Second Elimation Final: North Qld Cowboys Vs Cronulla Sharks 7:45 Saturday 19th September 1300 Smiles Stadium

[Napolean]

Just got to watch the replay having missed it live. Thank god I did so I could fast forward through most of that. woeful.Poor Bird was overawed and made too many bad mistakes.

 

[Capital_Shark]

About to smash a quote record I reckon.

Haha change room cam shows Ennis coaching and Flanno moping around in the shadows.

At least we get blame out of the way early. No coach of the year for Ennis.

Had Michael Morgan FTS and Cowboys to win and 13+

As single bets or a multi? Either way you make a good return!

Ennis always folded under pressure in Origin. Pressure seems to be his weakness.

Also his strength when applied to others.

Will be happy to see a halfback in the side next year. :Yes:

Will be happy to see our centre not play 5/8 :Yes:

Will be happy to see a fullback start next year who knows how to sweep and link with the backline who can also pass. :Yes:

Will be happy to not have our hooker have to do everything for our attack. :Yes:

Will be happy cause I'll probably have forgotten this debacle. :Yes:

Agree with that!

Feel for the poor buggers on the chartered flight.

LOL **** how long is a flight from Townsville to Sydney? Ya'd want it to blow up on take off it'd be a **** ride home.

I suspected this was going to happen tonight. Still feel gutted though.

You always expect that to happen mate.

Ennis wasn't the problem. He made a ****-load of tackles, probably about 60 or something. Fifita also had an absolutely blinder, holy crap I want to look at his stats.

I think when they interviewed him post-match it had 2 runs & 42 tackles for him. Seemed a bit short on the tackle count we must of made well over 300.

Fifita was immense tonight.

46 tackles 142 meters and 2 offloads.

How is that bad? Lol

He turned over possession trying to hard to get us a bit of momentum and missed the ball with his foot with a defender all over him. I think it was about 25-0 when that happened so it was an absolute game-turner lol we had just where we wanted 'em.

Well that was a pretty ordinary game....

I don't comment on here often but I'm on here every day reading all your comments and appreciating this site.

I'm so angry at tonight's performance but in reality we were just completely outplayed. When it comes down to it we had a pretty good year and I don't think any of us would have thought we would make the 2nd week of the finals.

I am excited for next year and am hoping to make it to more games, we are moving in the right direction and I'm excited for the future.

Up up cronulla and I'm looking forward to reading all the insight of this forum over the off season (secretly snowman and sharks2010 are my faves ) lol

Right up to the bold bit I was thinking "this bloke should post more".

That bold bit though mate I don't like to be the one to tell you but you got some serious ****ing problems and need a lot of help.

Just getting back to the hotel from the game. Obviously terrible to watch but Cowboys had everything going there way. Just want to give a huge pat on the back to Fifita being the only one to come over and shake every sharks supporters hands after the game.

Class.

Anyone who mistakes his mistakes for a lack of giving a **** is so far off the mark in my opinion.

That was pathetic. Hope they feel like **** after that. They're probably already at the pub though, such is their level of professionalism.

Roosters win rolled into a Sharkies rolling. Fair to say its been a horror 48hrs for slidey.

I dunno if another big boppa would have made a difference. Like we just didn't have the ball, and at the few times we had it we kept dropping it. I don't know what really would have made a difference to the forward battle. Maybe a defensive player a Lock like Fensom or Mannering would have been something, but I dunno. I think they just played way too well. Best game Scott's played all year.

You could have the team of the century at their peak out there but if they hand over the pill that much (I don't even wanna know the final tally on our completions) they're gonna get beat. Throw in bull**** contact in D and you're toast.

Did he get man of the match? He deserved it

Yeah he got it. Well deserved too. Wonder what he's paying for the CC..

My mates nephew the little smartarse called Scott for MOM after his first run.

We got dominated in the middle. Our biggest strength became our weakness and we couldn't recover. The only way to recover from a forward onslaught like that is a good kicking game, turning them around and making them do it all over again. We couldn't and never would be able to achieve that with our halves.

You're 100% right that is the way to get yourself out of the hole we wound up in. But without defending the ****ness of our halves and general kicking game, even if it was good we were dropping the ball before it would of got to the kickers anyway.

We started like we expected everyone to settle into the game in a gentlemanly manner

suddenly we were surprised and under attack before we even had a chance to try the cucumber sandwiches

"Waiting" pretty much the word of the night.

We waited for momentum to swing without doing much to make it happen. We waited in defense for the attack to come to us. We waited for halftime to regroup.

Now we can wait till next year.

Watching the reply on foxsports now listening to vossy etc... Seem to commentate so much better
On what happening

Why the hell would you do that? Do you cut yourself for fun too? Intentionally wack your shin on a toe-bar? Stup your toe in the dark for a laugh?

I'm not sure what is sicker; having snowy & 2010 as your faves or re-watching that train wreak

 

[Napolean]

Great season by the boys, really proud of them and it seems we have a culture developing that is really positive and with some good signings next year we could give it a real hurl. It always sucks watching the finals when the boys aren't involved but I'm interested to see who takes it out.I hope the Cowboys get up in the end but I can't see it being anything other than a Roosters v Storm final. Which blows.

Had some rotten luck tonight,a few kicks of ours that should have stood up in goal went dead and a few of theirs just stopped dead when they were almost certain to go flying over the dead ball line. We got flustered, the crowd sounded immense and unfortunately when our senior boys (lewy, ennis etc) lost their heads our younger guys followed suit and we let them have it. The try to Bolton was the moment I knew we were done.

God I wish the off season wasn't so long!

 

[Tank]

Sad way to finish what was a promising year. Lack of quality halfback and a sad kicking game ultimately cost us. Hoping that Maloney and Townsend will provide vast improvement. After first 4 games of the season I'm actually happy to get where we did. I hate Storm but don't want Cowboys to win either.

 

[Littleshark]

Fix guys are 10 times the commentators nine are. Nine are the worst commentators of any code I have ever heard.

One of the worst bits is when they resort to puns and word-play, absolutely cringeworthy.

 

[Sharkyle]

Surely they will be thinking about this game all off season and will want to get back out there and fire next year. Such a **** way to finish what has been a good solid year.

 

[BlackWhiteBlue]

The worst performance we dished out all year.

I thought Ennis, Gallen and Graham were OK, Toops wasnt bad either.

Lewis had his worst game in Sharks colours
Robson had his best game in Sharks colours

Too many errors, missed tackles etc.

A few dodgy calls to start the game, JT stripped the ball from Bird, next tackle penalty. Then off the kick off they go down the field and score. Then we had the short kick off where Ricky regathered and it was called knock on. Not that those wrong calls decided the game, but they gave us no chance in that early part of the match to get some points or put some pressure on.

Just a dog **** performance, and not good enough for a team 2 games away from a grand final

 

[snowman]

The night was so bad ****in Gards ended up on my couch

 

[BlackWhiteBlue]

The night was so bad ****in Gards ended up on my couch

hahahahaha wasnt he meant to be driving?

 

[andrew's_sharks]

In sport from time to time you see a player choke under pressure....our whole ****ing team chocked. it was like watching a drive by shooting in slow motion over and over again.

Over all a good year though. I mean, at least we made the finals. Finishing 6th was about right with our squad.

 

[gando2230]

It all comes back to losing v manly round 26.
Top 4 a 2nd chance.
Always a tough ask travelling to Townsville then to Melbourne.
Without a no.7 or no.6

I'm Just glad I got to witness the beating of the rabbits in the semi final
That was my Gf.

 

[Mr Wright]

Yes our were dominated badly, especially early on and the refs had a few shockers to open the game. But for mine, what really kept us out of the game was our handling errors and inability to build pressure.

Like when Holmes made the break. We fluffed that chance and couldnt get a repeat set to turn the momentum back in our favour. Soon after that we were given a few piggy back penalties, but once again, the likes of Lewy, Robbo etc knock the ball on just as we were gaining ascendency and all hope was lost.

We were own our worst enemy last night and it sucked. We were never going to beat the cowboys if we couldnt control the pace of the game. It was curtains as soon as the game couldnt be slowed down.

bring on maloney is all i can say.

 

[BlackWhiteBlue]

Yes our were dominated badly, especially early on and the refs had a few shockers to open the game. But for mine, what really kept us out of the game was our handling errors and inability to build pressure.

Like when Holmes made the break. We fluffed that chance and couldnt get a repeat set to turn the momentum back in our favour. Soon after that we were given a few piggy back penalties, but once again, the likes of Lewy, Robbo etc knock the ball on just as we were gaining ascendency and all hope was lost.

We were own our worst enemy last night and it sucked. We were never going to beat the cowboys if we couldnt control the pace of the game. It was curtains as soon as the game couldnt be slowed down.

bring on maloney is all i can say.

Spot on. We actually got the ball in good position then i think about 35 out, second tackle Robbo drops it cold. They are the errors that come back to **** ya. Not the kick off on the full.

Our biggest downfall was 20 metre restarts. We let them have way too many. And there lies our issue we've talked about all year. Our kicking game.

 

[Long Suffering Sharkie]

It all comes back to losing v manly round 26.
Top 4 a 2nd chance.
Always a tough ask travelling to Townsville then to Melbourne.
Without a no.7 or no.6

I'm Just glad I got to witness the beating of the rabbits in the semi final
That was my Gf.

This.

I knew our season was done when we gave Manly the game on a platter. That loss made our subsequent potential games on our road trip so much harder.

What impressed me though was last week's game against the Bunnies which was probably the best we played all year.

I always felt we were never within cooee of the top 4 with the kicking game we had even though we'd beaten the Roosters x 2 and Cowboys x 2.

We got shown up big time yesterday - it was going to happen sooner or later in the semis, however the surprise was how much we were dominated by their forwards when this is usually our platform for our wins.

Matt Scott was like a rampaging bull in a china shop and Tamou wasn't far behind.

It was Lewis who killed our chances - he and Heighington should have been our bench players while Fifita and Prior should have started.

 

[Sutty]

LOL hindsight is a lovely thing with the Lewis should've been on the bench talk, like he's been very good all year. Of course he should've started. He just saved his bad game for the worst possible time. But Fifita starting instead of Heighington was the obvious move, that was a terrible tactical decision to have him on the bench against Australian props.

 

[sharks2010]

LOL hindsight is a lovely thing with the Lewis should've been on the bench talk, like he's been very good all year. Of course he should've started. He just saved his bad game for the worst possible time. But Fifita starting instead of Heighington was the obvious move, that was a terrible tactical decision to have him on the bench against Australian props.

agree with this and we needed another big body on the bench. Was criminal leaving prior out of both games imo. Prior has been one of out best in terms of rolling up the field and bending the line back , not to mention his ruck defence has been great but is left out of the big games

Mentioned it already but we were way to small yesterday

 

[Sutty]

Yeah Prior or Difita are better at prop than a half-fit Holmes is on the wing.

The bad use of our bench has been an issue all year. It probably cost us that all important Manly game.

 

[Greg86]

A smaller mobile pack could off worked out if we tired those big cowboys out, but poor kicking and so many handling errors absolutely killed us.

It's just disappointing that our experienced players were guilty of so many errors. Wether it was cold drop balls, weak attempts at tackles or stupid penalties.

 

[Greg86]

Yeah Prior or Difita are better at prop than a half-fit Holmes is on the wing.

The bad use of our bench has been an issue all year. It probably cost us that all important Manly game.

Yeah I agree, I'm not convinced Holmes was 100%. When that break was made around 10mins in, I would of thought Holmes would of made it.

 

[BlackWhiteBlue]

Yeah I agree, I'm not convinced Holmes was 100%. When that break was made around 10mins in, I would of thought Holmes would of made it.

No way he woulda made it, Morgan is quick. But yes, his knee/thigh wasnt right, and IMO even at 80% he became almost useless, and Barba shoulda started in his place (with Gordon on the wing)