Ballin vs Friend

[bob dylan]

All week we heard about the clashes of

Mini vs Snake
Foz vs Maloney
DCE vs Pearce
JWH and SBW vs our pack

What about the clash of the hookers?

Once again Ballin owned the pretender Friend, who is further behind Ballin in ability than Ballin is behind Smith.

 

[HappilyManly]

Matty's amazing dummy half runs were only blighted by the dozen off side tackle penalties that he didn't earn

So blessed to have him playing for us

 

[Captain Moondog]

Great performance against the much lauded Roosters forwards by our blokes.
With no Gifty or Choc our pack stood up once again.
Our backs get a lot of praise (and rightly so) but geez our forwards can hold their heads high.

 

[Brissie Kid]

What was with L'Strange's ball passing? Did it get misaligned while he was in the UK or has he been trained that way at the Rorters? Nearly ever dummy half pass was forward.

 

[HappilyManly]

What was with L'Strange's ball passing? Did it get misaligned while he was in the UK or has he been trained that way at the Rorters? Nearly ever dummy half pass was forward.

Thats their game plan, from the Scumos Cam's playbook. :dodgy:

 

[Eagles2nv]

Ballin was 80 mins of solid defence and dummy half runny. I was really hoping the scored that try on the drop out.

Friend is good, but he was no match for our MB.

 

[thrower]

How tough is Matty B !
Hes getting better with age !!

 

[HoldenV8]

Smith, Farah, Friend, Ennis.....these players get all the headlines and are very good hookers in their own right. But I for one am glad we have Matty Ballin. No fuss, no BS, he just gets out there week in, week out and does his job, and does it very well.

He's not the quickest dummy-half runner and he knows it so he tends to pick and choose when to run and when not to run. And we all know he'll tackle himself to a standstill for 80 minutes.

Other than his looks, I would say that MB is closer to the old style hookers than anyone in the NRL.

 

[Technical Coach]

I actually think this last year or two Ballin has sharpened up or has worked on his sharpness---he also picks when to run better.

Some of the best ball distribution from dummy half, the consistency of his all round performance and tough as nails defence is under-rated big time.

 

[Dan]

There are no other hookers is want at the club ahead of him and very few clubs wouldn't prefer him over their current hooker.

I'd rather have ballin than Farrah and Ennis, is marginally have smith over him maybe but I think smith would throw off the balance we have in the halves and spine.

We don't need a hooker that tries to do the halves job like smith and Farrah do.

Ballin never disappoints and is solid week in and week out he is close to my favourite current player

 

[Technical Coach]

Ballin is streets ahead of Farrah and Ennis in my books.

 

[SwornEagle]

Love Ballins work rate, itss very underrated. I do wish he'd take a couple of steps before passing to the forwards to help get the defense on the back foot, working the ball out of our own end sometimes. This is sonething smith does exceptionally well.