What went wrong!

[The Royal Soup]

Suli and pea heart forward pack

 

[Ron E. Gibbs]

We are better than what we produced.

Maybe. But we're still nowhere near the top three teams. The difference between our best and our worst performances is just too great.

Top year of footy from the boys, though. Entertaining enough to make COVID lockdowns more bearable and plenty of hope for the future.

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

Going into next season I would like to see Josh Aloha temper his…well…temper. He reminds me of another ex-Tigers forward when he joined Manly - Tapau.

 

[HK_Eagle]

Too many errors. Poor options playing the short side on the 3rd tackle when we haven’t had the ball for ages. None the less a great season. Sadly an opportunity lost.

This. It was such a telling moment in DCE's head space tonight. He had to be much smarter in the situation. If we were dominating I would say, yes, pass it. But with the starvation of possession and score board against us, that was a really poor read from Captain Composure. And the crazy thing was he had a real chance back inside with a dummy as his defender was half a step too lateral on him

 

[Chip and Chase]

You need discipline and composure to win finals footy. We didn't have that. Started poorly and got worse. Wasn't to be tonight.

 

[SeaEagle21]

We just don't build enough pressure through set completion and end up on the back foot. Unfortunately in the finals against the best do that for most of the game and you get punished very hard.

Have to put yourself in a position and earn the right to spread the ball.

 

[Rocky]

The rot started with Keppies drop ball which made him defend and knock himself out

If he retains the ball we are up the other end of the field attacking

Yeah my heart sunk when this happened..it reminded me of the Storm game when DCE passed to Harper and the Storm scored.

 

[Hotspur2014]

Absolutely pathetic.
No further comment needed !!!

 

[JBW]

Possession...inability to keep it and lack of it....first disallowed try, should have been 6 all bit instead went to 12 nil...second disallowed try, should have been 12 all..

Keppie going off, brought Marty into the game way too early, same with Paseka, changed Des entire bench rotation.

Bus being caught in traffic and having to stare at two headed Queenslanders out of the window for too long.

It was the Melbourne game all over again, they rushed up in defence, we dropped the ball, they scored tries...the game was deja Vu.

 

[Shoe1]

lots of 6 agains including non-ref 6 agains killed our possession in the first half. Often a **** pass from rabbits touching our player then 6 more.

Klein should have stopped the game for Keppie.

 

[eaglebuzz]

Too many dropped balls turned attack into defense. We tried to play touch footy instead of grinding into the match. What sucks the most about that performance is that those two late tries could have been the match winners if we hadn't gifted Souths 30 points prior to those moments. Losing Keppie was absolutely huge too... we really needed him to soften up the Souths pack.

All in all though we really did outperform this season. It's a young squad and they'll be much better for the experience. TBH I think losing Taupau wouldn't be the worst thing for us, he really hasn't stood up to be counted when it mattered most.

 

[The Wheel]

For some reason i have taken a great dislike to the Souffs fullback - he deserves a Nelson AS Bali punching

 

[Ron E. Gibbs]

Obvious to say the least, but it bears repeating because our players certainly didn't seem to learn anything from the lesson the Storm taught them in the first finals game: If you hold onto the f***ing ball, everything is a hell of a lot easier. You don't have to do all that tackling. The other team can't score as many points because they don't have the ball all the time - you do! You might even score a few tries yourself, and maybe even score a few more. The sky is suddenly filled with sunshine and double rainbows. Everybody is faster. Everybody is stronger. And Cherry can start smiling for all the right reasons.

But we didn't hold onto the ball. We gave the game away.

 

[DaveLP]

Despite the obvious with suli and Saab's defensive reads we got no 50/50 calls we made too many errors and we just looked lost out there under every high ball. Senior players not good enough especially DCE no leadership no go forward aswell as the disallowed tries and then the send off I mean everything that could go wrong did even the drive there!

 

[HK_Eagle]

Possession...inability to keep it and lack of it....first disallowed try, should have been 6 all bit instead went to 12 nil...second disallowed try, should have been 12 all..

Keppie going off, brought Marty into the game way too early, same with Paseka, changed Des entire bench rotation.

Bus being caught in traffic and having to stare at two headed Queenslanders out of the window for too long.

It was the Melbourne game all over again, they rushed up in defence, we dropped the ball, they scored tries...the game was deja Vu.

Great summary. What is most worrying is that many are banging on about a great learning experience for a young side, yet we had that lesson two weeks ago with the Storm... what did we learn? What makes people think it will be any different next time for these players? Another poster mentioned it, but we do need a couple of astute signings to help us continue to climb upwards next season.

 

[HK_Eagle]

We just don't build enough pressure through set completion and end up on the back foot. Unfortunately in the finals against the best do that for most of the game and you get punished very hard.

Have to put yourself in a position and earn the right to spread the ball.

But it's a broken record. We found ourselves in the exact same situation in most of our losses this year, let alone the very glaring finals loss to the Storm just two weeks ago. Respecting the ball has been our achilles heel all year.

 

[Jerry1]

Did Hasler coach that performance…

Total dribble from the bloke who needs a haircut.

If you can’t present yourself in a professional manner off the field how do you expect your players to do it on the field.

Get a grip on and of the paddock Des.

 

[eadie fan]

Errors, errors, errors

The idiot Suli running into Reynolds to give a 12 point turn around early in the first half was the turning point.

Bye bye Suli.

Who’s going to be your whipping boy when he’s gone FFS give it a bloody rest!!!!!!

 

[SeaEagle21]

Did Hasler coach that performance…

Total dribble from the bloke who needs a haircut.

If you can’t present yourself in a professional manner off the field how do you expect your players to do it on the field.

Get a grip on and of the paddock Des.

To be fair to Des the players dropped the balls, got bungled into touch on the 3rd tackle and we saw his reaction after Saab got taken into touch. Our players didn't execute his plan.

 

[Yaz Eagle]

Looking at the mistakes, they came from the middle of the field when we made half breaks and lost it trying to offload, eg Keppie, Ola, DCE, and Turbo. Ball security was our downfall tonight. Am sure a few weeks off then off season we will come stronger next season. We were wooden spoon favourites after round 4, and were 1 game away from the big dance.

It will be interesting to see if Taupau stays, and how Des will use the bench next year as we can’t carry 2 middle forwards and 2 utilities. I know Jake goes to middle when Walker comes on but this make Jake less effective with tiredness creeping in late in the game.