What i seen today was only Matai & the halves really going hard yet in cruise mode seemed to have those Black Cats covered. G Stewart led up front but really just a training run against a team getting charity penalties & vital decisions. The good - won well without having to expend much energy. The bad - same as above - never tested & prefer a few lifts in intensity prior to the crunch games come finals time.
I think the 7-0 penalty count against us in the second half obviously impacted on our momentum. A pretty impressive win under the circumstances.
14 wins for the season and whilst not pretty.... 2 points is 2 points. The Panthers have big forwards and were able to nullify our guys to a large extent. With the possesion they got from the constant flow of penalties, they should have scored more that two trys but our guys defended really well. Then there was the disallowed try which was another video ref error and should have been awarded. It's hard to say how it effected the game... perhaps Manly would have chanced their hand a bit and possibly scored more points... doesn't really matter. They did what they needed to do to get the win. The Tigers will be another big test next week.
I think we all need take a cold shower. I just watched the game and we were doing all we had to do to win. Penriff were up big time for this game, they had an avalanche of penalties, 56% of the possession and we had a dead set try disallowed. My sense for what it's worth is that Dessie doesn't give a rats rear end about for and against, just wants to do enough to win right now and will hit the "go" button about three weeks out from the finals. It's all good guy's!!!
