Very good performance for the Magpies yesterday versus the Storm.
Can't knock any of the players as they all contributed but going to call out 3 in particular ...
My MOM was Josese Lanyon who is just growing in confidence each week at this level. Decisive out of dummy half & very good in defence. Glad the club has him secured for another 2 seasons, not sure on contract.
Vaka Aho laid the platform up the middle & scored a nice crash over try off a beautiful Lanyon pass. 193m including 65m post-contact from 57 mins showing his tank as well. He does have at least one handling error & one poor missed tackle most games but I hope the club gives him a T&T next season. He's better than both Bunty Afoa & Mav Geyer in the middle imo.
Tino Tavana, well done son. He took his demotion well & played his typical Tino very good game - intercept, efforts on high kicks, defusing high kicks in defence & scoring with an acrobatic finish. 166 run metres from 12 carries too (50m from an intercept). Stats show 5 handling errors but most if not all of these were by contesting attacking bombs so the error was 5-10m out from the Storm's line.
Also loving the effort & line speed from Luke Jack and Lanyon's partner-in-crime Bailey Hodges out of dummy half and clean-up work in defence.
Arguably our most ineffectual player was Starford To'a, am increasingly concerned that he cannot use much of his left arm. Seems to be cautious using it to fend or push off a player & to push up off the ground during ptbs.