Same old Story

[delz]

I must admit I was concerned about last night and had a gut feeling we will get beaten. The problem with this is that I have this feeling far too often when we lose a couple of players like Turbo & DCE.

Yes, they are quality players but it shows as a team we are well behind the likes of Melbourne & the Panthers. I have no doubt that Melbourne would have won easily last night. Why ? I just think we are not as well-coached as the others and we tend to for some reason find it very difficult to compensate for the lost of players.

Also, we just don't have the quality of players who can just do a job and ensure the game plan is followed. They also seem to be de-motivated and at times extremely lazy!

Unfortunately, this feeling seems to linger and I am extremely nervous about facing a St George team next week that will be fully motivated after the Vaughan party fiasco. We should have beaten the Raiders and we should beat ST George but with this team, I am just not confident. It's a sad state to be in but unfortunately, it comes true far too often.

 

[Jerry1]

I'd put it down to our depth being severely depleted rather than coaching.

 

[47MVEagle]

If you dont have 2 competent halves on the field you'll always be outgunned by an opposition who does.

 

[maxta]

I must admit I was concerned about last night and had a gut feeling we will get beaten. The problem with this is that I have this feeling far too often when we lose a couple of players like Turbo & DCE.

Yes, they are quality players but it shows as a team we are well behind the likes of Melbourne & the Panthers. I have no doubt that Melbourne would have won easily last night. Why ? I just think we are not as well-coached as the others and we tend to for some reason find it very difficult to compensate for the lost of players.

Also, we just don't have the quality of players who can just do a job and ensure the game plan is followed. They also seem to be de-motivated and at times extremely lazy!

Unfortunately, this feeling seems to linger and I am extremely nervous about facing a St George team next week that will be fully motivated after the Vaughan party fiasco. We should have beaten the Raiders and we should beat ST George but with this team, I am just not confident. It's a sad state to be in but unfortunately, it comes true far too often.

Your 3rd paragraph nails it in relation to "fill ins" and intensity
I feel Des is 1 of few coaches to stand up near Bellamy who sets the standard and Des may suprise him when Manly vs Storm in a few weeks....though felt some odd selections and positions by Des last night, there just maybe a method to this madness which sometimes falls short, yet he gets Big results often when they really count.
Last nights game was a wash for me...flat and off key, some say lucky bounces and calls which is partly true, but these factors are also associated by being out enthused by a hungrier opposition makin those 1% extra plays and winning the tug of War and were willing to stay on the road longer when it was a game of chicken mid 1st half.
Just maybe this is the game that will swing this team into action building momentum for the finals...

 

[Cliffymagic]

We spend 3 mil on dce turbo and Jake. Fully expected to be average without them.
Add a few other injuries to top players and it's no surprise we were crap.

 

[The Who]

We spend 3 mil on dce turbo and Jake. Fully expected to be average without them.
Add a few other injuries to top players and it's no surprise we were crap.

That doesn't explain why (a) Melbourne is always competitive regardless of how many players are out, and (b) why Canberra suddenly goes from garbage to good.

 

[Cliffymagic]

Storm are a special case. Haven't missed the top 4 since 2015. Obviously have the best coach and infrastructure in the game.
Canberra smelt blood with no turbo and dce to guide us.

 

[Kiwi Eagle]

I must admit I was concerned about last night and had a gut feeling we will get beaten. The problem with this is that I have this feeling far too often when we lose a couple of players like Turbo & DCE.

Yes, they are quality players but it shows as a team we are well behind the likes of Melbourne & the Panthers. I have no doubt that Melbourne would have won easily last night. Why ? I just think we are not as well-coached as the others and we tend to for some reason find it very difficult to compensate for the lost of players.

Also, we just don't have the quality of players who can just do a job and ensure the game plan is followed. They also seem to be de-motivated and at times extremely lazy!

Unfortunately, this feeling seems to linger and I am extremely nervous about facing a St George team next week that will be fully motivated after the Vaughan party fiasco. We should have beaten the Raiders and we should beat ST George but with this team, I am just not confident. It's a sad state to be in but unfortunately, it comes true far too often.

Did you see the Panthers result against the Tigers when they had their best players out ?

 

[Deleted member 26876]

I must admit I was concerned about last night and had a gut feeling we will get beaten. The problem with this is that I have this feeling far too often when we lose a couple of players like Turbo & DCE.

Yes, they are quality players but it shows as a team we are well behind the likes of Melbourne & the Panthers. I have no doubt that Melbourne would have won easily last night. Why ? I just think we are not as well-coached as the others and we tend to for some reason find it very difficult to compensate for the lost of players.

Also, we just don't have the quality of players who can just do a job and ensure the game plan is followed. They also seem to be de-motivated and at times extremely lazy!

Unfortunately, this feeling seems to linger and I am extremely nervous about facing a St George team next week that will be fully motivated after the Vaughan party fiasco. We should have beaten the Raiders and we should beat ST George but with this team, I am just not confident. It's a sad state to be in but unfortunately, it comes true far too often.

I don't neccessarily think it's down to the coaching. I think it's more the type of players we have in our squad. A few years ago we were wet paper in defence and had assembled a lot of rejects that had confidence issues. When things were going good we were going great (looked a top 4 team), but we could also fold out of nowhere and lose the unlosable (eg. Panthers game a few years back).

Our wingers this year have loads of talent and when well lead by the likes of trbo, foz, dce, jurbo they have confidence in their ability. But they are a little awkward and reserved and a lot of this has to do with how young they are. Even our forwards like Keppie suffer from a lot of confidence issues imo, as evident by his hot and cold moments in games and inconsistency at times.

Storm have a core group of leaders that have developed experience and control. Their forwards in particular are lead by the ever-reliable Finucane and J Bromwich. We are a young side (Croker, Paseka, Harper, Saab, Garrick, Keppie, Cust) and have a history of losing a lot over the last 5 or so years. The Storm are lucky to have not fallen into a losing period and therefore haven't had to deal with much confidence issues.

Luckily, so long as we remain fit we will continue to shut out the past. Even against the Raiders I was impressed. Rd 1-4 us even with dce and jurbo would've crumbled. We hung on for set after set, only breaking after a lazy/fatigued effort from Jetski. Then we still had a bit of belief in the end to try and launch a late comeback despite terrible possession/field position stats.

 

[Ryan]

We are absolutely worse off than any other team mate, consider this:

01. Morgan Boyle
02. Keith Titmuss
03. Zac Saddler
04. Andrew Davey
05. Manase Fainu
06. Tom Trbojevic
07. Josh Schuster
08. Curtis Sironen
09. Jake Trbojevic
10. Josh Aloiai
11. Toafofoa Sipley (injured during the game)

The fact that we are currently sitting in 5th place given the above is quite amazing if you think about it. We've had more man games lost than any other team in the league. When we play teams with 3-4 players out, the media dribbles on about how poor hard dumb by they all are, forgetting about the fact 50% of our club is unavailable for selection.

 

[The Who]

My hope is that we can remain in 5th or 6th position. I've given up the dream of a top four spot. Where practicable I'd use the remaining matches to give a player like Burbo more NRL experience, and blood Tippytoes and Koala. I'd also be mindful of keeping DCE, Turbo and Jurbo, and The Shoe fresh, with getting Al and Tenterfield (and even Davey) back on the field.
It is imperative that come the finals we have as healthy a squad as possible.
The 11 teams below us are ordinary and will lose as many games as they win. We just need to stay well clear of 7th spot.
With our top team we can beat every team, except the current top three. Getting into the semi-finals should be our aim, and from there dreams are possible.

 

[bazeagle]

we gifted that game to canberra and they gratefully took the gift. flat, useless, error riddled, no confidence - it's like their mindset was: no Jake, no Turbo, no DCE = NO POINT. so then flat, useless = LOSS

 

[Shoe1]

Post mortem

1) No Jake, Tom, dce, schuster.

2) crazy picking walker instead of cust. Halves need to have more than one gear. Walker is an up-tempo one-speed player. He couldn’t adjust to the needs of the game. That tough grind was a a game for cust.

walker was spinning it wide on the early tackles in our own half, when we should have beaten them in the forwards. Going wide before smashing the middle is a sign we are going to lose.

3) Bench: walker and burbo have been good off the bench for energy. Neither were there on the bench. jack brought nothing. Took us to the bad old days.

4) amazing kicking game by Canberra, more repeat sets than I’ve ever seen.

5) disrupted backs. Suli poor, Parker disjointed, no good ball for Saab and Harper, Garrick gassed from organising defense and not equal to the Canberra kicking game.

6) thank god for haumole

 

[mave]

we gifted that game to canberra and they gratefully took the gift. flat, useless, error riddled, no confidence - it's like their mindset was: no Jake, no Turbo, no DCE = NO POINT. so then flat, useless = LOSS

I beg to differ.
We were not flat, nor useless. We became error riddled once fatigue set in, and our confidence followed.

Parker drops the ball over the try line, the Raiders expertly controlled possession and momentum for the next 6-7 sets, give or take...
We finally got the ball back, and under fatigue, made a panic play out wide, where Suli dropped the ball.
Raiders had the next 8 sets, give or take, and expertly controlled possession until half time.

The outcome was essentially decided on the moment Parker lost the ball over the line.....and our inability to turn momentum once that happened.

 

[ManEagle]

we gifted that game to canberra and they gratefully took the gift. flat, useless, error riddled, no confidence - it's like their mindset was: no Jake, no Turbo, no DCE = NO POINT. so then flat, useless = LOSS

Sorry mate, totally disagree.
Have to credit where credit is due and Canberra controlled the ball with repeat sets for the last 30 minutes of the half through fantastic kicks in goal and a few 6 agains. It is very rare you see so many well placed kicks one after the other as we did Thursday.
The fact we held them out as long as we did and then continued to do so is credit to the team and attitude, but they just couldn't keep it up under those circumstances and were gassed.
From there they were forced to play catch up error prone footy being panicked.

They will learn to withstand the pressure but really no where near the useless and flat side you think but that is your prerogative to do so.
Cheers

 

[XV-1]

I'd put it down to our depth being severely depleted rather than coaching.

Not true at all

Canberra have their 2 top half's out, their 1st and 2nd choice full back injured, their first choice prop out.

Des picks Suli and Jetski, moves Parker to the wing, brings Cust on when it was far too late.

We should have beaten Canberra with the team we had but instead we made their halfs look like Thursten with zero pressure on their kickers.
Surely Des as coach would have seen that and got a message out, but no.

 

[Spartan Eagle]

*For me the game hinged on giving raiders repeat sets through ill discipline and errors.
*More tackles, more fatigue.

• Innefective plays and options by Walker. Unable to engage his outside men.
• Led to Foz carrying all the burden on our last tackle options. Foz would even kick from Walker's side of the field cause Walker was crap.
• Allowing high kicks to bounce and not contesting was suicide by Garrick.
• and I don't need repeat myself about Suli
• or Jetski

So I put it down to a few bad selections from Des and players not performing as well as they should have.

 

[Spartan Eagle]

Sorry mate, totally disagree.
Have to credit where credit is due and Canberra controlled the ball with repeat sets for the last 30 minutes of the half through fantastic kicks in goal and a few 6 agains. It is very rare you see so many well placed kicks one after the other as we did Thursday.
The fact we held them out as long as we did and then continued to do so is credit to the team and attitude, but they just couldn't keep it up under those circumstances and were gassed.
From there they were forced to play catch up error prone footy being panicked.

They will learn to withstand the pressure but really no where near the useless and flat side you think but that is your prerogative to do so.
Cheers

"The fact we held them out as long as we did and then continued to do so is credit to the team and attitude,"

I totally agree with you there

 

[lulubelle]

Cust and Croker are half backs. Walker is a centre.So we chose Walker at half back.
Derrrr.
And we paid.

 

[Tragic Eagle]

We can sugar coat it all we like but it was a very ordinary performance against ordinary opposition. We were error ridden and playing without the ball which resulted in us getting gassed and them getting their tails up. Two very average first grade halves owned us. If we were playing Melbourne we loose by 60.