Round 10: Sharks vs Penrith, Toyota Stadium, Sun 16th May 3pm

[Ramzyv1]

I will start by saying I don't think we played well and think our attack is not good enough and our defence needs to be an 80 minute thing in terms of intensity, BUT...

The refereeing was abysmal!! It wasn't the quantity of calls against us, it was their importance to the outcome. I havent blamed the refs for any game we have played so far this season, sure they have been mistakes but I don't remember claiming they have cost us anything. We may not have won if we got all fair calls but we would certainly have had a chance. The comment from the touch judge when Fergo dropped it saying "is he going to blame us for that too" and the bad treatment of Barrett by the refs is also unforgivable!!

Having said all that, seriously we can't keep playing like this. Everyone just needs to step up a bit. Individually I dont have too many issues in terms of dropping players, they just need to improve. I would drop Tautai though, he has been useless.

Barrett was our best player with Brod Wright and Kade Snowden also taking very good account of themselves. Sounds as if Barrett and Gallen will miss out on origin and if that is the case the Gallen decision is a joke.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

I think you'll find that Douglas was about twice as good as Snowden in that game.

Brod Wright was great in defence though and had a few good runs. I think he's definitely a starting back rower over Tupou. Our pack was pretty good.

 

[Ramzyv1]

I think you'll find that Douglas was about twice as good as Snowden in that game.

Brod Wright was great in defence though and had a few good runs. I think he's definitely a starting back rower over Tupou. Our pack was pretty good.

I noticed Dougie make a few good runs and a couple of good offloads but didnt notice him too much. I may have been unfair to him then. It wasnt that I saw him play bad (aside from a key knock on) but I just didnt see him much. Sounds like I am wrong on that one.

One thing I forgot to say was that usually I have criticised the team by echoing other's views on here that the fans turned up so why didnt they? Well getting 10,000 people to a sunday afternoon game is embarrassing. It was a vocal crowd who gave a good atmosphere but that isnt the point. I dont know if it was because it was raining in the morning but still, pathetic effort from our fans.

 

[Murphy]

its going to be hard to front to work tommorrow next weekend cant come quick enough iam going to cop it al week

 

[snowman]

i thought brod wright was our best forward yesterday... how sad is that

 

[Wilson]

To start with I'd like to say Gardner played really well. Provided that spark at the back and a sense of stability and safety that we didn't have with Stapleton. His kick returns were my favourite quality. He ran it hard and fast, between two defenders getting most metres he possibly could. Through this type of running you'll see him break tackles on kick returns similar to what Bowen does. Perception is from yesterday is that he had a shocker with bombs, when in reality he only dropped one. Which, is a pretty good performance against one of the best bomb kickers in Walsh and arguably the best recepient for those kinds of kicks in Coote. Very tough day for him and he came out the goods.

Tim Smith I really have a problem with. I loved it when we signed him but he's been a real dissapointment in the last few games. His 'superb' kicking game is non-existent, and his short kicking game is terrible. His decision making, in my opinion is the worst of any half in the league. I understand not kicking to Ferguson in the corner and opt for a repeat set, but his kicks for a repeat set are incredibly selfish and either go no where near supporting players or just straight into an opposition player.

I thought our starting forwards were tireless like they usually are. Snowden's been copping alot of flack on here but he still had a good game. Penrith were up and in our face all day, this to me is what gave them the upper hand. Snowden of course didn't go for as many hitups as Gallen and Douglas did, but he never does. He still performed well and was shutdown on occasions by commited Penrith defence.

Onto Fergo. I've been saying for a while now he's not a centres ringhole. Then again, neither is Tautai. I'd prefer my nan running out in the 4 jersey. While Ferguson's best position is wing, in terms of comparitive advantage, his value to the team at this point is in the centres. Chuck Gordon on Collis' wing because he knows how to setup his outside man, and Gordon's speed is a massive waste outside of Tautai. Tautai outside would work out (atleast until Stapleton or Covell return) because Ferguson demands more then one defender most occasions he runs the ball. Tautai is a monster of a bloke in size, if you get Ferguson drawing in the two men inside the winger, and have Tautai one on one with a most likely considerably smaller winger. Why we may not score every set, we'll most of the time get better field position, and field position is imperitive to winning football games.

One thing I would love to ask Ricky; why are our players going up to contest what are essentially mid-field bombs? None of trys the Panthers scored were from kicks that came down anywhere near the tryline.

Leaving bombs to bounce is a ridiculous suggestion. Arguably the worst decision possible.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

I noticed Dougie make a few good runs and a couple of good offloads but didnt notice him too much. I may have been unfair to him then. It wasnt that I saw him play bad (aside from a key knock on) but I just didnt see him much. Sounds like I am wrong on that one.

I'll post some stats for you and Snowman (because of the comment about B. Wright being the best forward).

Gallen: 80 minutes, 147 metres. 44 tackles.
Douglas: 67 minutes, 162 metres. 42 tackles.
Snowden: 71 minutes, 87 metres. 31 tackles.
Millington: 71 minuts, 64 metres, 26 tackles.
Wright: 60 minutes, 52 metres, 32 tackles.
Vave: 19 minutes, 42 metres, 14 tackles.
Cuthbertson: 13 minutes, 8 metres, 13 tackles.
Tupou: 18 minutes, 9 metres, 7 tackles.

 

[dier]

What I gather from your post Mark is that, Vave needs more minutes. Those numbers are crazy for 19 minutes.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

What I gather from your post Mark is that, Vave needs more minutes. Those numbers are crazy for 19 minutes.

Definitely. And Cuthbo too. Not heaps more just at least maybe 30 minutes each to see how they handle it.

 

[Ramzyv1]

I'll post some stats for you and Snowman (because of the comment about B. Wright being the best forward).

Gallen: 80 minutes, 147 metres. 44 tackles.
Douglas: 67 minutes, 162 metres. 42 tackles.
Snowden: 71 minutes, 87 metres. 31 tackles.
Millington: 71 minuts, 64 metres, 26 tackles.
Wright: 60 minutes, 52 metres, 32 tackles.
Vave: 19 minutes, 42 metres, 14 tackles.
Cuthbertson: 13 minutes, 8 metres, 13 tackles.
Tupou: 18 minutes, 9 metres, 7 tackles.

Well that settles the fact that I massively underrated Dougie's performance. I still think Wright had a great game and while he may not have matched our star forwards with workload his touches and tackles were quality and he was a key part of the side and did his job.

While Snowden still did well he might be a bit disappointed with that in comparision as Dougie doubled his metres and made more tackles while playing less minutes...

 

[Mark^Bastard]

Yeah don't get me wrong, B. Wright was great. And Snowden was good.

I was just making two specific points.

1 - Douglas was better than Snowden by a considerable margin.
2 - B. Wright was not our best forward. Gallen or Dougie were. B. Wright was definitely the most improved though.

 

[Sparkles]

Well thats not the case mate. We may not have a 2nd tier cap going but apparently we are using all the 4 million on our first grade squad. There are only three clubs listed as being under the cap and thats Brisbane, Warriors and Knights. I just don't know how. I dont see 4 million worth of talent there. I'm sick of paying for two bit cast offs from other clubs when a junior could do the same thing. I've got no doubt that O'donnell or Baillie could do a better job than Tautai. Lets not forget Mat Wright. Why did we play him for most of last year as a 17-18 year old only to drop him like a hot spud this year. He is easily better than Tautai. We buy Tim Smith and drop Porter yet I don't see an improvement. Today he ran for a total of 1 metre. 1 ****ing metre. We complained about Porter's running game yet replace him with a halfback that is scared to get tackled and cant tackle himself. We are poo at the moment.

Can you fill me in on more details mate? I was under the impression that we were well off the dollars other teams were spending?

 

[Murphy]

we are not spending the cap in the nyc and nsw cup the nrl side is spending there cap the lower grades are not

 

[snowman]

didnt see brod give away penalties or drop the ball 10m out from the line on attack either... stats you didnt post... but it was just my opinion bastard

 

[Ramzyv1]

Can you fill me in on more details mate? I was under the impression that we were well off the dollars other teams were spending?

As others said, it is the lower grades cap that is not currently being used as much. Having said that we still have room left to move in our cap which is why we can sign Gaz if he wants to come but we are not actively not using it. The media reports about our cap being not used fully were exaggerated and slightly wrong.

 

[Mark^Bastard]

didnt see brod give away penalties or drop the ball 10m out from the line on attack either... stats you didnt post... but it was just my opinion bastard

Do you still think he was the best forward despite the obvious Herculean efforts of Gallen and Douglas? :dougy:

As others said, it is the lower grades cap that is not currently being used as much. Having said that we still have room left to move in our cap which is why we can sign Gaz if he wants to come but we are not actively not using it. The media reports about our cap being not used fully were exaggerated and slightly wrong.

I don't think this issue was ever really addressed properly. It was Sticky that said we're not spending our cap and then Gallen cracked the ****s, and then Fisk said we were spending all of our NRL cap (IIRC).

To be honest I'd be very surprised if we had just a little bit of cap left and spent that on Smith and now we're at our cap. There has to be at least say 200k there.

But then again last year we used heaps of fringe players and from what I understand their NRL match payments count towards this years cap. Can anyone confirm?

Also is Smith in our NRL squad on an NRL contract or is it incentive based and hence match payments would come out of the 2011 cap?

 

[snowman]

we are no where near the cap this year... theres the hot tip

 

[Mark^Bastard]

we are no where near the cap this year... theres the hot tip

That's what I reckon too, and I hope that's the case.

 

[snowman]

bastard, i think he was our best from a general point of view, gallen didnt stand out as thats what he always does, but i am very suprised reading thos stats that what he did.
i am starting to find douglas very ordinary.. his hands are letting him down... put it this way, if that was pom you guys would be blowing up

 

[Wilson]

Douglas plays so similar to Steve Price these days.