we played very well against bunnies and were beaten.last night was very close to our worst performance in a long time and we get 2 points.we had oodles of luck which is nice for a change and chechin didnt get us.two very valuable points. the really bad part of our game over the last 2 years surfaced again this week with the sideways running.DCE and Foran in particular on the left hand side seem to start on a bad angle and it gets worse from their.Matai,a bloke who loves running stright must have wondered what hit him.g.stewart also doesnt help if he doesnt beat the first man on the outside shoulder.this is where we miss snake who has a great ability to straighten the attack and go himself or hit a winger with a flat pass. good points were the performance of trex who rolled his sleeves up and did some heavy work on the edges.this is the ONLY role he should be used in going forward.liked his effort.thought buerhrer ,preacher(except his miss on snowden)harrison tried hard,the rest were ordinary.matt ballin seems to be losing his effectiveness fast and this is becoming a problem.was more pronounced with him playing full 80. ugly stuff but a win down there is great for morale and we should give the panfers a nice touchup at home next week. solid start to season.
I feel like our whole attack and defense relies ALOT on Snake, even more so with our two rookie halves. We need him on the field as once he is back to his best i can see us getting more points. Things will get better as DCE and Foran get better but it is going to take time.
Joe went well, looking at the stats Gallen ran for almost 200 metres almost twice as good as the next best, what a weapon he is.
At dummy half, Ballin seems to be looking everywhere except at the feet of the player playing the ball and this often provides opposition teams, time to rush the first receiver. I hate it when he raises his arms looking for a penalty while the ball is there ready to be picked up. Certainly part of the reason the sharks were in our faces before we could take 3 steps forward. I can't criticise his defence but he needs to smarten up at dummy half.
Ballin has been concerning me for about a year now. The lack of a running game and quality kicking game is a worry, especially with 2 young halves
