Game Day: Dragons v Manly [Round 9, 2020]

[joeboy]

Sorry mate but it’s likely we will never agree. You seem completely half glass empty kinda guy who struggles to see the upside or even try to find a positive. Respectfully Des took us well into the finals last year after we nearly took the spoon under Barrett. Stop referencing the dogs mate cos last I remember he won us two premierships and drove us from nothing to those titles. He also took the dogs to two GFs. Perhaps you can suggest another realistic coaching solution if you have one? Happy to hear it. As I’ve said tonight’s gig wasn’t due to isolated individual performances, rather a lackluster team effort - which Des needs to take account for too. I’m confident of a better performance next week.

I like des as a coach, but I don’t think he is handling this season well or exhausting other options at his disposal. The team looks devoid of ideas, has poor structures and is now cinceding big points to bad teams. This all comes down to coaching, does it not? I agree des has achieved a lot and he gets my respect and admiration for that, but I don’t think he is coaching well this year.

is be interested to hear what positives you took out of tonight?

 

[madmax]

I rest my case if that's all anyone can come up with

Payne Hass, Pangai Junior, David Fafita

 

[Deleted member 26876]

He has always stagnated our attack at times. He just had some cool plays with tommy trbo that covered how slow he played other times. Just because he is a good passer (he is!) doesn't mean he is the right type of player to be our lock. He hasn't got a versatile enough build or playing style to be a lock and that's why for years there has been the debate that keeps emerging about whether it would be good to move him back to prop. 80 minutes is overkill, and des is just carrying on the same style (and minutes) of game he played under Barrett. The only difference is that he ends up with the ball more at stupid times because we've had plenty of injuries in our spine and have lacked a genuine organising halfback.

no he doesn’t, not even close

 

[madmax]

The entire Team was unfortunately

Marty & Siro can hold their heads high!

 

[Waz13]

Stop with this crap about what Dessie achieved last year.
Barrett was just crap and Dessie did what one should have expected with the squad we had.

DCE
Tommy
Jake
Marty
AFB
Api
Fainu
Walker
Thompson

he won the right number of games he should have with those players

Fainu - in his rookie year?? Yeah well established first grader. Despite what you think most all pundits including well resourced and researched betting agencies had us not performing as well as we did last year mate. Just curious, what is your alternative to Des as a coaching option that will bring more out of this side. Please offer a solution, I’m keen to hear it.

 

[Kevinward777]

Stop with this crap about what Dessie achieved last year.
Barrett was just crap and Dessie did what one should have expected with the squad we had.

DCE
Tommy
Jake
Marty
AFB
Api
Fainu
Walker
Thompson

he won the right number of games he should have with those players

And for the last few three losses he hasn’t had Turbo, Walker, Fainu (Api) and was also missing Tapau, Taufua and Suli for some of those games. So yeah, you might want to consider that.

 

[GrahamHughesHairHat]

Elliot 4/10 tried hard defence ok
Jorge 2/10 Slow old no penetration
Garrick 2/10 Driven backwards Can’t kick goals
Parker 1/10 So slow Dropped balls
Suli 3/10 tried but no ball
Cust 2/10 not a 1st grader yet
DCE 1/10 Shocker Can he get a repeat set this season?
Jake3/10 Grt defence but so boring and predictable
Sirro 3/10 No ball tried hard
Thommo 1/10 Nothing
Paseka 1/10 FFS run hard !!
kapow 8/10 Our only goer
levi 1/10 haha nothing
Goswoski 1/10 nothing
Boyle 1:10 Soft
Crocker MINUS 4/10 Joke
Keppie 1/10 A slow wet lettuce performance by a forward who can play WTF

 

[Waz13]

I like des as a coach, but I don’t think he is handling this season well or exhausting other options at his disposal. The team looks devoid of ideas, has poor structures and is now cinceding big points to bad teams. This all comes down to coaching, does it not? I agree des has achieved a lot and he gets my respect and admiration for that, but I don’t think he is coaching well this year.

is be interested to hear what positives you took out of tonight?

I don’t think many of us took positives out of tonight tbh. I for one was happy to hear Des put Elliot at fb and Garrick back to wing as well as cust to 6 and Croker to utility. Beaten by a side by 30 who will finish bottom 4mis obviously tough. We’ve been dealt a cruel hand by injuries unfortunately that has taken us back to the level of teams that will finish bottom 4. I’ve not lost confidence in the coaching though. There are not many sides in this comp that will do well in the position we are in right now. It will turn but we need a couple of wins soon......

 

[Frogz]

Marty & Siro can hold their heads high!

just against that under average side

 

[Chuck]

Turbo Walker fainu AFB are 4 of our best. Jake makes the 5. Tapau could be in the top 5. But dce surely isn't ATM.

Fainu has shown sweet fk all to be considered in our best 5 players. Hasn't got the years under the belt or the games.

DCE is the current qld and aus half back for crying out loud. He is our marquee signing and highest paid whether anyone likes it or not. He is in our top 5.

 

[susan]

Fainu has shown sweet fk all to be considered in our best 5 players. Hasn't got the years under the belt or the games.

DCE is the current qld and aus half back for crying out loud. He is our marquee signing and highest paid whether anyone likes it or not. He is in our top 5.

If he has shown SFA then why are we a hapless team getting flogged by also rans when Tom is out. We had basically the same sort of injury/ suspension issues at prop , halves , fullback last year plus both starting backrowers out yet we were one bad decision away from the prelim final. The difference this year is No Fainu= no other point of attack when Tommy is out.. He’s already in the top four or five hookers in the game at 20.
He has completely outplayed DCE for 12 months.But DCE is in our top 5 for sure.Agree with that.

 

[globaleagle]

Maybe it's because I've just finished watching but what a ****ing debacle. Sick of hearing the tough talk throughout the week if they then can't or don't want to back it up on playing day.

Injuries aside.... there seems to be no will to win. It's just so weak.

Any interviews this week should not be about turning things around etc etc... but just apologising to the fans and the rest of the interview being slapped in the noggin to fire up.

Just insipid. MFB reckons they read this forum (which I'm skeptical about..lol) and I hate bagging players but fmd they're making me embarrassed to wear my Manly gear outside. I have literally gone to grab the Manly hat and thought, nope...shall grab a different one instead.

I've officially got the "game day" feeling from the year when we finished 15th. Not "hooray, it's game day" but "Oh no, game day. Just hoping we don't get smashed again."

I have, like many others, pledged my membership. Maybe the team could pledge to actually try.


edit: for all those calling for cust to start.... there it was!

 

[40 years an eagle]

I've officially got the "game day" feeling from the year when we finished 15th. Not "hooray, it's game day" but "Oh no, game day. Just hoping we don't get smashed again."

I guess you are not looking forward to next week's game then mate. There is nothing worse than getting "smashed" by the Worms.

I think i'll skip watching the game.

 

[BOZO]

Don't care who we are missing. This is ****ing pathetic. Gifting tries and totally anaemic attack. ****ing hard to watch.

You are right mate , it does not matter who is missing from our starting side . What matters is who goes missing from the blokes that get selected that take the field .
I have one thing to say to all players that wear our legendary Manly Jersey
IF YOU CANT STAND THE NRL LEVEL HEAT THEN GO AND PLAY PARK FOOTY

 

[BOZO]

We have given up now. Goodnight everyone.

Most of us fans have not given up . The way our players played tonight , I hope they havent given up . Three loses in a row is not Manly

 

[BOZO]

What happened to the team that held the raiders out?

A great heavy weight fighter does not only hold himself for a couple of rounds
A great heavy weight fighter goes the distance
Our boys play the heavy weight eels next week
and they have another opportunity to show the whole NRL world What they are made of

 

[Tomay]

The Dragons played well. Our constant lack of pressure on anyone's kicking game was capitalised on and they pinned us in the corner all night. We don't have much punch coming out of our own end beyond Tafua who was too often retrieving the ball or sitting on the sidelines. Suli really needs to get back for that second hit up.

We started well when we ran onto the ball, the forwards were supporting each other and we kept their defence honest but that went away very quickly when Marty left the field. Once again our forwards started their runs flat footed and ran without support, allowing the Dragons to dominate the tackle. We can look dangerous in attack and managed to poke our heads through but our lack of composure and patience cost us again as we tried to push too many passes and rush to score. I still think Cust is a promising player, he looked good at times last night. It would be nice if he had a back rower next to him who could bend and threaten the line a bit more.

On Defence our first contact and line speed were terrible again, similar to the Sharks game.

They did score two tries off intercepts and the bounce of the ball didn't go our way last night but the trend of this team lacking in effort areas and composure is a very big concern.

 

[manly al]

First 20 minutes was actually fairly positive for Manly and had D C E ' "s pass found its mark with a Manly player and a result , half time score could have even favored Manly . Marty was going well up to that point to create some opportunities and defence fairly solid but even by that point the unforced errors were starting to really hurt them . 2 nd have was just diabolical for Manly and lost count of the number of mistakes , completion rates must have been shocking . Thought that overall team consistency was a major problem before that game but went to another low last night . Wouldn 't be totally critical of D C E , good line break , was running to the line better [ and to set up the Thommo try ] but the misdirected pass was a turning point and really have to hope his other regular lapses won ;t be repeated . Just were not able to exert any pressure on the Dragons defence in the 2 nd half so opportunity for repeat sets hardly came into the equation . Thought that Paseka and Keppie ran with some purpose and Paseka defended well , not sure why Marty was rested for so long , Thommo tried hard but many Sea Eagles just seemed to lose their way in the 2 nd half and then the Dragons did have virtually all of the luck with quite a few of their tries . Tough game next week and surely there must be some serious consideration for some new blood along with maybe having Funa in the centres with Suli .

 

[globaleagle]

Here's my gif(t) to you all!

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

I don’t think many of us took positives out of tonight tbh. I for one was happy to hear Des put Elliot at fb and Garrick back to wing as well as cust to 6 and Croker to utility. Beaten by a side by 30 who will finish bottom 4mis obviously tough. We’ve been dealt a cruel hand by injuries unfortunately that has taken us back to the level of teams that will finish bottom 4. I’ve not lost confidence in the coaching though. There are not many sides in this comp that will do well in the position we are in right now. It will turn but we need a couple of wins soon......

Sadly that’s

Eels

Cowboys after a 12 hour day just to get there

Panthers

Can’t see us getting within 40-50 of the two top sides and that away game will be a killer for most sides.

Sadly we aren’t at rock bottom just yet BUT I have a feeling after we get to that rock bottom , and as we always do, we’ll stage a brave fight back to possibly just miss the 8.

Don’t really know what the answers are but it’s clear we need something to change Moving forward.