The good, the bad and the ugly report - rd 19

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Reserve Grader
THE GOOD:
It's an old cliche, but a game of two halves was the tale of the day. That and an instant dispelling of the ridiculous myth "we're in a form slump", unless you consider 13/17 wins, undefeated at home, and 2nd on the ladder to be somehow below par (apparently some do).

1st half:
40 seconds is all it took for our right side attack to slice the Knights apart. A quick set of passes saw the Glenn and Lyon show send Wolfman on his way for a 50 metre run before sending a simple ball back inside to Lyon. 6-0. The Knights already looked shaky and you could sense we knew a solid 40 minutes might be enough to put them away. Turned out we only needed 30 minutes. A simple but superb flat ball from Brett (and how good are his try assist passes lately) put Robbo over in the left corner in the 18th minute, before another raid on the right saw a gap so wide that even the generous Glenn realised he may as well go through it by himself and score. 30 minutes and 16-0. The Knights were now in tatters, and not even an early Watmough injury departure was enough to cause any concern. The Knights started racking up their own injuries and a minute before HT Lyon pounced on a perfect DCE grubber to make it 22-0. Game well and truly over.

2nd half:
The problem with 22-0 HT leads against fragile opposition is the danger of them turning into training runs. This was no exception. Archer did his best to save the Knights embarrassment when he handed McManus a 60th minute try. It was hard to tell what was the most surprising part about it, the fact that Archer was the only person who didn't notice McManus was grounded short of the line, or the even more surprising fact that the ego maniac video ref Steve Clark decided to press the "refs decision" button. A regulation Matai try was followed by a bizarre Buhrer bust to set Brett on his way. Lovely as it was to watch it was beyond appalling defence given Buhrer had actually fallen over on his own 40 metre line before being somehow allowed to get up and run 50 metres. Nonetheless the sight of Brett backing up with speed to burn and flying away to score is a sight to look forward to in the coming weeks. 32-4 should have been the final scoreline but Clark didn't want to miss out on stamping his ego a 2nd time so he dutifully handed the Knights another no try (again everyone else in the state could see DCE was taken out before they scored out wide).

A 2nd half training run against a shamble of an opposition, but a rather useful one given the absence of King and the early injury to Watmough allowed Dessie to give plenty of game time to the other forwards. In particular valuable minutes for George (53), Mauro (48), Buhrer (55), Rodney (46) and Lussick (31).

As for the individual performances, Brett seemed to enjoy himself on a bit of a picnic afternoon, Wolfman was excellent (crikey can he really be dropped when Hoppa returns?), Lyon was dangerous every time he touched the ball, and DCE directed the play like a veteran. For the first time this season I can't honestly write a raving report on Foran, not because he did anything wrong at all, but simply because he just didn't need to be the hero for once. In the forwards Kite and Rose ran aggressively (but gees is it just me or is George getting even bigger?), Glenn's origin form is carrying on very nicely, and it was great to see the very talented Buhrer and Lussick get good runs. For the 2nd week running Guluvao played a much smaller than normal role with only 28 minutes today. Once again praise to Des' perfect rotation system which means that by finals time (barring injuries of course) we're going to have the strongest depth in the NRL with some very unlucky players making up the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st jerseys. How do you pick 2 wingers from Robbo, Hoppa and Wolfman? Picking a bench from Mauro, Buhrer, Rose, Rodney, T Williams, Lussick and Robinson is no easier. T Rex or Rodney? Nothing against Mauro but I'd still prefer the under rated Robinson on the bench, and outside of all of them there's also the talented Harrison cooling his heels in the NSW Cup. Nice problem, well done Des.

Man of the match? Bit hard to pick from a virtual training run but DCE, Glenn, Lyon, Wolfie and Ballin all played very well. A massive wrap must go out to Ballin, not only has he played every single game, but from rd 5 on he's played the full 80 minutes every week, racking up 40 odd tackles a match and rarely making a single error.

In summary we did it easily, look more match hard and fit with every week, and are in a very tasty position with just 7 matches to go.

THE BAD:
The fact that we were denied our well deserved zero scoreline. Both Knights tries were dreadful ref decisions. Apart from that not much else to complain about other than Watmoughs injury, but given he sat on the bench in the 2nd half he must be ok.

THE UGLY:
Apologies this is off match subject, but I am still dumbfounded by the absolutely appalling architect proposal for Brookie that looks like a local cycling park. Embarrassingly inept doesn't even do it justice. Yes the environment, community and business interests are very important, so put all the trees, grass, walking tracks and commercial structures you like OUTSIDE the ground. On the inside we desperately need an NRL standard modern stadium with state of the art grandstands as close as possible to the playing surface to maximise the atmosphere. I know the hill has it's history and loved tradition, but it's 2011 folks, there's no hill at all the proper NRL stadiums like Skilled Stadium, Suncorp Stadium etc.
 
Always look forward to your your wrap ups. Just one thing i think Mauro has been going quite well, he has not made many mistakes and just runs the ball forward.
 
Spot on!!!
Foran was very quiet today-DCE seemed to direct everything.
I like Dessie giving plenty of game time to the young fellas-they are really growing in confidence.
We are looking very dangerous from here on in.
 
Foran has been quiet for a couple of games, since Dragqueens actually. I think he is carrying an injury because he hasn't been taking on the line much. His defence is still strong though, so not sure what could be niggling him.
 
Foran quiet for a few weeks. He was rather dominant last week against Souths I would have thought.

Great report CF2. Has anyone heard any more on the injury to Choc?
 
cf2 is back said:
A massive wrap must go out to Ballin, not only has he played every single game, but from rd 5 on he's played the full 80 minutes every week, racking up 40 odd tackles a match and rarely making a single error.

He is a machine, one of my favourite players this year and rising up the ranks of my fav manly players ever.
A big part of our success on the field, for sure.
 
Well said CF2.

As for Foran, I noticed as soon as he ran on today his thigh was heavily strapped. I had heard last week he had a cork so it's obvious that he IS playing injured. Explains why DCE seemed to do most of the kicking, which in previous games Foran has shared.
 
Awesome report, exceeding the usual cf2 high standards. You miss nothing.
I only wish to add that the refereeing (especially that full total dickhead Clarke) must improve. It's only a matter of time before a terrible decision costs a side a premiership. The players and fans deserve to be treated with respect by the officials not with contempt and arrogance, something Clarke excels in.
 
Great read! I hope Choc is ok as he rarely comes off when he injures himself, he usually plays through the pain, anyway we have more than enough depth to cover him if he needs a few weeks off.
 
Directed at CF2: Is that you Dessie?

It's great to see that we are playing smart football i.e when Junior Sau and Wes Naquama (spelling) went down injured we targeted that side all afternoon.
 
From what I heard, Choc had a minor sprain and could have gone back out in the second half if he was needed, which clearly he wasn't so they didn't risk him.
 
Mauro and Big Ted must be eating at the same table. George's gut is expanding at a rapid rate, and Mauro's is too. Des must like the fact they take up half the width of a field when they're both on. You forgot to report on the after match talk by Des. He popped the question again to the NSW govt about getting a decent stadium for the Northern beaches. Good for him. When you talk about the game of Wolfie, I still worry about his defense. If Drugcastle had of been smarter, they could have exploited his coming-in a few times. They didn't, so he wasn't exposed. I've always hated Steve Clark. He never gave us a fair game when he was a whistleblower and doesn't now.
 
Agree with almost everything - except the section which says Brookvale doesn't need to retain its hill. I totally disagree, and point to such recently modernised stadiums as Wollongong and Kogarah that have retained their iconic hills.
You can have both. Let's not make Brookie a concrete jungle. Keep the eastern hill and build new grandstands on the other three sides.
 
The Who said:
You can have both. Let's not make Brookie a concrete jungle. Keep the eastern hill and build new grandstands on the other three sides.

That could work. Put up some great grandstands like the ones at Drugcastle on the other three sides and fix the hill up, perhaps even putting a smaller grandstand behind the hill. What kind of ground capacity would we need? 30k?
 
The good , Manly we were Awesome. The bad, Vedio ref , he saw the replay of the obvious no try 10 times and couldnt make a decision (what a f....n idiot) The ugly, the Ref who went to the video ref because he obviously was not confident in making the correct decision and when the video ref showed his incompedence in not making a desision , he blows his whistle at the spot where the ball was short of the try line and awards a try , ( what a d....head). And the lines man , he wasnt Good , he wasnt Bad, he wasnt Ugly , he was no where to be seen.
 
Does anyone think:
a. the video ref has improved the game
b. two refs have improved the game

I don't. But I'm a dinosaur. Am I looking through 'rose-coloured glasses' that certain aspects of the game in the past were better than the convoluted regulations we now have?
 
Team P W L PD Pts
3 3 0 48 6
3 2 1 45 4
3 2 1 28 4
3 2 1 22 4
3 2 1 15 4
3 2 1 14 4
2 1 1 13 4
3 2 1 10 4
2 1 1 6 4
3 2 1 -3 4
3 1 2 0 2
3 1 2 -5 2
3 1 2 -15 2
3 1 2 -22 2
3 1 2 -36 2
2 0 2 -56 2
3 0 3 -64 0
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