I think the general feeling among the supporter base, pundits and fans of other clubs was that our performance against the Cowboys had been been brewing for about a month now.
Would be interesting to get some thoughts and feelings moving forward.
My big takeaways were
- Luke Brooks played to the top of his potential. He doesn’t often do this but when he does he deserves the plaudits. He could play 70% as good as he played against the Cowboys each week and I think we’d be a fair chance of making the 8. A lot of his play looked like it was confidence based given how eyes/heads up it was. Have we got the message right? Can he replicate it moving forward?
- Do we finally have a top 8 pack by league standards. We rate it as fans - is it there objectively? Its clear from the pre and post game comments from the Cowboys that they took us very seriously. I haven’t heard people talk about a Wests Tigers pack like that for a long time
- Toa, Bula, Tupou - is this the nucleus of our backline for the next 5 years? Where do Brooks, Wakeham and Nofa fit in? If they play cohesively like they did on the weekend are they a potential top 8 (7th/8th spot maximum) backline?
- Togetherness - these players are playing for each other. It is obvious in the broadcast. What can we do for the rest of the season?
- Specifics on players - what are we loving in individual players in the way we’ve played over the last month? My two special mentions - David Klemmer - has been immense. Taking tough carries, making effective tackles, leaving it all out there. Alex Twal - pushing up on the ruck with leg speed! He looks a transformed player. What are we loving in other players?
Would be great to get everyone’s thoughts and opinions. This is the best start to a week I’ve had in years.
My take:
After seeing LB fail with several half pairs, Benji, Reynolds, Mbye... How come he is succeeding now?
Do we have a top 8 pack?
Yea. Paps, Klemmer, Pole, Stef, Api, Bateman...
Seriously that is some huge names there. We have juniors coming up who look the goods aswell. Our biggest problem is performance DROP! Packer, Matalino, Tamou. We should have gotten way more out of them then we did.
Even when we were loosing games, we were dominant. Canberra would have walked over us in the past.
One major difference with our current pack is there is no "leader". Both Tamou and Packer had too much to handle. Klemmer and Bateman seem to allow for others to focus on their game more. We should never have a single Pack leader again.
"- Toa, Bula, Tupou - is this the nucleus of our backline for the next 5 years?"
No. Naden is the person we need to foster, either at wing or Center. We have a defense problem and Naden is one of our few backs who can handle that. Toa gives us a problem. He was wanting to play center for ages. We can fit him there, but he lacks defensive muscle. Toa+Naden may work on one side.
"Where do Brooks, Wakeham and Nofa fit in?"
What's wrong with a Chad Townsend or Mead style half? aka someone who can combine and just do "ok" in the halves. I think Wakeham is that kind of player, the Dunlop vollies half and quite frankly that's exactly what we need.
Nofa will be the winger who runs down the tryline - defense has improved. if he slacks off again, we drop him. no issues.
Brooks, as long as he and Wakeham can keep being stable. Keep him.
No more changes to the halves now that things are working.
Api + Brooks/Wakeham + Bula are our stablility.
Origin showed us how it was won by the Wing/Center combinations offensively and defensively. That is exactly what we need. I want to see Naden come back and see how he acts in this new playing group.
Sheens is going to be looking for a gamebreaker, a gun. Shulster, I don't want him on attitude. Yet he could go in at Lock or off the bench and within a good playing structure make a dent/make an impact. Strong defense combined with surprising attack will let us win games.