POST GAME [Round 18, 2024] Broncos vs Panthers

[Kaz]

Walsh hasn't been the same since getting KOed in Origin.
The amount of love shown for him is ridiculous. Doesn't dig in to the line, and is not a defensive fullback.
Playing out of position

I think you have been KOed a number of times.

 

[Super Freak]

I think you have been KOed a number of times.

Just another troll that signed up last night. Don't feed the trolls.

 

[Super Freak]

I don't think Riki and Staggs would've made any difference last night.

That first try doesn't happen if they're playing. They make a difference.

 

[Bucking Beads]

That first try doesn't happen if they're playing. They make a difference.

Crazy how we’ve got McClown saying Riki and Staggs wouldn’t have made a difference.

 

[Big Del]

Penrith props have the build of WWE heavyweights. They made patty look like a high school fullback in comparison.

JFH is no bigger than Riki .
Patty , Jensen and Haas all bigger . It`s about attitude not size .

 

[Bucking Beads]

JFH is no bigger than Riki .
Patty , Jensen and Haas all bigger . It`s about attitude not size .

Fitness too. They’re all super fit at Penrith. Their conditioning program
Needs to be studied

 

[McHunt]

That first try doesn't happen if they're playing. They make a difference.

Crazy how we’ve got McClown saying Riki and Staggs wouldn’t have made a difference.

Magical thinking. Their replacements were fine.

Staggs and Riki have both had 7 losses from 14 starts this season.

 

[Behind enemy lines]

The problem is our complete inability to get the ball out of yardage

We play from the back foot because our back three are ineffective out of our own end. Herbie is a huge huge loss. He provided quick play the balls, and found his front which allowed the Haas/Carrigan one-two punch to roll through after his carry. That then puts the defence on the back foot and allows Walsh/Mam etc to run with space.

This year. We simply do not have that, and we just can’t adapt.

This has been painfully obvious all year. Is it acknowledged internally and is there a plan?

If it were my fantasy football team, I would have prioritised Herbie over both our incumbents and justified the decision with the ‘money ball’ philosophy. I think broadly across the squad the seduction of the highlight reel/brilliant moment guy has won out over the down and dirty professional who never misses their assignment and it has been a limiting factor.

 

[Kaz]

Just another troll that signed up last night. Don't feed the trolls.

OK. Never noticed when they signed up.

 

[BruiserMk1]

I liked that fact that we look so threatening with all the off the ball movements and shapes we show every team when we attack their line. Constant movement and making the defence have to think about who’s getting it.
Sarcasm.
We have all these one out plays and the occasional Walsh sweep. No one falls for that shit, it’s not NRL standard.

I said it during the live game thread one out plays aren't going to cut it.
Where are the inside/under balls to our forwards.
Change the angle of attack, have the forwards running in pairs.

 

[BroncsFan]

It’s bad enough we have the storm hoodoo, now we have a Penrith hoodoo with even bigger grubs to contend with.

They've got like a 70% win record over 4 years... every team in the comp has a penrith hoodoo

 

[BroncsFan]

Last year we looked like one of the fittest sides in the comp, it's hard to understand how far we've dropped off this year.

 

[Brett Da Man LeMan]

I said it during the live game thread one out plays aren't going to cut it.
Where are the inside/under balls to our forwards.
Change the angle of attack, have the forwards running in pairs.

And where is Walsh probing around the ruck and tired forwards ala tedesco. A competent dummy half darts out against slow markers, sucks in the defenders in the defensive line, then short ball to an at speed Walsh or mam seems like a really obvious play we never do. It was slater's bread and butter, you'd think Billy would be suggesting it in origin camp

 

[BroncsFan]

I think, as others have pointed out, that there is very little choice besides throwing in a kid to the wolves. Our other experienced backup wingers are all injured

Unfortunately the kid in question had maybe the worst game ever by a winger in an U19's origin

 

[BroncsFan]

Walsh was getting involved physically tonight, i dont think his Origin KO is on his mind.

I just think he's had a disrupted year... he's only played 1 more NRL game than Ponga this year... now 2

 

[OzeMike]

Did I say I was happy? that one game does not define the rest of our season, but the improvement and effort over the last 4 weeks suggest they are moving in an upwards trajectory.

We crossed the line twice btw. For some reason the only guy that counted saw a forward pass somewhere.

In case you haven't noticed we now have something like 13 injured from a 30 man squad. The team last night represented a patched up side with players all over the park out of position but despite that they still had a go and save for a few decisions we could have snatched that game.

Why didn't we challege Oat's "forward pass"? Even the channel 9 commentators said it was not forward. Could have been a game changer. P*sses me off that these errors by the officials are not challenged and corrected during the game. Plus the bloody 6 agains allowing Refs to decide the game result....I'm so sick of it.

 

[OzeMike]

He flew under the radar last season. Now he's a marked man. The bigger problem is the other half and both dummy halves are completely predictable. If I were the opposition, I'd be roughing him up all night. Ditto Walsh.

I watched his defence closely last night after him copping shit for missed tackles. As I suspected the stats don't even remotely tell the story. He is almost always the first on the scene in kick chases, and line breaks, which means he's the bloke coming at them full belt they have to step. He quite often gets there first, manages an ankle tap or grab, which fails to stop them but slows them down enough that the next in line finishes the job and gets the stat. He's underrated there.

I, too, am disappointed he seems to have lost his spark near the line, but I'm leaning more towards crediting the opposition. I'm also wondering how he's being coached.

Esra shone when Reynolds was playing. I had hoped that he and Walsh would link up more.....change of position for Walsh maybe?

 

[BroncsFan]

That Kobe Hetherington error is going to keep me up all night.

Brisbane just about scored the play before with Haas. Then Kobe changes his line at the last second per Walsh's instructions, gets in the way of Walters and just about loses it. Kobe recovers only to stumble up, get easily tackled and lose the ball in the direction the Panthers player suspiciously follows through with.

However since nobody from Brisbane falls on it, it can't be challenged and since the bunker rarely over-turns strip calls likely would have gone the Panthers way regardless.

There's a few things at play here. Firstly, Haas should have been thrashing around and making life difficult for the defenders. Instead they get an age to set themselves and just about all the good work has been ruined. Regardless, it's a metre out from the line and there's no thought of a crash play. You've just set a standard line down the right. If the option was Billy, then back inside to Kobe OK, but even so it seems like a waste.

Brisbane still need to figure out which players they ought to be giving the ball close to the line as well. Piakura or even Oates would be my options.

They also need to break the habit of long passes. It works OK for Ezra who can step back inside but in general they look so much better working off short passes.

I'm with you on this ... that play was a total cluster ****.

After the Haas run my first thought was crash play, then I saw Kobe as first receiver and thought nah too small, but it looked like we had double crash plays lined up, because a forward was outside him (can't recall him)... and I got far more interested in the play.

Last second the dummy half waves his hand and Kobe drops back... pass then looking for Billy is right between Kobe and Billy, ends up in Kobe's hands who is now completely flat footed and he stumbles up to the line... then the ball comes shooting out. How does the ball come shooting out as fast as it does when there is zero impact in the tackle... so we cop a a bullshit call from the ref, but the whole thing was a cluster ****.

Annoying thing for me was that the double crash line that was setup with Kobe is exactly what I would want to see us do for a ptb at the 1m line.

That gives the dummy half 3 options to look at... Kobe probably doesn't work, but if the defence cheats up then the second crash line could be open, but the defence has to respect him as well. I wouldn't necessarily want my dummy half to take either option, but if he plays the pass well enough and the two decoys provide intent to look like they want the ball, then the defence should be condensed and provide the halfback some space to work with.

But for some reason Kobe was waved back and a potentially good play was lost.

It also didn't make any sense as to why Kobe was waved back... he wasn't going to be in the way of a pass from dummy half, he wasn't going to provide anything extra to whatever else was happening, but him moving around so late always ran the risk of causing disruption, which it did and then led to an error.