Will start off with a line I heard from Des speaking after the game
"We have become smart at playing dumb football, but we are getting better"
That is spot on. We aren't playing too clever, the referee's are turning up with pre conceived ideas about us, and we are paying for it. We got penalised numerous times today for "working him", fair enough if it goes both ways, but it doesn't as always. I watched closely in each of the next times we had the ball after being penalised, the same thing occured, and nothing for us. A great example of us not getting the calls from the blokes on the park is when Matai had Thaiday cold at marker, but we got nothing
We can't fault the blokes today on their effort. At 16-0 it would have been very easy to drop the heads and throw the towel in, but they kept trying which is a big positive. Basically today, we won the match on desire, not skill level, which is a pleasing aspect for me
Also encouraging was, apart from the poor miss from Watmough, everything else Brisbane scored from came off bombs, and we were defending our line a lot during the match. They were so 1 dimensional I was laughing near the end. Lockyer would probe, we would shut it down, they would hoist a bomb.
Onto what I thought of some of the players
Standout obviously was Lyon, nothing needs to be said about him. Kite and Stewart backing up was also a great effort, while Robertson was rock solid at the back, criticism will not doubt be found for him, but it is not deserved imo. 2 guys I would like to bring out for special attention are Rodney and Rose. Rodney, as he has done all year, ran hard and poked his head through the line, and Rose was full of metres, I will not be happy if he gets dropped after that match. I liked Jason King's defence today as well, he was hitting quite hard
Now to some of the others. Orford kicking game was attrocious, along with everybody else that had a kick today really. Poor match, but importantly I suppose, he played a hand in our tries, and in the final 10 mins stood up a bit more. 5/10 from me for him
Bailey also continues to show little signs for me at 5/8. Todays one was when he got the ball, and instead of rushing the ball out to the obvious chance, he stepped the guy in the way, ran forward a couple of metres then threw the nice ball to Lyon which made everything he had to do easier. I still maintain our side will be stronger with Bailey at 6 and Lyon centres, that was evident the way Lyon carved up today. We don't have a Bell there as an extra centre this season
Jared Waerea-Hargreaves. Encouraging debut, he looked big and strong, ran well, but had a couple of errors in him too. I would have Rose ahead of him with Perry fit again next week for the final bench spot, but he isn't far off. It did show though why I think the calls for plenty of young guys in the side wouldn't have worked, because they have a few errors in them 1st up
No doubt we will hear plenty about Lyon's 2nd and 3rd tries, both were 100% fine imo. The commentators showed a complete lack of understanding of the rules for mine with the hip one, it is not a knock on. Got sick of hearing all day how Hunt and Hodges were out, Perry and Stewart are also internationals, not to mention Cuthbertson.
Anyhow, I will bank the 2 points, and look forward too next week knowing that although we didn't play that well today, the belief and confidence those blokes should take out of coming back from 16-0 down at Suncorp to win a match should lift our performance and lot, and give them something to move forward with
"We have become smart at playing dumb football, but we are getting better"
That is spot on. We aren't playing too clever, the referee's are turning up with pre conceived ideas about us, and we are paying for it. We got penalised numerous times today for "working him", fair enough if it goes both ways, but it doesn't as always. I watched closely in each of the next times we had the ball after being penalised, the same thing occured, and nothing for us. A great example of us not getting the calls from the blokes on the park is when Matai had Thaiday cold at marker, but we got nothing
We can't fault the blokes today on their effort. At 16-0 it would have been very easy to drop the heads and throw the towel in, but they kept trying which is a big positive. Basically today, we won the match on desire, not skill level, which is a pleasing aspect for me
Also encouraging was, apart from the poor miss from Watmough, everything else Brisbane scored from came off bombs, and we were defending our line a lot during the match. They were so 1 dimensional I was laughing near the end. Lockyer would probe, we would shut it down, they would hoist a bomb.
Onto what I thought of some of the players
Standout obviously was Lyon, nothing needs to be said about him. Kite and Stewart backing up was also a great effort, while Robertson was rock solid at the back, criticism will not doubt be found for him, but it is not deserved imo. 2 guys I would like to bring out for special attention are Rodney and Rose. Rodney, as he has done all year, ran hard and poked his head through the line, and Rose was full of metres, I will not be happy if he gets dropped after that match. I liked Jason King's defence today as well, he was hitting quite hard
Now to some of the others. Orford kicking game was attrocious, along with everybody else that had a kick today really. Poor match, but importantly I suppose, he played a hand in our tries, and in the final 10 mins stood up a bit more. 5/10 from me for him
Bailey also continues to show little signs for me at 5/8. Todays one was when he got the ball, and instead of rushing the ball out to the obvious chance, he stepped the guy in the way, ran forward a couple of metres then threw the nice ball to Lyon which made everything he had to do easier. I still maintain our side will be stronger with Bailey at 6 and Lyon centres, that was evident the way Lyon carved up today. We don't have a Bell there as an extra centre this season
Jared Waerea-Hargreaves. Encouraging debut, he looked big and strong, ran well, but had a couple of errors in him too. I would have Rose ahead of him with Perry fit again next week for the final bench spot, but he isn't far off. It did show though why I think the calls for plenty of young guys in the side wouldn't have worked, because they have a few errors in them 1st up
No doubt we will hear plenty about Lyon's 2nd and 3rd tries, both were 100% fine imo. The commentators showed a complete lack of understanding of the rules for mine with the hip one, it is not a knock on. Got sick of hearing all day how Hunt and Hodges were out, Perry and Stewart are also internationals, not to mention Cuthbertson.
Anyhow, I will bank the 2 points, and look forward too next week knowing that although we didn't play that well today, the belief and confidence those blokes should take out of coming back from 16-0 down at Suncorp to win a match should lift our performance and lot, and give them something to move forward with