Tonight is the night the premiership window opened.

[simon_eagle]

Nobody complained about our 9 last week.

Chalk and cheese.

 

[Waz13]

Plenty complained about him the week before..
We can flog injury ravaged teams.. cool.. let's hope we play nothing but injury ravaged teams all the way to next year's Grandfinal hey???

Our 9 didn’t play the week before last from what I recall. But oh yeah base you’re argument on comparison to the current nsw and Australian 9. Croker was not our problem tonight and all year for that matter and anybody can see that.

 

[simon_eagle]

The window will be open for two years tops. Tommy will be at the peak of his game but we have aging halves with no depth there. Pack is solid enough just need 1 or 2 new buys to freshen up that middle, our centres aren't quite premiership quality but I think we can carry them if everything else clicks

100% mate. Our centres are not premiership quality and our halves are… on the veteran end of their careers. Also agree our peak is still a year or two away. Future is bright but we are one or two short. In our clubs great history, this is the precipice where the likes of Arko or Bozo would go out and recruit those missing links.

 

[court83]

Our 9 didn’t play the week before last from what I recall. But oh yeah base you’re argument on comparison to the current nsw and Australian 9. Croker was not our problem tonight and all year for that matter and anybody can see that.

I'm not blaming Croker for the loss
What I am saying is continuing to pay fainu while playing a reserve grade hooker is like going into a boxing match with 1 hand tied behind our backs..
We win well off the back of a few stars, but if we want to be a serious threat, we can't keep doing It.

 

[Waz13]

I'm not blaming Croker for the loss
What I am saying is continuing to pay fainu while playing a reserve grade hooker is like going into a boxing match with 1 hand tied behind our backs..
We win well off the back of a few stars, but if we want to be a serious threat, we can't keep doing It.

I do agree the Fainu situation needs to be sorted. Croker has been outstanding this year in the 9. I’m happy with him there tbh. I’d seriously consider Walker going back to Centre and Lawton being the 14 cover for 9/13.

 

[Damien2812]

From here our expectations should be playing in the 8 moving forward.

 

[simon_eagle]

From here our expectations should be playing in the 8 moving forward.

Why do you say that? Surely we will only improve on this and be better for the humbling experience suffered against the big boys?

 

[ALinda]

We need to make a decision on fainu... The storm game and tonight particularly showed the importance of having spark from dummy half... Cook was dangerous with every single run.. we can't just keep paying fainus wage hoping he gets off eventually, while playing sub par hooker's to get us thru.

Either fainu starts 2022 (or atleast within the first 6 weeks) or we need to let him go and hit the market for someone talented

Whilst I agree with your first paragraph, we'll be lucky if Fainu plays at all in 2022 as his court case supposedly doesn't start till next July. Why we ever extended his contract is beyond me.

All things considered, Croker's done pretty well this year after being moulded into the hooking role imo.

 

[CBreeagles]

Turbo
Saab
Walker (after he slims up again)
Parker
Garrick
Foran
DCE
Aioli
Croker
Keppie
Schu
Shmole
Jake

Fainu (pending court case)
Lawton
Marty
Paseka

 

[Mac Man]

Hard to win a game with 23/36 completions, 39 tackles they had in our 20 against us 11.
Nearly 100 more tackles made my us and zero drop outs forced by us V 3 to Souths

We need some decent Cartres and also Tariq Sims in the back row.

 

[Remy]

exactly, 05-14 was a great era, and we've spent our time rebuilding from that. I can now smell something similar, we starting a new one. I'm confident we will.

 

[Nike]

Schuster to 6, Foz to the Benji 14 role. It's time to move on.

 

[HK_Eagle]

As hard as tonight was it could be the loss the side really needed.
We were our worse enemies tonight and that will boil and stew on the side.
The 16 that will be with us next year learnt a massive rugby league lesson tonight and over the last few weeks and all I can see is upside.
Who would've thought we would be here tonight one game from the big one.
It's time to celebrate a great season and look forward to 2022.

Agggghhhhh. I wanna scream. Why do people go on with this cliche garbage? How is it that we replicated the same dumb performance and error-riddled garbage as we did against the Storm just two weeks ago, yet... people wanna trot out it's a great learning experience that we will magically learn from next year. If we couldn't learn from two weeks ago when the pain and lessons were fresh, what makes people think we are going to learn 6 months later???

 

[EOL now nesting on the GC]

Plenty complained about him the week before..
We can flog injury ravaged teams.. cool.. let's hope we play nothing but injury ravaged teams all the way to next year's Grandfinal hey???

Storm have grant/cheese
Penny have API
Roosters have cook
All extremely good hooker's and all are the only teams left in the comp... It's not the be all end all, but it helps.. alot

you do know Croker didn't play the week before..... makes it hard to complain about a guy who was in the stands don't you think?

 

[EOL now nesting on the GC]

Agggghhhhh. I wanna scream. Why do people go on with this cliche garbage? How is it that we replicated the same dumb performance and error-riddled garbage as we did against the Storm just two weeks ago, yet... people wanna trot out it's a great learning experience that we will magically learn from next year. If we couldn't learn from two weeks ago when the pain and lessons were fresh, what makes people think we are going to learn 6 months later???

why so angry?

 

[HK_Eagle]

why so angry?

Umm... because I'm a Manly supporter and watched a bitterly disappointing performance from the team tonight that mirrored the same mistakes as I watched two weeks ago, showing zero growth or learning. I was excited and had plenty of optimism going into the game tonight. I certainly didn't take it as a given and thought it was a genuine 50/50 game. We really could have won that game, but threw away the opportunity. We beat ourselves. And even more infuriating was the lack of composure and leadership from our senior players... To wrap it up and summarise, my expectations weren't met.

 

[wedgetail eagle]

A funny thing, with all this over the top smug South’s rubbish coming my way, it’s a case of,
“the enemy of my enemy”,
so I’ll be cheering on the winner of Saturday’s game.
Even if it is the Storm.

 

[EOL now nesting on the GC]

Umm... because I'm a Manly supporter and watched a bitterly disappointing performance from the team tonight that mirrored the same mistakes as I watched two weeks ago, showing zero growth or learning. I was excited and had plenty of optimism going into the game tonight. I certainly didn't take it as a given and thought it was a genuine 50/50 game. We really could have won that game, but threw away the opportunity. We beat ourselves. And even more infuriating was the lack of composure and leadership from our senior players... To wrap it up and summarise, my expectations weren't met.

Sure fair points.

Were your expectations met finishing 4th?

Expectations after 4 rounds?

Tonight sucked at large points but we watched some great footy this year. Surely that was a good thing?

We beat ourselves today. The kids in the team were tired for past 6 or 8 weeks.

 

[HK_Eagle]

Sure fair points.

Were your expectations met finishing 4th?

Expectations after 4 rounds?

Tonight sucked at large points but we watched some great footy this year. Surely that was a good thing?

We beat ourselves today. The kids in the team were tired for past 6 or 8 weeks.

Taking the emotions out of tonight and stepping back... yeah, sure. I'm so happy and proud of what the team managed this year. I felt engaged and hopeful for the first time in a long time. I'm excited looking ahead, but also wary. There are some steps and growth to be made if we are going to win a premiership anytime soon. There are also some big challenges. I'm just bummed I wont be able to yell and scream and holler next week in a GF, especially as we were more than capable of beating Souffs and getting there. Tonight was a such a wasted opportunity and on top of unlearned lessons from the Storm game two weeks ago. I hope the players are hurting as much as I will be over the next 6 months and come back hungrier.

 

[rifraff]

The premiership window might be open IF

Maybe we lay all over the tackled player till the nth degree like some.
Maybe if we leg pull on first or second tackle.
Maybe if we have amazing line speed cause we are offside
Maybe if we try and steal the ball every tackle to slow the play down.
Maybe if we feign injuries.

Not to mention the new rules that will be introduced and the old fundamental rules that will be forgotten.

I think we have been a good team and a fair team. Maybe a reason why people are starting to like us.

Maybe we just need to cheat like pretty much everyone else... To get to that next level...