Round 15 - Warriors vs Broncos - Post-Match Discussion

[Danoz Direct]

Listening to Kimmorley's commentary over the recent years, he always struck me as someone who understands rugby league a lot better than most. I dunno about Hunt having an excellent game though, but he does say that Hunt has to carry the team creatively on his own, maybe he factors that in too.

I think he did relatively well despite our forward pack getting dominated and the attacking players we had out.

 

[Alec]

Yeah, fair point too.

I thought his kicking game was hit and miss though. Some were excellent, and others were shocking and pretty much allowed them to completely dominate us with good field position.

 

[Mt Smart]

I thought the Broncos played really well for a Mt Smart game with so many players missing.

No argument about the home ground advantage with the Refs. That will swing your way in Game two. To me it looked like both teams were trying to play up tempo which contributed to the high error rate from both sides.

It was a dewy cold night last night too.

The equivalent Origin period clash last year Brisbane miles off with all the players missing. That was a hard game last night. A few bruised and battered players. Many Warriors fans were expecting Brisbane would fold this match , and that it would be a walk over.

Turned out to be anything but.

Aside from the stop starts with the errors , I thought that first 40 minutes was the fastest I've watched between any sides this year.

Looking forward to game two , all indicators are that it will be an epic.

 

[Brett]

Hoffman did make some excellent and important tackles, and I suspect that is one of the reasons behind Hook's motivation in putting him at 5/8.

Having him on the right side is for mine, a HUGE no-no.

Hoffman plays left edge man. Hunt plays right with Gillett and Hodges.

 

[subsbligh]

Pros: Barba's try. He had a good game generally. The first opportunity Granville gets at 80 and he has a great game. We only lost by 9 points.

Cons: Hunt. Was always going to be hard to back up after the emotion of Wednesday and get on a plane to NZ and keen to play by Saturday. A few dropped balls and poor options.

Also, being unable to capitalise. We get to 12-0 (which was so close) Warriors were playing well within themselves. The game was there for the taking.

Defence... Reed's miss on Hurrell. I know one on one Hurrell tough ask, but no one ever gets around Reed. Warrior's first try - there's a hole in the centre of the line big enough for a no-name Warriors reserve forward to run through. Man, c'mon. The third try was just a simple lack of covering the switch back on the inside, dunno who was supposed to be covering across there (Oates?).

Hala is seriously beyond fucking useless. Lowrie is seriously more effective in his hit ups and tackles than Hala. If you're going to be a one dimensional straight line running prop, at least make 10 metres on your 3 hit ups per stint.

 

[Bull Shark]

Yet another virtual 'throw away' game for the broncos and yet another virtual freebie for the warriors ... the AFL might not have state of origin but at least it allows clubs a fair chance to win every weekend ...

 

[Mister Wright]

Why do we always get both Warriors games around Origin time? I used to like it much better when we got the Warriors in round 1. They never start the season well.

 

[FaceOfMutiny]

I liked Granville but you could tell out of all players out the most missed was McCullough. Especially since he has started sharing the kicking duties with Hunt in recent weeks. Losing Gillet early also really hurt. All in all I was pretty happy how the team went understrength against a full strength warriors at Mt Smart. My favourite part of the game was seeing Barba shake off Tomkins and I hope he gets some confidence from that and starts hanging around for the offload more.

I don't understand why on earth Stagg was playing dummy half at some point though...

 

[Waynesaurus]

Yeah I don't think the boys did too bad, everything was stacked against us for this match. It was origin week, injuries to key players before the match, a couple during and a flight across the water to take on a team that had an nice two week preparation at home.

It was always going to be tricky but we played tough and were still in with a chance for most of the game, if a few things had fallen our way we could have come away with a win.

Refereeing seems to be deteriorating tho, the 10 meters and play the ball area are becoming really sloppy. The refs seem to be letting a lot of the things go now, like the ball being played sideways or stepping to the side or not using the foot and placing the ball on the ground before the player is on his feet(Hayne did this in origin 2 as well).

 

[teampjta]

Why do we always get both Warriors games around Origin time? I used to like it much better when we got the Warriors in round 1. They never start the season well.

This, we always get hammered at origin time. Why the **** did the NRL schedule us to play a team who is never ever affected????

Why not a team like i dont know say the Raiders? Newcastle? even Penrith who have **** all representation

We should be playing the likes of the Dogs, Bunnies, Melb, Cowboys etc teams who are equally affected

 

[Morkel]

This, we always get hammered at origin time. Why the **** did the NRL schedule us to play a team who is never ever affected????

Why not a team like i dont know say the Raiders? Newcastle? even Penrith who have **** all representation

We should be playing the likes of the Dogs, Bunnies, Melb, Cowboys etc teams who are equally affected

Because the NRL can't foresee which teams will be most affected. The Warriors are really the only ones isolated. Raiders could potentially have had Milford, Shillington & Papalii playing for Qld, TLL for NSW. Penrith, who knew if Soward or Wallace would be in the Origin mix, then you have Tim Grant and Idris. Newcastle with Boyd, Mullen, Gidley, Uate, McManus, Gagai. In fact, at the start of the year, you could have argued that the Dogs could well have zero SOO players.

 

[Porthoz]

Because the NRL can't foresee which teams will be most affected. The Warriors are really the only ones isolated. Raiders could potentially have had Milford, Shillington & Papalii playing for Qld, TLL for NSW. Penrith, who knew if Soward or Wallace would be in the Origin mix, then you have Tim Grant and Idris. Newcastle with Boyd, Mullen, Gidley, Uate, McManus, Gagai. In fact, at the start of the year, you could have argued that the Dogs could well have zero SOO players.

I really think that pairing the Warriors, traditionally the least Origin affected team, with the Broncos, traditionally the most Origin affected team, would rank fairly high amongst the no brainer options when it comes to "what not to do when scheduling the NRL season"!

 

[Morkel]

I really think that pairing the Warriors, traditionally the least Origin affected team, with the Broncos, traditionally the most Origin affected team, would rank fairly high amongst the no brainer options when it comes to "what not to do when scheduling the NRL season"!

True. But what I meant was that it's pretty much just a lottery around Origin time. They put a lot of time in to scheduling where each team has their byes, it seems to me that once that's done, the teams playing are simply drawn out of a hat.

 

[Big Pete]

Answer is pretty simple then.

The NRL needs a new hat!

 

[broncos4life]

Answer is pretty simple then.

The NRL needs a new hat!

 

[rnabokov]

Careful, you might end up with Griffindor

 

[Ari Gold]

Honestly don't think this Warriors game just gone by was that bad. Realistically, without our stars last weekend we were going to lose to a lot of teams. Warriors in NZ is a very hard game at the best of times so I'd rather lose the 2pts to a team we'd be hard to beat rather than facing a team against whom we'd normally get 2pts but for the affected period.

I mean, imagine if we played the Raiders this week and lost to them? That's 2pts gone down the drain, at least with the Warriors we were never a certainty to get those points. And realistically, we'll always struggle regardless. It's the nature of the stupid way Origin works.

 

[Big Pete]

Watching through a replay of the game.

The Glenn knock on was the turning point. Warriors were on the ropes and points were for the taking until Glenn spilled it cold. Three tackles later, Mateo drifts, catches an inexperienced defender and they're through for a soft try. That really hurt and just changed the complexion of the match. I was really disappointed in Alex. He was the captain yet rarely put his hand up for a hit up and his defence at times was just lazy, particularly at marker.

The second try annoyed me somewhat. If you watch it back, you'll see Friend throws Mateo a big forward pass on the first set of the kick off. Instead of getting possession at half-way, we're trying to work it out of our corner with our bench players and it's a disaster. Maranta's run basically killed the set but he should never have taken it. The fact Lowrie put his hand up ahead of Glenn or Hala really grinds my gears. Then of course Matagi plays an obvious incorrect play the ball and it gave them all the momentum to score. Off that, SJ kicks a field goal and 13-6 gives them a huge edge at H/T.

I think the start of the second half caught Brisbane off guard as well. We got a bunch of silly penalties for dangerous plays but just didn't have the personnel to make the most of it. As a result, we shift the ball wide even though there's nothing on and as a result both Barba and Reed pop passes that were never on and let the Warriors off the hook.

Thought we did well to hold them out. Once again, they were pretty lucky. If you watch it back, you'll find that Lillyman runs interference on Thaiday when Johnson makes a big break and when we were on their line, Ikahihifo was a good metre offside when he caught Hunt off guard, forcing a mistake. Both those penalties would have been very handy.

Still, it wasn't like we had our chances. Manu did well to bat the ball out of Copley's hands and the tackle on Hannant was great from Gubb. Convert those and we probably get them.

Basically what I take out of this...

- Glenn is really going to have to make ammends and lift on Friday.
- Hala needs another stint at the Dolphins.
- Broncos need to utilise edge plays more often. They really just needed to play to their strengths and they didn't.
- Outside of Oates, the Broncos bench was pretty useless. Replace 'em and start again on Friday.

Outside of that, I wasn't too upset with the performance. We were outgunned, especially out-wide but we kept rocking up. The tackle on Bukuya from Hoffman really typified the Broncos resolve on the night. Great play.