The game was won and lost in the ruck, simples.
NSW started so quickly and Klein played his part, not so much with what he called but what he didn't call.
NSW challenged him to penalise them in the ruck and he just let them do what they wanted.
Constantly hanging on, shoulder charges, taking Walsh off the ball every chance, the list goes on with what he let go but apparently they were perfect for 30 mins.
NSW adopted Penrith style defence, late 3rd man flops, last man in last man off. It's been Penriths super power for 4 years yet no ref is prepared to call it. They're very good at it but certainly get it wrong a lot and rarely get pinched for it.
We were shot after 30 mins when we recieved our first penalty, it's almost impossible to come back from that start but we actually made a decent effort. Tualagi made some horrible efforts and reads, not sure what he was doing on Edwards try. He was behind the try line when Edwards got the ball about 12 mtrs out , that was the end of any comeback, and the try before half time was atrocious defence.
The blow up should have been put on much earlier (20min mark) it would have put Klein on notice to police the ruck or lose control. We were far to passive in this regard.
Lewis was an expert at reading when to do it and last night we needed something to change because Klein wasn't going to give us a thing.
Still I think Billy will have seen plenty to like. The chase on Chriton from the intercept before HT was exceptional with 6 or 7 chasers showed the effort was there even at 28 nil.
The rush D from NSW can certainly be exploited, we just didn't have enough ball/field position to be kicking it away last night.
I think NSW can easily be distracted with some decent niggle as well.
Not sure why Dearden copped a flaming, I thought he was pretty good considering.