some of those wins did flatter Sharks & they paid that price over the last 2 months. Because of that they go to Canberra when that game should have been in Sydney.

It's not good when you don't know what to expect from either team.

 

[Sharkyle]

Lets just look back at the Melbourne game, that was one of our best performances of the year bar the last few minutes.

And that was only 2 weeks ago. We are travelling again, I think THAT sharkies team will turn up and if they do, Canberra could be in trouble.

I think its going to be high scoring try for try kinda game... 26-18 to the sharkies after being down 18-6 at half time

what do you think?

 

[egg]

Lets just look back at the Melbourne game, that was one of our best performances of the year bar the last few minutes.

And that was only 2 weeks ago. We are travelling again, I think THAT sharkies team will turn up and if they do, Canberra could be in trouble.

I think its going to be high scoring try for try kinda game... 26-18 to the sharkies after being down 18-6 at half time

what do you think?

If we're down 18- 6 ya better start reaching for the life jackets, cos the SS Shark would be under enormous pressure, to manifest points from a VERY basic gameplan.

 

[Sharkyle]

If we're down 18- 6 ya better start reaching for the life jackets, cos the SS Shark would be under enormous pressure, to manifest points from a VERY basic gameplan.

I see it as - Raiders come our firing and sharkies struggle to gain control, half time hits, shane drills the emergency of the situation into the boys, Carney finally does something and we manifester some points that way

I do believe their game plan is very basic and it wont work against the raiders, it will take shane 40 minutes to realise that.

 

[BlackWhiteBlue]

Lets just look back at the Melbourne game, that was one of our best performances of the year bar the last few minutes.

And that was only 2 weeks ago. We are travelling again, I think THAT sharkies team will turn up and if they do, Canberra could be in trouble.

I think its going to be high scoring try for try kinda game... 26-18 to the sharkies after being down 18-6 at half time

what do you think?

If we are losing 18-6 at half time, we lose 40-6. Mate we are horrible when behind by more than a try, its when games like last weekend run away from us.

IMO our best performance all season was our LOSS to Souths. We went toe to toe with them, Gallen got injured and Williams bombed probably 2 tries. Could have easily gone the other way, thats a game that went to the wire IMO.

Big wins might look good on the scoreboard, like our win against NZ. I asked on here as i missed the live game, and everyone said we rolled them, and were brilliant. While it is Brilliant to score 45 points in a game for the Sharks as cracking 4 tries a game doesnt happen often, watching that game, we clearly had an easy opposition that day. And IMO we didnt play as well as that loss to Souths, but we looked great cos we put points on the board.

In order I reckon our best games this season were

The LOSS to souths
The narrow WIN against NZ
The WIN against Manly
The WIN against Melbourne
WIN against Cowboys
Round 2 Loss to Newcastle

Now those losses, while the loss is ****, we played amazing footy, just couldnt get those few finishing touches. We coulda beaten Newy easy in that round 2 match had we stuck a few passes. And the Souths loss was a good game to watch, for any footy fan IMO.

Other than that, we did get lucky a few times with wins, the last win to Souths was great for the fact we got the lead back, held on to it, then ran away with it

 

[Fitzy2513]

Well King Wally just picked the Raiders on Brisbane channel 9 sport. We are specials, he always gets it wrong.