A few tidbits from Sunday's game

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Crusher is back (although had to log in again as a New User I think):
1. It was amazing how good Ox, Choc and B Stewart looked after just 1 trial game. Looks like they're ready to hit the ground running against the Dogs. Glen was a bit quiet.
2. Is it just me or did Jason King look pretty fit out there? He was making covering tackles that he wouldn't have made in yrs past.
3. Rodney def looks a good cheap buy.
4. L'Estrange appeared to get quite a bit of game time. Maybe Bailey was off for a bit that i didn't notice, but not sure how Ballin will react to that.
5. Hall and Perry look pretty strong in attack - especially Hall, drove through the tackles well.
6. We need Lyon to fire in the Centres. Doesn't look 100% yet, but that's natural given the time of year.
7. I'd like to see Bailey or Lyon take more pressure off Ox in the kicking department. It was way too telepathed for my liking on the last tackle - puts Ox under too much pressure to get a good kick away.
8. If Cuthbo can work out when to offload and when to hold, he adds a massive extra dimension to our attack out wide and 2nd phase play in general.
9. Bring in Kite and T-Rex into this aquad, and it doesn't look like we have too many weaknesses this year. It will take a very good team to beat us this year.
 
Agree with everything you say Crusher.  I thought Glenn had a fine first half and was quiet in the second.  Maybe run out of puff or had a knock.  His defense in the first half was very good.  I think Lyon had to worry about Williams, and so was a bit off.  He didn't have those sort of covering things to worry about last year with Bell in the team.  It'll work itself out.  My guess is the Ox puts himself in the gun for that last kick and it will take something to get it off him.  It's like 'I'm the capt. and I'll run the show'.  OK, if it works all the time.  Anyway, our whole team across the paddock looks extremely well balanced and we have very good replacements.  It will be hard to get into this team.   
 
One thing I noticed is we are making metres off of penalty kicks which we havent done for years!
 
Yeah, I remember being sat there in the 1st half when we conceded a penalty in your 20 thinking at least they will only get play around the half way and Orford kicked it between the Leeds 20-30. Was an imense kick. Puts a lot of pressure on the oppo's defence if he can do it consistantly.
 
Hollywood, the reason I mentioned this is because usually we only make about 10 - 20 metres at best. It looks like Orford has gotten over his groin/abdominal injury and has been practising his kicking
 
I was also very impressed with King's game. Thought he ran with authority, with a nice offload to Matai, and did a lot of mopping up in defence.

Without Fox I was reduced to following the game on the net and waiting for highlights on breakfast TV

Here are two bits I liked - on ABC news: "Manly is the pride of the Australian Rugby League"

Well, we all knew that.

On Sunrise "And Manly even won the biff", which I later heard Pommy Sky commentator Mike Stephenson  also forced to acknowledge.
 
" I thought Glenn had a fine first half and was quiet in the second.  Maybe run out of puff or had a knock.  His defense in the first half was very good." 
I noticed at full time he had the warm jacket on but you could see that his left shoulder was wrapped in the good old glad wrap. Possibly holding an ice pack on!
 
Rose, Rodney, Ox and Choco performances were highlights when looking for improvements over last year.  
Wolfman has had defensive and positional lapses before but in this game he received undeserved flak.  One difficult missed tackle on Senior when outnumbered was his only real defensive mistake. He recovered to tackle Senior but a try was scored anyway from the overlap.
The team ran out of steam but was brilliant before that.  
Lyon was a bit off defensively at times.
I'd drop Bailey if that game was a taste of what's to come. Couple of poor passes from him led to turnovers, but his defense (except for front-on) was simply not up to scratch. Slow to react, slow to move, and too easily dropped off tackles. Performed defensively like a tired prop.  Urgent corrective work needed.
 

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