My Pros and Cons From Yesterday.....

[OzLukeH]

Start with the cons…...

Tui looked a bit clunky when bringing the ball back. I'm probably used to seeing Tedesco flipping around everywhere so probably a bit harsh for the first game of the year...looked to be carrying some pudding but otherwise not too bad.

Brooks seemed quiet. Needed to stamp his mark on the game but seemed to not quite hit it. Sin Bin was harsh when he clearly didn't know where the ball was

Atmosphere was down, but only due to being in the soul sucking cavern that is Homebush. If that game was at LO or CT then the atmosphere would've gone berserk and changed it completely.

Stadium food....despite the promise that food would be more affordable for families, even with a members discount it was $28 for 2 hot dogs, a cold chips and two drinks.....no thanks.

Pros

Played as a team on defence and it was heroic. Haven't seen us defend like that in forever and it was amazing!!! Completely different team to ones in recent past.

When big plays needed to be made the players made them, especially Marshall killing the game when we were one down.

Every tackle and boo on Tedesco. It's what the fans wanted and team delivered.

Not too many bad choices in either attack or defence.
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In retrospect we punched above our weight yesterday, but to me it's a sign of things to come. They played as a team and busted their backsides, and as a fan I couldn't have been prouder. I'm not going to say shades of the team of 05 and pin my hopes to an improbable GF, but there is a lot to like about our team so far this year, and hopefully we can put in a good performance against Storm.

Just my ramblings....still have no voice from cheering/booing

Go Tigers!!!

 

[GNR4LIFE]

Again with the Tui body shape comments :unamused:

As for the atmosphere, it has to be one of the biggest myths that there is no atmosphere at ANZ if there are less then 80k. The atmosphere was great. Not sure where you were sitting.

 

[WestsBenTigers]

Pros
-They lasted the 80 minutes with high intensity and didn't drop out for a single minute of the match
- THE DEFENCE!!! Especially under pressure.
- Our short kicking game was very good, lead by Marshall but Brooks was good as well. Some of the kicks into the corners were very impressive.
- The offloads, especially by Marsters.
- The strength and experience in the middle with lots of metres made, especially from Matulino and Packer (ET was sublime in defence).
-Luke Brooks try-saver on Ferguson
-MCK's falcon assist
-Teddy's drop ball

Cons
- Our edge defence needs work but it was a massive improvement from previous years.
- We needed a few quicker PTB's to give our halves/backs more time and space. A few times the Roosters got on top of us through their quick PTB's.
- Our attack was clunky, but it is only the 1st round of the season and our starting 5/8 was injured the day before the match - I think that once combinations develop and they get used to each other's games then our attack will be slick and firing.

Once you add Nofoaluma, Aloiai, Reynolds and Liddle to the team and they start to gel, I think that we will be in the hunt for finals football!

 

[Tweed_Tiger]

Should of got the $3 pies

 

[GNR4LIFE]

Should of got the $3 pies

I don’t think they were 3 dollars. My girlfriend went to get a drink, came back and said they were 5 90.

 

[Geo]

Pro's

We won

Cons

5th $3 Pie was cold in the middle..

 

[Joel Helmes]

What a difference it makes not having Woods slowing everything down.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

What a difference it makes not having Woods slowing everything down.

He was doing a good job of that for the Dogs last night.

 

[Guest]

Pro's

We won

Cons

5th $3 Pie was cold in the middle..

Eat faster next time :sign:

 

[TCL]

The Pro's
We played as a team.

The Con's
The Rorters

 

[Tweed_Tiger]

Pro's

We won

Cons

5th $3 Pie was cold in the middle..

Eat faster next time :sign:

Maybe he was knocking them back so fast the oven couldn't keep up

 

[tigerap]

Should of got the $3 pies

I don’t think they were 3 dollars. My girlfriend went to get a drink, came back and said they were 5 90.

They were $3 I grabbed one…not bad.....they are $3 for the rest of March only.

 

[hodgo]

I dont think we did the comp any favs. The chooks will now drop someone we never heard of to free up a million bucks and buy burgess for 27 cents

 

[OzLukeH]

Again with the Tui body shape comments :unamused:

As for the atmosphere, it has to be one of the biggest myths that there is no atmosphere at ANZ if there are less then 80k. The atmosphere was great. Not sure where you were sitting.

Sitting in the members…..
And I personally haven't read any of the body shape comments yet....but just my ramblings

 

[Roar_Power]

What a difference it makes not having Woods slowing everything down.

He was doing a good job of that for the Dogs last night.

I thought Woods looked really pretty with his new doo last night.

What was he thinking…..

 

[GNR4LIFE]

What a difference it makes not having Woods slowing everything down.

He was doing a good job of that for the Dogs last night.

I thought Woods looked really pretty with his new doo last night.

What was he thinking…..

A new way to grab some attention? He certainly doesn’t do it with his football.

 

[Roar_Power]

What a difference it makes not having Woods slowing everything down.

He was doing a good job of that for the Dogs last night.

I thought Woods looked really pretty with his new doo last night.

What was he thinking…..

A new way to grab some attention? He certainly doesn’t do it with his football.

Storm players weren't sure whether to tackle him or kiss him.

 

[supercoach]

Pros….our defence for once hurt the other team

Cons...lack of a speed merchant

 

[2041]

Pros

Defence. The second half of the first half was about as good as I've seen from the Tigers. Full commitment, but more importantly great structure. A couple of times the Roosters ran back row forwards into lines that would have cut us to ribbons in years past but were absolutely smashed at the line. Not many tackles missed and virtually every time the cover was on hand to the extent that you'd barely notice the miss.

Generating second phase, especially coming out of defence. I'm starting to suspect that with Brooks's pace and Reynolds being primarily a ball runner (and no great attacking threat in the outside backs) the game plan will be to attack around the ruck and try to punch holes with second phase ball. While this didn't pay off in massive attacking breaks today it at least meant we weren't kicking from deep in our own half too often and it saved the forwards a heap of work. I've just looked up the team stats: Tigers had 19 offloads yesterday, Manly had 17 on Friday night and no other team is above 13 so far.

Marshall looked good. The hamstring twins in the first choice halves are obviously going to miss a lot of time this season so we can all be thankful the first choice backup (and second choice, if Gamble's reggies performance is indicative) actually offers something this season.

Team effort. I'm hesitant to overplay this because as I say I think the defensive structure was much more important to the outcome, but it's clearly going to be critical in this horrific run of games at the start of the year for the whole side to aim up, buy in to what the coach is doing and play for each other. I was encouraged to see Nofo in the team song after the game, for instance, and to hear Marshall saying in his interview that there is no hierarchy. It's a tough trot ahead so good to have even one win in the bag to focus on.

The middle forwards in particular looked very good, with no drop off when the bench came on - in fact Twal nearly topped the forwards for metres gained. A tremendous relief not to see Grant coming on with 30 minutes gone and just waiting for giant holes to open up round the ruck.

Cons

Attacking threat was minimal the whole game. Let's be honest, if that pass doesn't clunk Chee Kam on the bonce we'd not be talking about a win here, and the Roosters absolutely butchered two first half tries that could have taken the game down quite a different path. However good the defence is, we're not going to win 10-8 every week. It's all well and good to say "the attack will come" but I'd have liked to have seen some more signs of it. For instance, it took 70 minutes for the Tigers to realise that the Roosters were vulnerable down their left side and send some serious traffic that way. Marsters should have had twice as much ball.

Brooks. I've been very much in the "give him time" camp, but I think we all know it's defecate or get off the pot time for Brooks this year and he's going to need to show more in attack unless he likes the look of the Lancashire mill towns. A couple or real clunkers late in the set on a day when a try or two was likely to make the difference just isn't good enough.

Naiqama. On the up side, he was more involved and visible than more or less any back. On the down side, if you're going to use a back that heavily it would be ideal if they weren't hopeless. I was surprised to see Naiqama in the starting centres given his defensive weakness and the fact that I thought we'd signed to bolster the position. Another one who needs to improve or go by the wayside, and TBH I'm not sure where the improvement is coming from.

Neither good nor bad

I'm not bothered about Lolohea - yet. I seem to recall lots of commentary about how fat Greg Inglis had got when he first went to Souths and I believe that turned out ok. Some guys just need to play themselves into fighting weight and hopefully Lolohea is one. I saw enough from him yesterday to make me believe there's a player in there and he could still be a bargain. If he's still looking sluggish in round seven or eight I reserve the right to change my mind, but for now he's not a weak link and I think there's more to come.

New signings overall. Packer was good, Matulino was ok, Thompson did his job well. The Reynolds injury is worrying. I know everyone acts like injuries are entirely unpredictable, but this simply isn't the case with certain types of injury - and one of those is soft tissue injuries like hamstrings. This contract could turn out to be an absolute albatross if we're carrying a crock for four years, and it really couldn't have started any worse. Fingers crossed here, but not with a huge degree of confidence especially given I wasn't expecting much from Reynolds anyway. I know where we were sat it was mostly shrugs when we found out he wasn't playing.

 

[Snake]

Again with the Tui body shape comments :unamused:

As for the atmosphere, it has to be one of the biggest myths that there is no atmosphere at ANZ if there are less then 80k. The atmosphere was great. Not sure where you were sitting.

Sitting in the members…..
And I personally haven't read any of the body shape comments yet....but just my ramblings

We were sitting in the members and the atmosphere in the last 20 min was awesome , the food was priced Ok and it was all HOT , there is always the adds on Ch9 and the huge atmosphere in the lounge room . Negativity for the sake of it there is a good atmosphere in the stadium when over 16k.