Round 9 - Warriors vs Broncos - Post Match Discussion

[Coxy]

Norman was sh@tting himself. He's not the first player to be intimidated by a physical team and he is still very young but it's an area he needs to fix before big games this year.

Yep for sure. As well as he's been playing I still don't think he believes in himself yet. It'll come.

 

[ethos]

The Warriors often have those moments of ridiculous momentum where they roll through and destroy sides in a 15/20 minute period. I actually thought we did pretty well to combat it - Beale's hands were the only things that really let us down.

We paniced a little bit towards the end though chasing points though. NZ got very scrappy - just needed to keep our composure/force repeat sets and build pressure. As someone mentioned, we really missed Wallace's presence at that point. The first time I've really seen the Broncs flustered so far this season.

And agree with rna, our backrower's hole running ability is soo under-utilised. We've got backrowers who can hit gaps and playmakers who can pout players into gaps. The only thing seemingly missing is an attacking structure that enables it to happen more often.

 

[rnabokov]

Yep for sure. As well as he's been playing I still don't think he believes in himself yet. It'll come.

Yes, it will. Unlike say Johnson, DCE, Foran, poor Norman has had to fill the biggest boots in the game. That is not easy to forget.

 

[Big Pete]

Who are you to doubt Brett Seymour & Trent Hodkinson?

 

[rnabokov]

Who are you to doubt Brett Seymour & Trent Hodkinson?

You're right. Let's sign 'em now. Errr, are they 1st graders?

 

[OXY-351]

While I'm not sure it cost us the game, I thought the refs were terrible

 

[Coxy]

While I'm not sure it cost us the game, I thought the refs were terrible

Yep. Definitely didn't cost us the game, but didn't help at all. Jason Robinson in particular was horrendous.

 

[rnabokov]

It's really very simple actually. We have the greatest strike power in the comp, all across the park. We just don't know how to use them. Yet.

 

[Browny]

Yep. Definitely didn't cost us the game, but didn't help at all. Jason Robinson in particular was horrendous.

Seeing as I missed the game can you cite some examples?

 

[Coxy]

Seeing as I missed the game can you cite some examples?

Example 1: Corey Norman kicks Warriors smother it, ball ricochets back against Norman, then fumble ball on the ground, Hoffman picks it up and runs away. Robinson calls it back for a knock on, initially claiming Norman knocked on when it went back to him...then changed his mind and gave us the feed....if he'd let play go on, who knows what would've happened?

Example 2: Maloney loses the ball after running it on the last, ball fumbles around, Broncos get it...rules a knock on against the Broncos?!?

Example 3: Warriors kick ahead, Gillett regathers, plants ball in field of play, is dragged back onto the line. Instead of a penalty, he rules line drop out.

Examples 2 and 3 led to the Lillyman try on half time.

 

[Big Pete]

I'm still trying to figure out how they were given the ball twice before the opening try.

Never saw any replays of it, instead we were treated to Reed challenging Maloney's kick over and over again.

Coverage sucked, Kiwis make worst commentators than Aussies.

MARTEL MARTEL MATREL

It's Mateo, English, do you speak it?!

 

[Coxy]

I'm still trying to figure out how they were given the ball twice before the opening try.

Never saw any replays of it, instead we were treated to Reed challenging Maloney's kick over and over again.

Coverage sucked, Kiwis make worst commentators than Aussies.

MARTEL MARTEL MATREL

It's Mateo, English, do you speak it?!

They try to do the full on Maori pronunciation. MAR-TEH-OR.
They even did it for TEH-OR.

 

[Porthoz]

How did I know you'd attack Hunt? :P He wasn't good. But he had 2 moments of brilliance. The last minute, and midway through the second half where he sliced straight through and went within a metre of scoring himself. Showed surprising speed.

I thought Norman was horrible, even when Wallace was out there. But it's taken 9 rounds for Norman to really have a bad game so he's exceeded my expectations by 8 weeks.

Unlike some people I know, I also know when to compliment a player when he deserves praise... :finger:

Hunt has heaps of talent, as the two moments of individual brilliance showed last night, but he is definitely third choice at the moment. His time will undoubtedly come, but he's still far from Wallace when it comes to organisation skills, ability to keep calm and collected under pressure, and doing all those 1%'ers that often make the difference in a game.

But yeah, I agree with you about both halves. Like someone else said, Norman looked intimidated, and especially after Wallace left the game, he went away from his natural game and we lost direction from both halves.

 

[Porthoz]

Looking at the match stats, almost everything was even except they offloaded 13 to our 6.

As Ari and others have said, it's a question of keeping composure for the 80 mins, and getting the "spine" to co-ordinate better. Put simply, we have incredible strike power, especially the back row, but we aren't using them, especially when we are under pressure. Bottom line is we couldn't score the points when the going got really tough.

The loss had nothing to do with Beale.

Hopefully, the combinations will keep evolving, the composure will develop and more attacking options open up

I know what you're trying to say, but fact is that we scored enough points to win without 2 of Beale's 3 mistakes last night.
Of course Jason Robinson helped, and the Broncos didn't do themselves any favour in the last tackle options last night, but Beale on the wing is a disaster waiting to happen.

We haven't seen it happen often because our pack has been so dominant that most teams don't get too many opportunities in our 20, but as last night showed, when we face a pack that will go meter for meter with ours, and give their halves space and time, bombing Beale is a option full of rewards for them... :sigh:

 

[Force]

Mateo is a Tongan name not English and its pronounced "Mah-teh-or" not Mit-tay-oh like most commentators say. The kiwi commentator(Dale Husband) says it more correctly than the Ozzy ones just that you're not use to hearing it pronounced correctly.The Ozzy commentators pronounce most of the Polynesian names wrong....Zeb Taia's name is pronounced "Tyre" not Tay-er,Junior Sa'u name is pronounce "Sa-ooh" not Sow,Ben Te'o name is pronounce "Teh-or" not Tee-oh etc....its just that kiwis are used to hearing Polynesian names moreso than Ozzies but even kiwis can pronounce them wrong at times.I guess if one hasnt learnt to say them correctly then they'll pronounce them wrong.

 

[Force]

Back to the game.

The Warriors were dominant in that first half.Their forwards Matulino in particular were hammering the Bronco attack into submission.Johnson was on song with his kicking game and when Lillyman came on he seemed to lift them to another level.Once Wallace went off injured it was always going to be an uphill battle and this showed on the last tackle option taking which is a given when you have a rookie half to take the reigns.Apart from the obvious drop ball from Beale the Broncos were still in with a chance,missed opportunities from Warrior mistakes in that final 10mins sealed it for them.

 

[Kimlo]

I know what you're trying to say, but fact is that we scored enough points to win without 2 of Beale's 3 mistakes last night.
Of course Jason Robinson helped, and the Broncos didn't do themselves any favour in the last tackle options last night, but Beale on the wing is a disaster waiting to happen.

We haven't seen it happen often because our pack has been so dominant that most teams don't get too many opportunities in our 20, but as last night showed, when we face a pack that will go meter for meter with ours, and give their halves space and time, bombing Beale is a option full of rewards for them... :sigh:

I was also complimenting Beale but after last night I have lost a lot of confidence in him. Not to be an ass but you can't be an NRL winger if you can't catch(or any level of rugby league really, it's all kick to the wing bullshit). I could Melbourne exploiting us big time with a tactic like that.

If Beale could actually catch he would be a pretty good winger, he does almost everything right really but his dropped balls(even if it's once or twice a game) are just complete killers and game changers.

 

[Big Pete]

His other pronounciations were fine, but there were times where he was just saying Martel instead of Mah-Tay-Oh.