LIVE GAME 2026 NRL Grand Final discussion

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Whyte was my MoM but to say Teddy didn't deserve it is rubbish. If you're saying that Whyte got them to a good start, Teddy is the one who's doing the first kick return and kick chase.

Radleys work in the middle in D and Toia/ Smiths kick chases didn't let Knights get out of their half.

Whyte and Teddy built on that.

Foketi wasn't even in my top 7
 
tig_prmz said:
Whyte was my MoM but to say Teddy didn't deserve it is rubbish. If you're saying that Whyte got them to a good start, Teddy is the one who's doing the first kick return and kick chase.

Radleys work in the middle in D and Toia/ Smiths kick chases didn't let Knights get out of their half.

Whyte and Teddy built on that.

Foketi wasn't even in my top 7
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Hard to pick a mom from two teams that played well. So many deserve a shout.
 
Oscar Martinez said:
He had an Origin 1,6,7, and 9 as his spine and his only tactic was a high ball to Marky Mark and hope.
What a genius.
He turned an easy 20 point win into a 1 point nail biter.
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Can spin it any way you want, but the roosters won the premiership and the tigers failed to make the semis for the 15th year in a row. Maybe if we werent such a shit club their fullback would still be a tiger.
 
king_sirro said:
Seriously that means very little when your team is completely dominating the opposition like the Roosters were. He took some easy runs with his team having all the momentum, big deal. He is fit. He couldn't do anything with all those runs and all that possession and all that field position. He couldn't even make a half break. He was workmanlike in the easiest of circumstances. His game was better than average, thats about as much as ill give him. Under those circumstances, im expecting my fullback to actually create something. 3 tries each, under those circumstances thats embarrassing.
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The Roosters obviously identified the mismatch (aerial ability of Toia and Mark against Marzhew and Ponga) and absolutely hammered it all night. Tedesco didn't fail to create anything because the Roosters stuck to the plan rather than try to play through/around on backline plays. Tedescos job last night was metres and win the ruck for the next bloke. He did that job all night.
I think there is some truth that Tedesco had a lot of 'easy' metres due to the Roosters forward dominance. The inverse however is the forwards were able to dominate because of Tedescos work rate.
I'm not much of a Dylan Edwards fan as I think he is a bit one dimensional. He offers elite work rate but not much else. That work rate has taken him all the way to NSW and Kangaroos selection. Tedesco just played a game where his work rate exceeded anything Edwards has ever done in a finals game.
 
mtd#2 said:
Much prefer games like last night than 20+ pens a game
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I'd prefer games to be refereed the same way all year, not trot out a new set of no offside, shoulder charges allowed rules on special days.
The ref. was invisible.
The Roosters were taking off in defence as soon as tackled player stood up. The first receiver was getting hit as soon as they touched the ball. Usain Bolt at his peak wouldn't have that line speed. There could've been set restart calls every tackle if it was refereed the way all the regular season games were refereed.
 
gregjm87 said:
The Roosters obviously identified the mismatch (aerial ability of Toia and Mark against Marzhew and Ponga) and absolutely hammered it all night. Tedesco didn't fail to create anything because the Roosters stuck to the plan rather than try to play through/around on backline plays. Tedescos job last night was metres and win the ruck for the next bloke. He did that job all night.
I think there is some truth that Tedesco had a lot of 'easy' metres due to the Roosters forward dominance. The inverse however is the forwards were able to dominate because of Tedescos work rate.
I'm not much of a Dylan Edwards fan as I think he is a bit one dimensional. He offers elite work rate but not much else. That work rate has taken him all the way to NSW and Kangaroos selection. Tedesco just played a game where his work rate exceeded anything Edwards has ever done in a finals game.
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Mate you say that like there isnt any other tacke than last tackle. That aerial threat is one of 6 attacking opportunities.

Totally disagree the forwards were able to dominate because of Tedesco's work, that ludicrous
 
Chunk said:
Yeah but it wouldn't have mattered to the Knights as much becuase they were on the back foot defending all night.

However, it would have been gold for Newcastle to give them some type of opportunity, it would have opened the game up a little.

And what really in concerning is that the Tigers never win these defensive type of games
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The weight of possession and field position, with set restarts would have made it almost impossible for the Knights to contain the Roosters based on the results of standard games that have been reffed under the six again rule. There was a reason that the game didn't open up.
 
mtd#2 said:
All games should be refereed like the grand final. I dont understand why they cant do it. Keen on your thoughts as to why @gregjm87 ?
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I don't think there is one simple answer but a few things together at play.

Firstly, I think it is easy to say any other game would have seen multiple set restarts awarded for the same play. I believe that is a throw away comment with very little to support it. I think both teams were extremely well disciplined, knights especially for all the dominance that the Roosters had. I think I only mentioned once all game "that should've been 6 again to the mate I was watching with" though I'm sure I did miss other potential ones as I wasn't actively looking for them.
Additionally players are genuinely more disciplined in bigger games because they don't want to be the one that costs the team by taking the cheap option. Best example I can give of this is illegally stripping the ball. We see it every game during the season by players looking for an easy win (to the play, not the match). We almost never see a deliberate strip by a player in a finals game. Knights were under the pump all game and none of them took the cheap way out by trying to get away with one.

Bigger talent discrepancies between finals teams and non finals teams essentially means the lesser teams need to do more to slow down stronger sides resulting in more ruck infringements to penalise. Add in some individual discipline issues or at least a willingness to take short cuts to try to control the ruck is one of the reasons for this discrepancy.

I do however think there was a fairly skinny 10m (for both teams). This helps teams to be disciplined as you don't need to slow the ruck as much to get back. It's seen all the time in big games because refs/NRL don't want penalties determining the outcome with so much on the line. They essentially make it easier for the defence to be disciplined.

So why not a skinny 10 during the season? Our current administration is obsessed with ball in play and attacking footy. Make all games a skinny 10 the attack dries up. Then either teams under fatigue start looking to kick for the sideline or errors become more prevalent with defenders getting off the line quicker. Both leading to more breaks in play
 
king_sirro said:
Mate you say that like there isnt any other tacke than last tackle. That aerial threat is one of 6 attacking opportunities.

Totally disagree the forwards were able to dominate because of Tedesco's work, that ludicrous
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I think it is a bit of chicken or egg. Forwards and Tedesco both allowed each other to do what they did.
Roosters weren't playing to go around them in the lead up to the last tackle. It was pretty much all get to a set spot on the field for the kick and get a quick play the ball to give the kicker time.
There was the odd attempt at playing through the middle but the game plan clearly wasn't conducive to attacking the line through Tedescos ball playing.
 
king_sirro said:
My take has been explained in depth today it has nothing to do with resentment. It makes pure sense.
Tedesco was given the award purely because they always give it to the big name spine player. He was probably the Roosters best spine player (just), so he got it over players that had much greater influence on the result like Whyte, Leniu, Foketi and even Billy Smith. Its even fair to say that the field position the Roosters had and the fact Teddy couldn't do one single thing to take advantage of that suggests he was actually poor. Im not saying he was poor, but i am saying his inability to take advantage of such dominance by his pack was poor. Ponga would have eaten that up if it was reversed.
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Ted saved tries and defused many attacking high kicks. He also led the team beautifully and was a major influence on the relentless pressure the knights defence was under. As it turned out, the Newcastle defence was great and thwarted the attempts, however the pressure was constant and he was driving a lot of it.
Had that been a normal round 11 game Roosters would have put 50 on them.
 
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