Round 23 Discussion

[Big Pete]

Friday
Rabbitohs vs. Sea Eagles
Storm vs. Titans

Saturday
Eels vs. Roosters
West Tigers vs. Dragons
Cowboys vs. Warriors

Sunday
Panthers vs. Raiders
Bulldogs vs. Broncos

Monday
Knights vs. Sharks

 

[Big Pete]

Re: Round 23

Looking forward to Souths vs. Manly tonight, really interested to see who will come through after very similar performances in R22 - aka. winning through their defence. It's a shame we don't have a choice between the Friday night games (unless we all move to the Coast :001_tt2:) because I'd much rather see that than the Melbourne/Titans game which to me will most likely be a comfortable win to the Storm.

Also looking forward to Cowboys/Warriors, Knights/Sharks & Bulldogs/Broncos.

 

[Son Edo]

Re: Round 23

Mmm yep. I reckon Manly will get the better of the bunnies, they've shown that a inform team like the Titans can really trouble them and Manly are a top 4 side at the moment.

 

[Bucking Beads]

Re: Round 23

I won't mind watching the Storm Vs Titans game if the Storm win big.

 

[user_nat]

Re: Round 23

Not looking likely so far Beads. I guess roughly 70 minutes is plenty of time.

 

[Kimlo]

Re: Round 23

Good. A Melbourne loss is almost as sweet as a Broncos win.

 

[user_nat]

Re: Round 23

If only they could both lose.

 

[Bucking Beads]

Rather Storm win. Less fire up factor next week and Titans not making the finals

 

[Son Edo]

Souths, outclassed in every aspect tonight.

 

[Alec]

I've never really rated Souths as premiership contenders...mostly because they are Souths, but Manly is starting to build momentum at the right time.

 

[Bucking Beads]

Souths were due for a loss IMO. Manly showed up to play and Souths didn't.

 

[Big Pete]

Gee that Storm/Titans game was tough to watch. Very slippery conditions and neither side really adapted as well as they should have. Storm just got a sniff and pulled the Titans pants down really.

They're still not a 100% Melbourne but they'll be happy with that win.

Probably won't bother getting around to the Manly/Rabbitohs game. Never got around to announcing my tip but not all that surprised really with the result. Probably won't get around to watching it so I'd like to get some impressions, especially from Twiz who tends to tell it straight.

 

[Son Edo]

The Rabbits were just too cocky and overconfident. They got ahead of themselves and hopefuly this loss will teach them a lesson.

 

[ningnangnong]

Probably won't bother getting around to the Manly/Rabbitohs game. Never got around to announcing my tip but not all that surprised really with the result. Probably won't get around to watching it so I'd like to get some impressions, especially from Twiz who tends to tell it straight.

Sounds like you don't get around much. :tongue_smilie:

Been out most of the night so haven't seen the matches, but not at all surprised to see Manly beat Souths. I reckon they'll only get stronger from here on in.

 

[Big Pete]

:laugh: walked straight into that one.

Tonight doesn't seem to offer up too many important matches. Eels/Roosters may go a long way in determining who will take out the spoon. This match is a little hard to tip but I'm going to go on the Roosters solely because the Eels are backing up from Monday and I think they would have had their ego smashed by the Tigers.

Speaking of, I don't think Monday will play that big apart in the Tigers/Dragons game although these two sides are fairly evenly placed. I just wonder how much last week would have played in the Dragons preparation because they certainly have the team to beat the Tigers, I just don't know if mentally they'll be on and I think the Tigers would have taken a lot out of that win against the Eels. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the Broncos win over the Panthers in 09. Not entirely pretty, particularly in defence, but just a fun exhibition that greased the team's wheels.

Finally we have the Cowboys/Warriors. This is really last chance saloon for the Warriors and they've made a habit of rising to the occasion in these type of conditions. Cowboys at home though are always tough and I think after 2 straight losses despite putting in fairly solid performances they'll be out to end the Warriors hope. I predict a bit of a high scoring affair with the Cowboys winning 30-20 or something like that.

 

[Twiztid]

Probably won't bother getting around to the Manly/Rabbitohs game. Never got around to announcing my tip but not all that surprised really with the result. Probably won't get around to watching it so I'd like to get some impressions, especially from Twiz who tends to tell it straight.

Frankly we didn't play to the conditions. For NYC it was extremely windy and heavy rain so the ground would have been extremely heavy. The rain did slow down but the wind was still up for the first grade game.

To the game itself we just didn't produce. In that first half we handled Manly pretty well. Running into the wind and with the wet track we just looked exhausted by half time. We couldn't really use a high kicking game in that first half so had to relay on low driving kicks for field position. For an example DCE kicked from their 30 metres trying for a 40/20 and the wind grabbed it and took it dead.

In that 2nd half we again didn't use the wind to our advantage. We had lapses of letting them get metres and then the next set not giving them much at all. But the biggest issue was just their first 2-3 tries were scored basically all the same way and by the Bennett pet play move with the sweeping fullback. The 2nd last try was terrible defence from King, he always back pedals against good players and keeps getting beaten. Lyon was doing it all night again. The last try was just soft and showed they had given up.

Manly used their weapons better than us. Tony Williams didn't have a great deal of ball but he did have some very strong runs at Reynolds and Farrell even though I thought Farrell handled him pretty well considering. He was just eating the metres with 3 guys trying to bring him down. Taylor never really had any good ball to break weak lines and was sort of expected to do it himself but he never could. I am not sure who came in for Manly in #19 (Dean Whare??) he was killing us with his amazing speed at times. I find our centres are not the fastest in the league and also don't run as half as hard as some others do. I also didn't like how Maguire used Luke and Peats it just didn't work today.

Sutton wasn't on like he had been and Reynolds kicking game is one of our best weapons but in that 2nd half when we had the wind behind us, I didn't think we used it enough. He tried a kick to Evo but the wind took it too far away from Evo.

Plus our mistakes on the 50 really hurt us making any good attacking chances almost impossible. I am happy with some things in the performance in the conditions but disappointed in our defence at times. If the wind wasn't there and it was just raining it would have been a completely different game. Manly just outplayed but we held on for a good 70 mins but those late soft tries blow the score out to make it look worse.

Sorry I sort of going everywhere there as I try to recall the game.

 

[ningnangnong]

Newcastle are looking pretty good toknight.

 

[Jeba]

Theres no way I could let that go unnoticed Ning.