cf2 is back
Reserve Grader
The toughest road trip of them all is not a great prospect on any given week, but none more so than being down three props and your superstar fullback.
Player ratings:
Peter Hiku: Ran impressively but lost his confidence after several 2nd half fumbles, and slipped into that deep no go zone of letting bombs bounce. Will be all the better for the experience though.
Jorge Taufau: Always a handful with a couple of gut busting runs, but still needs more ball in space out on his wing.
Steve Matai: Solid as a rock on a tough night for attack.
Jamie Lyon: Usual no frills game and a brick wall in defence, using his wise experience to great effect.
David Williams: Stepped it up from the last game with a committed and spirited performance refusing to let the Storm backs get past him.
Keiran Foran: Man of the match tackling everything, holding the ball up in goal against all odds, and running hard at the line whenever possible. Sheer passion personified.
Daly Cherry-Evans: Brilliant in defence with 24 tackles, tried hard to spark our attack despite so little 2nd half ball, and an sensational 40/20 that deserved a bigger reward.
Glenn Stewart: Defence is never a question and once again 35 bone jarring tackles, but the good news was a much improved performance with the ball in hand.
Justin Horo: Our newest man of steel. Inspirational.
Anthony Watmough: Toovs psychic decision to give Choc a rest before half time proved invaluable given the length of the game, as were the slamming 176 metres and 45 tackles. Amazing effort.
Brenton Lawrence: Another crunching performance, what a buy and what a revelation.
Matt Ballin: 62 tackles. What else can you say? Actually one other thing, that dummy half split up the guts early in the game was just what we've needed from Matty, and let's hope theres more to come.
Brent Kite: The Landcruiser was unbreakable with a gutsy 109 metres and 29 gut busting tackles.
Bench:
David Gower: This week it was his turn to sit on the bench catching a cold without getting a single minute. And I still absolutely don't get it. No other team penalises themselves playing one man short, yet we've done it for 3 Mondays in a row for a win, loss, draw. Why?
Tom Symonds: Is it just me or is Tom lost since Glenn's return? Part centre, part back rower, part not sure, with a loss of that aggressive injection from the earlier matches.
Jamie Buhrer: Tried hard as always but still seems to be an ineffective back rower simply due to size. I'd still rather see him used for 10-15 mins at dummy half.
George Rose: Threw the big rig at the Storm and didn't let us down.
THE GOOD:
One of our best and most courageous defensive performances in years on arguably the hardest venue in the game. The Fortress was all but impenetrable with the Cronk, Slater show tied in a knot. Simply inspirational.
THE BAD:
Hard to come up with a negative after that defensive effort, but the brilliant DCE 40/20 was the chance to cement the win with a 2nd try instead of what turned out to be the kiss your sister draw.
THE UGLY:
I absolutely loathe golden point and find it disgraceful that games are decided by the sheer fluke of whoever gets the first lucky shot at field goal. It MUST be changed to golden try, or if not then completely abandoned for normal club games, and tonights deadlock seems to point to the latter. How do we feel about 1 point? Pretty disappointed after one of the bravest performances in years, but oddly, not nearly as devastated as we'd all have felt if Cronk had sunk us with a field goal.
SUMMARY:
What a truly bizarre match. We totally dominated the first half for a well deserved 8-0 lead, but had absolutely no possession in the 2nd half being forced to defend, defend and defend. At one stage we were so trapped in our 20 we were hit with 4 consecutive sets of defence but incredibly blunted the Storm waves of attack on every tackle. So frustrated were they that Smith was forced to take a penalty kick at 8-0 down. Has anyone seem that happen before? A kick for 8-2? It took an age but with that massive weight of possession they just had to score eventually to lock it up, but again we withstood raid after raid to limit them to just the one try. With just minutes on the clock the game seemed to be deservedly ours after our 10-8 penalty lead, until Cechhin blew one their way for 10 all. Of course none of us could have ever dreamt that 10 mins later the score would be unchanged. Not a great feeling after such a magnificent guts effort, but at least it's a whole lot better than a golden point robbery.
The massive run of Souths, Saints, Roosters and Storm is over with the odd result of just 3 points. Not at all what we so optimistically expected, especially with the sea salt still stinging our eyes after two rare consecutive Brookie losses, but given they were tough as hell results to the no 1 and 2 teams, coupled with the draining injury toll to our bench and mercurial Brett too, not a totally bad run of results either.
It's all about moving forward, and the next month - Canberra home, bye, Warriors away and Dogs home - is our golden chance to cement a season defining 8/8 points on offer. Looking forward to it.
