Forwards

[Matabele]

Let's not get carried away. Canberra is an abysmal side and they played abysmally. I was very concerned with the lack of go-forward at critical stages. If we struggle to get going against that Canberra rabble, how will we contend with the Dogs or Cowgirls?

Of all the games seen this weekend that was by far the poorest quality. I guess some of it can be blamed on the conditions, but all?

My thoughts on the forwards:

Kite - solid but not spectacular. Showed he probably still can do what he did for us in 2006. 6/10.

King - A very good game by his standards and if he can replicate that on a weekly basis we will have a solid starting pair. 6/10.

G Stewart - surprised me I must admit. Tackles well and made some good breaks. 7/10

Menzies - didn't see enough of him but we know what he's capable of.

Williamson - Did waht I predicted all week - tackles his heart out and let noone down. 7/10

Rose - This bloke is a huge concern to me. Gives away stupid penalties and is a massive liability in defence. 2/10

Bryant - Nothing spectacular but did nothing wrong either. 4/10.

Hall - A good impression of the invisible man for much of his time on the field, so it's just as well he gave his bare balls a good scratch in the dressing shed so we took notice of him. 3/10

Monaghan - At the rsik of being howled down as a broken record, I really do question why we persist with this clown. Stilts the attack on a regular basis (Lyon blowing up at him inside the first ten minutes), runs backwards from dummy half and throws hospital passes, slowing up play, threw some shocking balls at his runners (this is a basic skill mastered by 12 year olds!!!!!!!) and how bad was the kicking game after Orford left the field?

Seriosuly, 2/10 and bring on Ballin.

 

[Chip and Chase]

That's a pretty fair assessment from what I saw, although you may be a little harsh on Rose.

Has Glen Stewart put on some bulk over the off season, he seemed at little more physically imposing last night. Maybe it's the beard.

Monaghan proved again last night that he is solid at best. He offers very little in attack, and if anything detracts from the attacking potential of others. There is no spark there, which is unacceptable these days, the No. 9 is a critical position in the NRL. I've never seen Ballin play, but why not give him a crack, he couldn't be any worse.

A fair effort first up from the pack, but they'll need to build on that for next week against the Tigers. The intensity will need to lift and they will need to work a lot harder around the ruck against the Tigers.

 

[Stuey Davis’s Socks]

Harsh on Hall as well. 11 hitups for 108 metres is good going in wet conditions.

 

[ads]

Are you serious about Rose. His stats:
13 tackles
1 missed
10 hitups
117 metres (second most out of our props).
1 offload

I can't fault that too much.

Hall
14 tackles
1 miised
11 hitups
108 metres gained
2 offloads

I noticed him a fair bit.

 

[Matabele]

Missed tackles are only counted where contact is made with the player. when it comes to rose my concern is that there are occasions where he is grasping thin air because he can't move laterally.

 

[ManlyBacker]

No doubt we looked rusty in patches, but considering how we have been concerned about our forward strength it was a performance that gave me great heart. That was the best game I have seen King play. If he keeps that up he deserves the number 8 permanently. There was also greater consistency in our forwards hunting as a pack. I thought the ref was very lenient in allowing slow play the balls and we could get pinged substantially under a different pea-swallower for those tactics.

 

[KaZa]

harsh on everyone. They were good last night. I cant fault any players...

Just Canberra? Yeah.. but we lost to them last year in a similar scenario.... Would you prefer last years result?

 

[HK]

My ratings on the forwards:

Kite - among his worst games in 18 months. 4/10.

King - Surprisingly the best prop on park. 6/10.

G Stewart - Surprised me and deserves the 13 jumper when choc is back. 8/10

Menzies - N/A

Williamson - did his bit. we need more. 4/10

Rose - i thought this guy was outstanding off the bench. real impact. 7/10

Bryant - solid. 5/10.

Hall - nothing much except for adding some much-needed mongrel. 5/10

Monaghan - not his best game. must take on long kicking duties or orford will lose his legs from under him all season. 4/10

Note about backs - i thought bell, orford and burns held their own. i want to see a full 80 or two with lyon and orford in the halves before judging. brett stewart need to do something with those abysmal kick returns if he is to crack into the rep scene (see bowen, hodges, slater, hodgson, mckinnon so far in round 1). hicks must learn to dive onto stray balls.

 

[Cameron]

monas' passing game has to improve it was a concern at a few times.

 

[Kiwi Eagle]

agree, lets not get carried away, however you have gotten carried away in your criticism and ratings of the players mata.

They put in a good,solid performance, every single 1 of them, and to give them 2 or 3/10 is getting very carried away, at worst the lowest rating for any of them should have been 5

 

[fLIP]

I agree with Cliffy on this one.

The number of times we had a possible overlap and monas just lofted a floater to orford from hooker was ridiculous. Cost us a lot of breaks.

 

[Jatz Crackers]

agree, lets not get carried away, however you have gotten carried away in your criticism and ratings of the players mata.

They put in a good,solid performance, every single 1 of them, and to give them 2 or 3/10 is getting very carried away, at worst the lowest rating for any of them should have been 5

Spot on KE.

 

[Fluffy]

we played fairly poor in poor conditions and still ran away with an easy win.

The only way is up from that performance but being the first game we cant be too harsh

 

[willstyles]

Missed tackles are only counted where contact is made with the player. when it comes to rose my concern is that there are occasions where he is grasping thin air because he can't move laterally.

This is actually not entirely true. If there is a bad read by a player, or simply someone being to slow to cover a hole then more often than not they'll be marked with a missed tackle. Sometimes the live updates will miss the odd missed tackle from someone like George Rose being too slow etc, but they'd be picked up in the second call.

 

[willstyles]

Also, I laughed at Williamson having the same rating as Glenn Stewart. To be honest I'd give Willow a 6/10, with Stewart a 7.5/10.

 

[DSM5]

Granted it wasn't a gifted display by the forwards but they were reasonably solid. Williamson and Stewart were the pick of the bunch. My whinge is this, why does Des persist with Matai? His display, before succumbing to the perennial leg problem, was to be caught out of position again. Almost led to a try. He's not learnt, or been coached, to stay in line and tackle his man. The back line tightened up when he left the field. Burns had a great game in defense as did Willo and Stewart. Brett Stewart was quiet. Robinson was good but Hicks was a dumb arse to not fall on that ball. What was he thinking to gift that.

 

[Nutzcraw]

DSM5, before last night i would have said that i'd love to have Lyon, Burns and Matai all in the same team. But i personally think you can't not give the no.6 to Travis Burns.... we are better when he is there.. he is a champion little player.

So, for me

Lyon and Bell in the centres

Travis Burns at 5/8th

unfortunately Matai misses out... it's a tough call because i think matai is a good footy player but i honestly think the only way he can stay in the team is if he plays backrow or something.

Who knows, in his defence we only got to see 11 minutes of Lyon at 6 and it was very scrappy so if we persist with it and it goes well then maybe keep matai in the centres and lyon at 6... but i just can't come at having Travis Burns off the field at anytime. (unless injured of course)

 

[sue ridgepipe]

I thought it was an extremely ordinary game.Worst of the weekend with the penrith game..Canberra will get the spoon -i doubted that but i am a convert.they will run last.

Every try except one came from kicks-really surprised me the lack of penetration from our backline.we were obviously rusty but play like that next week with our injury list and the traditional liechardt flogging is in order.

positives-king,g stewart,hall,bell.orford will always dominate sides in games like that and did so.

spoke to quite a few manly greats after the game and i would hardly say the reaction was positive.next week will tell us more now that we have dusted off the cobwebs.

 

[The Wheel]

The conditions and injuries through out the game did not help our cohesion.

We will only get better but it is hard to gauge our performacne when the opposition was nothing more than an organised rabble.

Some of matabele's rating were tough but he has nver been one to go over the top in praise. I thought Hall had quite a good game and was far better than 3 out of 10 - the red wine must have been flowing up Dubbo way on sat night.

 

[Jatz Crackers]

Some of matabele's rating were tough but he has nver been one to go over the top in praise.

The reason why its so quiet on the forum today is most of the silvertails have committed suicide after reading matabele's assessment :lol2: