Round 20 - Cowboys vs. Broncos - Post Match Discussion

[Waynesaurus]

Well pretty much everything has already been said ....
Hoffy was great, so much more guts than Norman.
Hunt has to be our halfback for the rest of the year at least. I think he went missing in the second half because we made a few errors and Cows put a far bit of pressure back onto us with their kicking game and repeat sets. More time at halfback and I think he will just get better.
Prince is done, he offers very little.
Hodgo........well......just brilliant.

 

[Porthoz]

Excellent first 20 minutes! We need more of that to worry the top teams, but it's a good start.

The Cowboys came back strong, with Scott eating up the meters and setting a good platform for Thurston and Bowen to do their thing, but our defence, especially on the goal line, was brilliant and the team was resilient.
Our line speed went to crap after 25 minutes, and the Cowboys were marching through our ruck almost at will for a good period of the game, keeping us on the back foot and making the boys work hard and tackle a lot with several repeat sets forced by the individual brilliance of Thursto and Mango.
The biggest difference was that we only missed 19 tackles as compared to our usual 30+, and allowed us to stay close enough on the scoreboard to allow for our own brilliance to shine through via Hodgo.

Griffin's decisions shuffling the playing deck were vindicated, particularly putting Hoffy at fullback in defence and attack in our own half, with Hodges moving in to attack in the opposition's half, to make up for the glaring deficiencies in Hoffman's playmaking ability.

Hunt has footy player written all over him, and despite disappearing after 20 minutes yesterday, I hope he gets the gig for the rest of the season no matter what, to let him grow into it, gain game rythm and gel with the players around him. More than anything I love his vision, both in defense, where he always seems to be at the right spot, and attack, despite still lacking in execution.

Thaiday to the second row was mainly good because Dodds is starting to show the goods as a front rower, so much so, that he is now my no.3 in the pecking order after Hannant and McGuire. Thaiday himself had an ordinary game, and looked out on his feet for most of the second half. Another positive about that move, was Gillett's performance on that left side. A bit more time there gelling with Hunt, Glenn and Hodgo in support, and our left side attack could become absolutely lethal!

Now for the negatives, the bench use... :001_rolleyes:
Why didn't Thaiday get a rest? That cost us the Mango try for sure!
What happened to our line speed after half an hour and why did the runs in pairs, passing at the line, etc... stop?
Although people blame Wallace for it, I think the issue has much more to do with aerobic fitness. We revert to one-outs and our line speed goes to shit, because we don't slow down the ruck in defense. Anthony Mitchell, Matt Scott, Gavin Cooper, Thurston and Mango were carving us to pieces with quick play the balls, making us work hard just to get back onside. Without energy, the attacking flow we had in the first 25 mins went to the crapper. As I said above, with Thurston and Bowen's quality earning the Cowboys repeat sets in the second half, we did very well to hold on!

Individually:
Hoffman was huge at fullback in defense and returning kicks.
Corey Oates is a superstar in the making, who despite being a centre/backrower, showed how to score a try. Does anyone believe Maranta would've scored that?
Glenn did his job pretty well and kept Tate pretty quiet.
Hodgo... I want your baby!
Maranta, solid as usual at the back, didn't get much of a chance to bomb anything in attack. I do want him to succeed though, because he gives his all on the field.
Prince, worked hard, defended strongly, albeit with 5 missed tackled to his count, wasn't dominant enough directing the plays, but earned us victory with excellent goal kicking.
Hunt, said it all above. I hope he goes on to prove his 2008 best U20's player award wasn't just a fluke.
Dodds, very good both in defense and especially with his hit-ups gaining 11 meters on average.
Macca, went very well in the time he was there, mainly those gorgeous first 20 minutes.
McGuire, the usual high energy tackle and running machine.
Gillett was the best forward on the park after Matt Scott. 17 runs for 141 mtrs, 5 offloads, 34 tackles, 6 tackle breaks, 1 missed tackle tells a tale. He is still a bit out of synch with Hunt, but it will improve I'm sure.
Thaiday was the worst forward for us. He needs a breather, especially when he is doing so much work in the middle of the park, and that showed in the second half in particular.
Parker doesn't know how to play badly. The usual workhorse, albeit with less impact than we normally see.

Wallace started well with crisp quick passing, but fell victim to the rest of the team's lack of energy. Did plenty of courageous defending in the ruck, with that one on one tackle on Scott being the highlight.
Stagg was very strong in defence as you'd expect, but was much like Wallace invisible in attacking terms.
Tasi and Lui weren't long enough on the park to warrant a review, but I do have an issue with that, because we must be the worst bench users in the NRL.

Happy with the win, and desperately wanting to see Hannant back in Newcastle. I reckon we can put another one on Benny!

P.S. Sorry for the lengthy post. I don't have a summarising gene... :blushing:

 

[rnabokov]

Interesting the glaring change after 20-25 minutes pretty much coinciding with the departure of Macca.

It is becoming an irritating pattern how our momentum too often goes the wrong way when Hook hooks Macca

I am looking to good things with Hunt combining with Gillett. He seems to have found the right half at long last.

 

[Ghibli]

I agree we lost our way when Macca went off, but that's why we need to have Granville or Baptise providing spark.

 

[Kimlo]

I don't think it's just a matter of us losing our way when Macca went off, there was way more to it then just Macca going off.

 

[Big Pete]

We were never going to keep that tempo for the full 80 that's for sure. That was one of the best starts I've seen from the Broncos in sometime, even better than our performance against the Titans @ Suncorp. We asked plenty of questions of the Cowboys defence and executed superbly. Naturally as the Cowboys began to receive more possession our offence began to suffer and at times it became very ugly. Prince attempting a tap on when it wasn't on, passes going behind players etc.

When Wallace came on, his presence definitely had a negative influence on the side. Brisbane lost their potency around the ruck and their defence in the middle third became noticeably softer. There is only so much that can be expected of Wallace. His defence is highly flaunted by fans but has never been of the standard of say an Andrew Johns who could bend players over backwards - Wallace was just good at absorbing the offence. That's fine on the fringes, but in the middle it gives the offence too much momentum and we saw that when he gave away a costly penalty on Mat Scott after making a good one on one tackle on Scott.

The question is do we persevere with Wallace who is clearly a player of NRL standard or do we pull the pin right away?

I was disappointed in the performance of Tasi. I thought he was very loose defensively and really didn't give Hook much of a choice.

 

[Mr Fourex]

Interesting the glaring change after 20-25 minutes pretty much coinciding with the departure of Macca.

It is becoming an irritating pattern how our momentum too often goes the wrong way when Hook hooks Macca

I am looking to good things with Hunt combining with Gillett. He seems to have found the right half at long last.

I think last night it was more of a question of who he was replaced with being the momentum killer.

Hunt has replaced McCullough before with the result being advantageous to the side.

 

[Mr Fourex]

The question is do we persevere with Wallace who is clearly a player of NRL standard or do we pull the pin right away?

Pull the pin and then bury it deep in the ground.....

 

[noisetheory]

one would hope that griffin saying in the live chat that 'granville is not far off more time in the nrl' isnt all talk.

 

[Kimlo]

No Cookies | The Courier-Mail

"I started all right but after those 20 minutes I faded out of the game a bit," he said. "If I want to start in the halves, I can't do that anymore, I have to play the full 80 minutes.
"There is a lot more for me to do yet. I played pretty well in the first 20 but there is stuff for me to work on.
"I really want to play in the halves and Hook has given me the chance.

"Hopefully if I can play consistent footy at the back end of the year I have a chance again next year. There is still a lot of work to do ... it is only one game for me."

I love Hunt's attitude.

Griffin said Hunt had done enough to retain the halfback spot for Friday's night crucial road trip to face Wayne Bennett's Knights in Newcastle."He's done a good job (against the Cowboys), he obviously will be there next week again and he is a chance of being (the No.7 next season)," Griffin said.
"We got very messy with the ball at times when we were in good field position. The first 30 minutes it looked like it was going nice but it turned a bit ugly there for a while with the ball.
"They started off great in the first half and we just have to put sides away."

 

[theshed]

Admittedly I've only wathced the first half and from all accounts the game went to shit after that but that was one of the most dominate half displays from a broncos team in a long time. Hunt made mistakes and overplayed his hand a few times but at least you could actually tell there was some kind of play maker controlling our team. I was one of the people who were pro-Norman when he and Hunt were competing for the spot last year and in hindsight I think Hunt deserved that spot due to attitude alone.

It was also great to see a bit of speed and depth in our attack. I think I even saw a couple of passes from our forwards. It was beautiful. Gillet was another player I've been critical of and he really shut me up ( though he still needs to work on his errors and penalties).

 

[Brad Miers]

Baptise absolutely destroyed the Capras. His speed from dummy half was amazing. This bloke has to be on the bench next week.

 

[hayseed]

Now for the negatives, the bench use... :001_rolleyes:
Why didn't Thaiday get a rest? That cost us the Mango try for sure!

Hunt, said it all above. I hope he goes on to prove his 2008 best U20's player award wasn't just a fluke


I think Hook really struggles in how to affectively utilise the bench, don't think he copes with at all, I don't think he shows a lot of confidence in his bench players, to be successful, u must have a 17 man team, he is burning out his forwards 6 weeks before the season ends. Can't stress enough how important it is that he be replaced, we will go nowhere until that happens.

As far as Hunt goes, u can't fluke a MVP season but some players simply aren't capable of taking that next step, ie. Brett Firman. It would solve a lot of problems if he finds some form but like Griffin, I just don't see success coming our way with Ben Hunt calling the shots. Could be wrong but not likely.

 

[noisetheory]

i actually thought lui had a bit of impact for his usual short time on the field. made a good charge at the try line (went very close to scoring) and then backed it up with some good in your face defense the next set. it seemed to lift the team a bit at the time. definitely need more of that.

 

[Splinter]

Now for the negatives, the bench use... :001_rolleyes:
Why didn't Thaiday get a rest? That cost us the Mango try for sure!

Hunt, said it all above. I hope he goes on to prove his 2008 best U20's player award wasn't just a fluke


I think Hook really struggles in how to affectively utilise the bench, don't think he copes with at all, I don't think he shows a lot of confidence in his bench players, to be successful, u must have a 17 man team, he is burning out his forwards 6 weeks before the season ends. Can't stress enough how important it is that he be replaced, we will go nowhere until that happens.

As far as Hunt goes, u can't fluke a MVP season but some players simply aren't capable of taking that next step, ie. Brett Firman. It would solve a lot of problems if he finds some form but like Griffin, I just don't see success coming our way with Ben Hunt calling the shots. Could be wrong but not likely.

To be fair Brett Firman was the slowest playmaker i have ever seen including Wallace

 

[Renegade]

my thoughts:

blistering 20mins from Hunt, faded after that - agree with other posters that when Wallace came on we lost momentum. i'm not sure there's any point to him being in the side because he didn't exactly contribute anything apart from a bunch of tackles.

hoffman was solid at the back, did a good job, got smashed - i'm not sure if he has low intelligence or just doesn't know how to position his body upon impact, but man, he's gonna be a broken man at the end of his career if he keeps playing like that.

can't remember now but we still have a few people making hail mary runs out of the line and missing tackles.

oates was pretty good on the wing for a second rower, got caught out a bit but also showed some promising signs - that shot on tate, wow!

macca did ok, though typically he does something good then manages to **** it and undo the hard work - case in point, the scoot from dummy half to have the ball stripped from him.

hodges was epic. giving sprays out left right and centre, playmaking (and doing a good job) and generally just carrying the team. you could tell hodges really wanted the win. it was cool to see everyone embrace him after the try, its clear these guys have a lot of respect for Hodges and he clearly gave them a bit of belief in themselves.

it was nice to get a win, although we nearly got done, again, by Bowen at a scrum. you'd think you'd learn but his acceleration is just too good for the bigger guys.

finally, i want to say this - I thought the reporter quizzing Thurston at HT was wrong. the guy's just come off, he knows how much pressure is on him and the side and he knows what the ledger is, they're very close to being season over, and they have some snot nosed reporter getting in his face as he's walking off the pitch, underlining every negative about how they're fucked if they don't win, wanting to know how he's gonna turn it around? I was secretly wishing he told her to **** off.

the same bitch asks later on, do you think they're (the cowboys) playing well, on the reporter/lewis/lockyer panel. are you even fucking watching in the first place? fair enough if the question was, what should they work on in this next half/how should they approach it, not, are they playing well?

it's a ridiculous comment by a reporter that clearly has NFI. get rid.

 

[noisetheory]

nah vonny's alright mate.

 

[Morkel]

I liked the bit when the commentators were talking up Oates, jizzing over his strong hit-up, almost-tackle-breaks, and declaring him a star of the future. All the while it was Maranta with the ball.