Not perfect but some good signs

bonstonker

New member
it was good to see the tigers out play manly with the 1 per centers.
with the game to be won or lost our kick chase game was outstanding.

matterson looks a good addition to the backrow,and would like to see a combo develop with him near the tryline.
mikaele looked very comfortable out there.
thompson,so underrated by fans.
marsters still looks a classy player
aloiai with his usual strong start to a season,now can he do it over a significant length of time.
garner,well done on the try,i like seeing dce get steamrolled.
farah,you will still have people with the knives ready. good game champ

well done madge,your bench came on and helped dominate.
manly you suck so much
 
Coming into round one I had no idea what to expect. Now after the first game of the season there's was a lot of positive signs. The defence was great. The fitness and strength of the players was good to see. Really happy with the forwards and bench. Also the depth.
 
It's hard to gauge the performance with the conditions out there as they were. But as Bon said it was good to see us getting the little things right.

Matterson was huge out there, I'd like to see him get some early ball with a bit of space. Garner was rewarded for running the same hard line all night. Aloiai was fantastic.

We still didn't seem to create much space for the backs, but that could be down to the conditions as well.

Good win, but a huge task next week against the Warriors.
 
I only got to watch up until 25 minutes or so to go. But it was evident to me that the 2nd half was far superior to the first. That was borderline appalling. All the new blokes did what was expected and some. The big improvers for us were Aloiai, Packer and Fonua and the bloke that was as solid as a rock was Corey Thompson. He did a great job at fullback. I didn't get to see it but good on Farah for playing well in the second half. Benji needs to find a place in ISP in my opinion. Seeing our blokes roll up the middle was amazing. Love Madges work so far.
 
The Warriors are looking strong this year. So are we though. The Bulldogs and Manly both had to do a lot of hard defending on the back foot
 
The bench won it for us. No 2nd hooker is the key.
Their forwards tired out in the last 25 mins, ours were fresh.
 
in any conditions,i don't see us as a side that will be scoring big points.
grinding out wins will be our go to.
this side looks better equipped to grind out wins a little more consistently than previous years with the additions to the pack of matterson and mikaele plus lawrence to come back.
and aloiai is the wildcard
 
i agree no second hooker on bench do you think we will still hold on to Liddle or do we let him head to dogs next year and look at segeyaro etc
 
Our game is going to have to go to the next level if we are going to beat warriors.. and judging from how they demolished the dogs.. we r gonna be in for a tough one
 
Warriors possibly won on raw emotion tonight. Next week won’t be as dramatic. They will be tough but maybe not as switched on as they were today
 
@Tiger_Steve said:
Warriors possibly won on raw emotion tonight. Next week won’t be as dramatic. They will be tough but maybe not as switched on as they were today

I think next week will be extremely tough for the Warriors, away from home with your mind elsewhere.
 
It is always great to win, but I suspect Manly will be in a battle with the Bulldogs for the wooden spoon.

My notes for Madge!!!!

1\. One try , the ref ran into Thompson- we were lucky
2\. One try the Manly player just didnt pass it- we were lucky
3\. One of our tries came off a lucky rebound- we were lucky
4\. We NEVER ( except Garners' try ) actually made a line break
5\. We spent so much time in the 20 m but couldn't score.
6\. Why do we not use Masters in an attacking move?
7\. Did anybody notice Jennings get a clear break in the second half but had no speed??????
8\. Robbie is still good - hey 43 tackles, two tries- but he stifles Brooks out of the game.
9\. Use of Garner and Matterson was too far behind the advantage line
10\. Who do you drop when Mbye comes back …Thompson? . not on todays effort- he was the pick of the backs today
11\. Packer and Matulino don't make enough quick hard yards because the pass from the dummy half is not flat enough and they run too close to the ruck....i.e often Robbies passes are too deep.
12\. I like Aloiai............some body needs to teach him to run out wide and run lines just like Gareth Ellis did...........Lawerence is not the answer there.
13\. The person who made critical tackles just when Manly were getting a roll on up the middle was again Taylor. His work effort is so under rated
14\. On tackles 3 and 4 , forwards still dont go to the line in pairs , therby giving options.
15\. Brooks still plays too far behind the line and only seems ever to have limited options in terms of other players running lines or decoys.
16.Defence was good.
17 Last 5 minutes was a shamble and no way to close out a game.
 
Some points to take into consideration before laying the boot in too much…
1\. First game of the year
2\. New coaching setup
3\. 3 guys who trained with the side all off season were unavailable at reasonably late notice
4\. 4 guys made their club debut tonight
5\. It poured down rain
6\. Their pack had a red hot crack and our smaller guys got over the top of them and ended up going through them.

Some of your points are good, some a bit questionable...at the end of the day we weren't terrific and still had a decent win. Ill take that anytime in the first couple of months to be honest.
 
We played for 80 minutes. When was the last time we could say that? Definitely room for improvement but also very encouraging.

One big difference - our defence last year was stronger through scramble but still heaps of missed tackles. Today we missed about half the tackles we’d miss in a game last year. Defence up the middle was the best I’ve seen it for a long time
 
@Jedi_Tiger. Liddle didn’t exactly set the Canterbury cup on fire today. Not sure what to think about him at the moment.
 
Gee Mike I thought he was really solid. Gave very quick ball to receivers and runners. Some nice yardage up the middle as well. But Farah is still our best 9 by a mile. I really don’t understand the hate for him.
 
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