Matabele
Journey Man
Okay, gloves off, let's not beat around the bush.
We were a chance at 10-4 and I was personally confident we would bring it home. That all evaporated with 41.21 on the clock when that disgraceful little Crocker **** careened elbow and shoulder first onto the jaw of our most potent attacking weapon.
I don't give a flying **** that Cockup hasn't been charged for it. It was a callous and cowardly act from a known grub. Of course the video ref saw no problem with it - the video ref was Bill Hollywood Harrogant who must have been bitten by a maroon dog at age 3.
And of course they are not going to charge the prick because how embarrasing would that be? Clearly the action should have been taken on the field. Crocker should have been marched. To rub salt into the wound, shortly after he scores a try right where Stewart would have been.
Not since that stunted classless coward Lamb bashed Ellery Hanley out of the 1988 GF has an act of football thuggery gone unpunished and basically determined the result of a GF.
About 5 minutes after we ran one of our favourite pet plays that involves the fullback injecting at pace, and Robertson didn't have the extra yard or two required to make it work. The storm wrapped him up, cracked their knuckles and mentally said "there's no dangers at the back, let's target Orford".
Why was our "go-forward" non-existent? Because that assinine garbage collector named Archer allowed the Storm to stand 8 metres from the ruck and launch themselves before the ball had even hit the ground. Not one penalty for offside all night, yet they were offside all night. Too bad our coaching staff weren't smart enough to instruct our boys to folow suit.
You DO have to wonder when a side gets away with murder AND receive every 50/50 call AND can bash a star player out of the game - what's doing there?
All that being said, let's not forget that we saved our very worst performance of the year for the big one. 67 missed tackles! 15 missed tackles from our season's best forward. Thuggery and inept officialdom aside, we did not deserve to win the game because we were so poor.
I read through the week that Mark Carroll felt "off" on the Thursday before the big one in 1995. That the adulation and attention of GF meant they took the field flat.
Surely this same thing happened in 2007. We will learn from it.
Most embarrasing issues of the night, one centre that can't tackle (matai) and one that can't run more than 20 metres (Bell). A $500,000 player that can be stripped by a smaller outside back. A $500,000 player that is flat out kicking the ball more than 30 metres.
These things will surely be addressed in the off-season ahead.
And our Warrington-bound friend was shown up as the flat-track bully that he is. Bye bye Monaghan, thanks for your passion, commitment to the cause and help to the disadvantaged - but we'll be much better off having a specialist dummy half in the side, rather than a frustrated halfback with delusions of grandeur.
Personally one of the hardest parts of the GF was having my little gnomish friend yapping in my head from the 15th minute onwards about how we're wooden spoon certainties in 2008.
I personally think we're every chance of returning to the big Dance next year and taking it out.
There is clearly improvement in us and yet we still finished 2nd. From last night's team we lose Monaghan and Hicks. We have superior players in the wings to replace both - Ballin and Bani.
Cuthbertson will benefit from a proper off season and Perry will add to our prop rotation (Bryant is useless). If this Waratah wonderchild steps up mid-season, then we will have an impact backrower to complement our stocky workhorses.
But the one dark cloud on the horizon is this - last night showed that if Mr B Stewart suffers a long injury, we will struggle to score points.
Cheers
We were a chance at 10-4 and I was personally confident we would bring it home. That all evaporated with 41.21 on the clock when that disgraceful little Crocker **** careened elbow and shoulder first onto the jaw of our most potent attacking weapon.
I don't give a flying **** that Cockup hasn't been charged for it. It was a callous and cowardly act from a known grub. Of course the video ref saw no problem with it - the video ref was Bill Hollywood Harrogant who must have been bitten by a maroon dog at age 3.
And of course they are not going to charge the prick because how embarrasing would that be? Clearly the action should have been taken on the field. Crocker should have been marched. To rub salt into the wound, shortly after he scores a try right where Stewart would have been.
Not since that stunted classless coward Lamb bashed Ellery Hanley out of the 1988 GF has an act of football thuggery gone unpunished and basically determined the result of a GF.
About 5 minutes after we ran one of our favourite pet plays that involves the fullback injecting at pace, and Robertson didn't have the extra yard or two required to make it work. The storm wrapped him up, cracked their knuckles and mentally said "there's no dangers at the back, let's target Orford".
Why was our "go-forward" non-existent? Because that assinine garbage collector named Archer allowed the Storm to stand 8 metres from the ruck and launch themselves before the ball had even hit the ground. Not one penalty for offside all night, yet they were offside all night. Too bad our coaching staff weren't smart enough to instruct our boys to folow suit.
You DO have to wonder when a side gets away with murder AND receive every 50/50 call AND can bash a star player out of the game - what's doing there?
All that being said, let's not forget that we saved our very worst performance of the year for the big one. 67 missed tackles! 15 missed tackles from our season's best forward. Thuggery and inept officialdom aside, we did not deserve to win the game because we were so poor.
I read through the week that Mark Carroll felt "off" on the Thursday before the big one in 1995. That the adulation and attention of GF meant they took the field flat.
Surely this same thing happened in 2007. We will learn from it.
Most embarrasing issues of the night, one centre that can't tackle (matai) and one that can't run more than 20 metres (Bell). A $500,000 player that can be stripped by a smaller outside back. A $500,000 player that is flat out kicking the ball more than 30 metres.
These things will surely be addressed in the off-season ahead.
And our Warrington-bound friend was shown up as the flat-track bully that he is. Bye bye Monaghan, thanks for your passion, commitment to the cause and help to the disadvantaged - but we'll be much better off having a specialist dummy half in the side, rather than a frustrated halfback with delusions of grandeur.
Personally one of the hardest parts of the GF was having my little gnomish friend yapping in my head from the 15th minute onwards about how we're wooden spoon certainties in 2008.
I personally think we're every chance of returning to the big Dance next year and taking it out.
There is clearly improvement in us and yet we still finished 2nd. From last night's team we lose Monaghan and Hicks. We have superior players in the wings to replace both - Ballin and Bani.
Cuthbertson will benefit from a proper off season and Perry will add to our prop rotation (Bryant is useless). If this Waratah wonderchild steps up mid-season, then we will have an impact backrower to complement our stocky workhorses.
But the one dark cloud on the horizon is this - last night showed that if Mr B Stewart suffers a long injury, we will struggle to score points.
Cheers
