Round 12 Discussion

[Super Freak]

Widdop regathers a Benji Marshall kick and offloads it to Frizell who scores. Conversion was successful.

28-10

11 minutes left.

 

[Alec]

Lol, the Burgess Bros all have over 100m (with Sam being on 150 and George being on 200) while the rest of the forwards haven't even passed 70 at the most.

 

[Super Freak]

Chris McQueen has been pretty useless..

Score is now 29-10. Reynolds got a field goal.

 

[Alec]

Chris McQueen has been pretty useless..

Well I certainly didn't see that coming.

 

[Super Freak]

Full time.

Rabbitohs 29-10 Dragons

That was a pretty dull game.

 

[Bucking Beads]

The Dragons are stuffed. They need quality forwards. Benji is still shit.

 

[Rally Towel]

The Dragons are stuffed. They need quality forwards. Benji is still shit.

Really think the Dragons are a poor fit for him. No room to work with when your forward pack is getting hammered.

I couldn't see him fitting in at the Sharks (too blue collar) , but their grunt up front would have allowed him to play his natural game more easily.

 

[Broncoman]

Another very successful tipping week. I got a perfect week last week and have got 5/6 this week, the only game I got wrong was our game against Manly but I would take a win over a correct tip anyday.

 

[Harry Sack]

Really think the Dragons are a poor fit for him. No room to work with when your forward pack is getting hammered.

I couldn't see him fitting in at the Sharks (too blue collar) , but their grunt up front would have allowed him to play his natural game more easily.

Yeah this. The Dragons seriously need some quality forwards. The halves have absolutely no room. Benji is shit atm, but I think he'll get back to his old self. The Dugan to centre experiment was a definite failure IMO.

 

[Big Pete]

And you call yourself a Broncoman. :rolleyes:

Just kidding, I was tempted to pick Manly myself but as the week wore on, I changed my mind. I especially felt assured when I jinxed Manly on LU and Splinter came on to remind us of our past post-Origin performances. :takdir:

Got to say, this week was a pretty terrible advertisement for the game after a fantastic Origin game. All of them pretty one sided and not a whole lot to get the chins wagging other than the old negative here or there. The only game that may have been alright just so happened to be the one I missed in the Knights/Warriors which is hardly surprising given the fact that the Warriors rarely spare players for Origin and always tend to play well around this time of year. It speaks volumes that they haven't performed better when the competition basically caters to them.

Roosters had a field day down the Raiders right edge. Have no idea what Sticky was telling the boys but the compressed defence was a disaster and really exposed both Robinson and Wighton down the right. I've seen some people say that Jack played himself out of an Origin jersey but there wasn't a whole lot he could do in that situation. Also thought they played way too flat and really didn't utilise their strengths as much as they could. I can understand the logic of easing Cornish into first grade but when your starting halves play as poorly as they did in the first half, surely you inject the young kid in, tell him to just do his job and hope that his exuberance rubs off on the rest of the team. It seemingly did in the second half but it was far too late.

Meanwhile up in North Queensland, I thought the Melbourne Storm were pretty brave. Not picking on you Bman, but I thought your thread about the Storm being overrated was way off-base. In any team sport, when you lose your two big playmakers it's really hard to get their replacements to run the same plays and do so effectively and that's what we saw. Don't get me wrong here, Melbourne are well off the pace in 2014 as they make the transition into a new era but I don't think you could expect them to play much better given the conditions. Also saw the video referee calls. Think the Mat Scott one was poor, just a good example of video referee flaws, while the other was a bit touch and go from what I saw. On-field referee wise, I thought the Cows got a fair amount of calls their way so don't think it was a case of Melbourne getting their typical rub of the green and discretion that other teams seemingly don't get.

Outside of the referee and Storm being disappointments, thought the game was all about JT standing up and the Cowboys playing solid. While for the Storm, Smith was gutsy and Bromwich continues to assert himself as one of the best props in the game. No support but still had a damn good performance if I do say so myself.

Thought the Broncos put forward their best performance of the season while the Sea Eagles just looked underdone. Again, difficult to play at your best when your best playmaker, best workhorse and decent link-man aren't there and two key players are coming back from a bit of a lay-off. Just thought it was the Broncos afternoon which was great because lord knows we rarely get things our own way against Manly often.

While at ANZ, I thought Souths were just far too big and strong for the Dragons. The return of Luke will give the Rabbits a real edge around the ruck but one of the unsung heroes of the evening was big Tom Burgess off the bench. If he can sustain that go-forward, the Rabbitohs will become a much more consistent footy team, as opposed to the fairly patchy side they've been for some time now.

Looking at the Dragons, I'm unsure what McGregor can really do with that squad. They have some talent, and I actually liked the idea of playing Quinlan at fullback and pushing Dugan to the centres but first week in and it was bit of a dud move. I just think if McGregor is to really care about the success of the Dragons, at least in a long term perspective. He'll have Benji play some NSW Cup till he gets match-fit and right while Sam Williams comes in. They desperately need to get their forwards right, so maybe tinker with that until you've got a good combination and consider replacing Rein because he's holding that team back at the moment and isn't the player he promised to be in 2011.

 

[Super Freak]

Dugan to centre was a massive failure in this game. It could work if he got more involved, but it just didn't work tonight.

I didn't watch the game from the start, but when I started watching, all I could see was Dugan just standing there waiting for the ball to come to him.

He never went looking for the ball, he never tried to help out the forwards and get his team on the front foot with some good runs. He never injected himself into the attack.

His biggest strength, IMO, is his running game. He can be very elusive and extremely difficult to tackle at times, but he never used that to his advantage. He had a terrible game.

Maybe it's because the halves were terrible, but I think there were definitely times where the team could have used his running game if he just tried to be more involved.

And the Dragons forward pack. Well, you know they are in trouble when they name Ben Creagh in the front row...

 

[ivanhungryjak]

Maybe it's because the halves were terrible, but I think there were definitely times where the team could have used his running game if he just tried to be more involved.

You're right, it didn't work but gee, Benji stunk it up something terrible.

 

[Morkel]

Benji is not a halfback. Never has been. He has no idea how to organise, and doesn't have the discipline to play to a structure. He is a five-eighth. The halfback works the structure, and in tandem with the hooker moves the forwards around to expose weaknesses in the opposition. The moment Benji sees those potential weaknesses, he calls for the ball and does everything he can to exploit them. For mine, that is the difference between a #7 and a #6, why Benji should never wear the #7.

 

[Porthoz]

Same reason why Hunt should wear the #6 if DCE does happen to come our way...

 

[Alec]

Yeah, Hunt seems like a natural 5/8th as well. The difference is our forward pack is a lot better than the lolworthy one the Dragons have, makes it a lot easier.