Ryan link said:
For probably 68 minutes, Bailey was S**t. Outright S**t.
I went just went to OPSM, then took another look at the match to check Bailey’s involvement and impact on critical moments, this is what I saw.
He set up the first try, I think everyone noticed that.
Also he put up a good bomb early on, made some tackles, and ran a couple of plays at dummy half.
In the 22nd min he smashed JT to defuse a dangerous cow raid.
27th min we are under pressure after a dropped ball (Choc).
28th min cows score down his side but not his fault so far as I can tell. We were short of numbers on our left edge because Watts nearly went over on the right. Whare raced out of the line but was unable to stop the ball. Just outnumbered I think.
32nd min We under more pressure after a drop (Rodney)
38 min Bailey makes a good pass to Choc in the lead-up to Robbo’s try.
43rd min – his kick is charged down but played at so we get 6 again.
47 min – Lyon hurt, we drop the ball in attack (Hodko)
50th – he goes to the right side with Lyon gone, Glen comes to the left.
51st - we under pressure after we drop the ball (Choc)
52nd Bailey penalised for a strip – incorrect decision, he is clearly just making a tackle & the ball comes out.
53rd min – Farrar unable to clean up a kick, more pressure.
54th min – Bailey at centre from a scrum is beaten 1 on 1 by Tonga, try to Cows.
56th - we are outnumbered on our right but Bailey rushes Bowen to force an error.
58 Bailey drops a pass from Hodko while we are attacking (5th tackle)
62 min – Cows score on opposite side, nothing to do with Bailey.
65th under pressure from a spilt ball (Joe), Cows almost score on our left but bomb the chance.
67th Bowen makes the extra man on Bailey’s side, a good pass from JT should lead to try but bombed it. Bailey was outnumbered, JT passed to the one who was unmarked.
71st – O’Donnell scores through the edge of the ruck.
71st - JT beats Glen 1 on 1 to put us under pressure.
79th min – Bailey is part of the kick chase, Cows spin the ball in desperation but tackled. Very quick play the ball, fired out to where he is still scrambling to get back, but pressure from T-Rex and the pass is forward.
80th – Bailey intercepts ball to shut down Cows final raid.
My summary - as 5/8 he was part of a dominant first half, including involved in 2 tries. Then in an emergency he moved to centre on the opposite side of the field and mostly made a decent fist of defending the Cows dangerous left side, where they’ve score 75% of their tries with a pretty high quality attack.
Errors - beaten once by Tonga, dropped one pass, gave one penalty which was a dud decision.Â
Ryan & co can certainly continue to be amazed that he gets picked in our team, but I’m not surprised at all, and I reckon as a stop-gap utility he did very well