Round 1 Thoughts

[jirskyr]

I don’t understand why every other team that’s had bad runs in the past (Knights, Eels, Panthers) can just revamp their team and become some of the better teams in the comp, yet we go through player after player, combination after combination and it always turns to crap.

I’m sick of signing average players and pretending like they’ll turn us into a premiership threat when 1 in every 5 of them pans out.

Knights got Klemmer, Frizel, Ponga, Pearce and they become a strong team. We sign a bunch of “young guns” that don’t pan out or leave and mid tier players who do the same.

Same story every year

Ah let's have some perspective here - none of the sides you mentioned here "just revamped" their lineups and became good. It generally doesn't work that simply or quickly.

2020 was the first time the Knights have made the finals in 7 seasons, and they were blown away by Rabbits in the first week. Pearce and Ponga have been with the side since 2018 (Klemmer 2019) and they came 11th in 2018-2019.

Eels also spent 7 years building towards a finals-bound side, and Brad Arthur did not get them there until his 4th season in charge.

Penrith missed the finals 8 out of 9 seasons before Ivan Cleary joined, and Cleary got them to the finals in his third year. They've hung around the finals 5/7 years since that 2014 result.

With that as evidence, you don't become a finals-capable side until you get a good roster going for several years, with strong juniors and preferably with stability for your head coach. Tigers obviously have had a worse finals run than any of those sides, but it's not so much worse. In the 9 years since Tigers last played finals, Eels have been there 3 times and won 3 spoons. Knights have been there twice also with 3 wooden spoons. Panthers have done it 5 times - 5/9 finals appearances is an average result, barely above half.

Maguire needs that same stuff - he needs time, he needs to get his good signings to do their job (not encumbered by bad signings of his predecessors), he needs to get his juniors up to scratch.

 

[jirskyr]

I feel scammed.

The club had me hook, line & sinker this off-season.

Hello membership refund department

Bit early for that don't you think? There are no first-round premiers.

 

[Tiger_Fanatic3]

PG version


😂😂

 

[jirskyr]

11 games in a row conceding 26+

It's not good but just for some perspective:
- Rd 1 2021 - 5/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points and two of those conceded 24.
- Rd 20 2020 - 8/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 19 2020 - 8/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 18 2020 - 5/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 17 2020 - 2/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points (inc a 25, 24 and 23)
- Rd 16 2020 - 7/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 15 2020 - 5/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 14 2020 - 5/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points (inc. a 24)

That's the way of results now, it's common for sides to concede >26. In that period of which you speak, Tigers have only won 2/11 matches.

It's not to excuse the results, it's to point out that 26 isn't a magic number, it's common for losing sides to concede that number of points.

 

[isaaktigers]

Well after a night of reflection, my thoughts are:

- I didn’t like the way Liddle served the ball out of D/H, marginally forward most of the time - one or two did get called. He did run a few quick scoots after quick play the balls but not as much as I wanted.

- James Roberts was screaming multiple times for the ball on his side with Nofa - when it did get there they scored. I believe Mbye is the fault for this but Douhie will fix that up when he’s back.

- Brooks, he was the main man I was watching all day and he didn’t even have his eyes up looking forward - just behind him, I was very disappointed as I thought all this chat he’d be in charge..

- Tamou, Joffa, Twal, Lucy and big Stef were amazing fighting with the other teams forwards

I’m a tigers diehard fan.. what I seen on Sunday in the second half was the worst out of all teams on the weekend, and I watched all of them... With this new game scrums are once in a blue moon and the times they had them they couldn’t even do a set play! You need that!

 

[twentyforty]

I think Raiders deserve a little credit too. Their attack was on song, and coming from a top 4, settled team.
When your Fullback has had to do more than twice as many tackles as any other FB over the weekend, you know they’re throwing the kitchen sink at you. Looks to me like the boys could be having a strong focus on defence before polishing the offence at the back end of the season?

 

[Devon Head]

Thought our attack looked completely lost and void of ideas. On way too many occasions forwards receiving the ball flat footed almost like they weren't expecting the ball and either had to take a wasted tackle or pushed an unnecessary offload.

Brooks and Mbye were dreadful full stop. The kicks out on the full and poor 5th tackle options by Brooks are inexcusable for a half with his experience. The amount of times the ball players got caught behind the decoy runner as well and had to take a tackle to avoid an obstruction was also a massive concern. This comes down to a clear lack of ability to execute the game plan. You practice this a thousand times at training.

As soon as Tamou and Joe went off the forward structure completely fell apart. Stefano tried hard but Mikaele offered nothing but half arsed tackle attempts. I recall Packer being on field but don't recall seeing him touch the ball more than a couple of times. Wasted spot on bench. Garner's spot in the 17 let alone starting spot should come into consideration next week. His defensive lapses and ridiculously dumb penalty are lower than reserve grade standard.

Positives: Laurie and Luc both tried real hard and looked to be our only real spark in attack. Laurie attacked the ball hard on returns and Luc looked dangerous every time he touched it. Jet had moments where he looked alright and moments he looked terrible.

Honestly feel a different option in the no14 role is required. Someone more explosive and who can offer some spark when the game is in the balance.

We play like this against roosters and we'll be at the wrong end of a cricket score.

 

[Geo]

Geez you would think the World ended..

 

[BAGNF05]

11 games in a row conceding 26+

It's not good but just for some perspective:
- Rd 1 2021 - 5/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points and two of those conceded 24.
- Rd 20 2020 - 8/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 19 2020 - 8/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 18 2020 - 5/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 17 2020 - 2/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points (inc a 25, 24 and 23)
- Rd 16 2020 - 7/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 15 2020 - 5/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points
- Rd 14 2020 - 5/8 losing sides conceded >= 26 points (inc. a 24)

That's the way of results now, it's common for sides to concede >26. In that period of which you speak, Tigers have only won 2/11 matches.

It's not to excuse the results, it's to point out that 26 isn't a magic number, it's common for losing sides to concede that number of points.

100%. Teams that concede more than 4 tries invariably lose in the NRL. As bad as our attack was yesterday, defense is still our issue.

 

[weststigers]

Definitely some improvement needed, but if you break down Canberra's points, they got a bit lucky and we compounded that with silly errors.

The 2 softest defensive efforts were the Ryan James try and the final Rapana try.

Other than that we copped tries from:

1. Deflection off Garner straight to a Raiders player
2. Simonsson catch in the air and pass to a player in full stride - freak try.
3. Ball goes to ground while we are attacking and they streak 80 metres to score.

Despite our attack being clunky, I think with less dropped ball, we are not as gassed and the scoreboard would have been a lot closer.

NRL.com saying that Canberra's completion rate was only 68% (ours was 75%). 13 errors for us.

**Positives**

- Our forwards were impressive - I've seen us struggle to make yards against bigger packs and this year we seem to be able to roll down the field a lot easier.

- 4 forced dropouts to Canberra's 1.

- As well as being safe at the back and solid in attack, Daine Laurie adds a short kicking dimension to our team.

- Luciano and Joffa very strong with the ball.

- Great first half defensively. We were under immense pressure and held them out until the deflection off Garner for their first try. Noffa seems to have worked on his rushing in - I saw him take a few steps back when it looked like there would be an overlap and we ended up closing down the play.

- There is a base that Madge can work from. We will give a few teams a run for their money this year. The issue will be how we structure our attack.

**Negatives**

- 2nd half errors in attack ended up costing us the game. Defensively, I thought we were ok apart from the Ryan James try after half time and the Rapana try right at the end. Most of our points were self-inflicted.

- Attack looks clunky. We were running across field too much and the Raiders were just sliding. We need some forwards to straighten up the attack and/or Brooks to play more direct.

- Rush defence always kills us. Roosters use this tactic as well. We need a game plan to counter this tactic or else we will get crushed.

- We didn't put up one attacking bomb all game. Short kicking game, apart from a Brooks howler, was pretty good.

- Garner misses some basic tackles which heaps pressure on us constantly. Need to find someone who is willing to tackle.

- AJ makes good yardage out of our end, but his ball skills need work. Passing and catching, but also kicking. The play when he was running down the touchline and the Raiders scored from him passing it on the ground...he could have kicked for the 4 players chasing through rather than an out of control, one arm fling inside. Heat of the moment, sure...but we need to maximise our opportunities. Talau gets that spot in my opinion.

Just my 2 cents. I don't think we need to hit the panic button just yet. All teams lose games during the season and for a team full of new recruits, we didn't do too badly.

 

[TigerWest]

Just watching the Kayo mini highlights package.

Geez Alexander said multiple times that Laurie was a lightweight FB. It sounded like he was trying to defend the Panthers for letting him go.
BTW, we’ve had a few smaller, very successful FB

 

[twentyforty]

Just watching the Kayo mini highlights package.

Geez Alexander said multiple times that Laurie was a lightweight FB. It sounded like he was trying to defend the Panthers for letting him go.
BTW, we’ve had a few smaller, very successful FB

He’s about the same size Tedesco was 7 years ago. Sellers remorse comments from Brandy, as I’m sure he would have had a say in Laurie’s future at Panthers.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

I think one of the major things is that we have to play the absolute perfect game to win against the good sides whereas they can play at 60-70% and still win pretty comfortably.

 

[Telltails]

I think one of the major things is that we have to play the absolute perfect game to win against the good sides whereas they can play at 60-70% and still win pretty comfortably.

Agree - and that is a reality we cant avoid.

 

[TigerSJ]

Just some perspective... I am happy to praise our new look pack like everyone else where deserved, however as much as they held their own in the first half, they were lacking in the second half. The big carries and yardage just was not there and we were back to the old style of getting hammered and not providing enough go forward and space for our halves. Brooks was rushing kicks from our own half and when we had the ball our forwards were not in support nor running off the playmakers, making our attack one out and predictable. I put it down to fatigue - the Raiders actually wore our guys down and outmuscled us for the most part. They were more aggressive than us as well and got away with some cheap dirty play at times as well as offside D. You simply can not win a game when your pack is not dominant.
Compare how we looked in the trial against a weak Manly side. All the attack was there because we were allowed to get on the front foot and roll forward. We were handed opportunities to get in the game and change the momentum when we’d lost it. But not against the Raiders - the difference in class between the top 5 teams and the rest.

 

[tigerballs]

Just some perspective... I am happy to praise our new look pack like everyone else where deserved, however as much as they held their own in the first half, they were lacking in the second half. The big carries and yardage just was not there and we were back to the old style of getting hammered and not providing enough go forward and space for our halves. Brooks was rushing kicks from our own half and when we had the ball our forwards were not in support nor running off the playmakers, making our attack one out and predictable. I put it down to fatigue - the Raiders actually wore our guys down and outmuscled us for the most part. They were more aggressive than us as well and got away with some cheap dirty play at times as well as offside D. You simply can not win a game when your pack is not dominant.
Compare how we looked in the trial against a weak Manly side. All the attack was there because we were allowed to get on the front foot and roll forward. We were handed opportunities to get in the game and change the momentum when we’d lost it. But not against the Raiders - the difference in class between the top 5 teams and the rest.

I think it's as simple as this: The teams that won on the weekend were the teams that made the least mistakes. If you can keep possession for a sustained period the opposition will fatigue. That's always been pretty much the case but this season it's been magnified. 6 all at half time was fair.
Second half, a stupid penalty turns from attacking with the football to defending our line and subsequent try. Immediately hand the ball over on the halfway through another stupid error. As soon as we get the ball back, we hand it over again in bad field position. Raiders didn't so much win, we lost.
Cowboys did exactly the same thing against good opposition and paid dearly. Brisbane the same. The Bronco's had Parra done but handed it back to them through dumb errors.
Brooks and Garner have a lot to answer for.

 

[Elderslie_Tiger]

Round 1 v Raiders @ Canberra

This game over the past few seasons has always been a difficult one a yesterday was different why because in years gone by it would have been 30 nil at half time with Raiders on the way to 50 + scoreline only for a few silly errors we let the Raiders off the hook it's early season and we can only improve.

Another point out of the game is what to do
with Moses Mbye ???? everybodies 2nd favourite whipping boy.
He's @ $700k a year player who we have until end of 2022 SOO rep player and can cover every position in the backline I think its time Madge moved him to 13.
Alex Twal is a wholehearted player but I would say he's a better 8 10 11 or 12 this is where Mbye could prove good value and may make him more attractive to other teams if WT'S plan to move him on he's big enough fast enough and can defend.

 

[Fade.To.Black]

Well after a night of reflection, my thoughts are:

- I didn’t like the way Liddle served the ball out of D/H, marginally forward most of the time - one or two did get called. He did run a few quick scoots after quick play the balls but not as much as I wanted.

- James Roberts was screaming multiple times for the ball on his side with Nofa - when it did get there they scored. I believe Mbye is the fault for this but Douhie will fix that up when he’s back.

- Brooks, he was the main man I was watching all day and he didn’t even have his eyes up looking forward - just behind him, I was very disappointed as I thought all this chat he’d be in charge..

- Tamou, Joffa, Twal, Lucy and big Stef were amazing fighting with the other teams forwards

I’m a tigers diehard fan.. what I seen on Sunday in the second half was the worst out of all teams on the weekend, and I watched all of them... With this new game scrums are once in a blue moon and the times they had them they couldn’t even do a set play! You need that!

Hodgson threw as many if not more forward passes from D/H as Liddle did as well. We get called for them but the Raiders didn't. That annoys the hell out of me.
The refs are consistently useless.
Mightn't have cost us the game but it most certainly makes it much harder to win a game with that sort of inconsistent, hopeless officiating.

 

[TigerWest]

Well after a night of reflection, my thoughts are:

- I didn’t like the way Liddle served the ball out of D/H, marginally forward most of the time - one or two did get called. He did run a few quick scoots after quick play the balls but not as much as I wanted.

- James Roberts was screaming multiple times for the ball on his side with Nofa - when it did get there they scored. I believe Mbye is the fault for this but Douhie will fix that up when he’s back.

- Brooks, he was the main man I was watching all day and he didn’t even have his eyes up looking forward - just behind him, I was very disappointed as I thought all this chat he’d be in charge..

- Tamou, Joffa, Twal, Lucy and big Stef were amazing fighting with the other teams forwards

I’m a tigers diehard fan.. what I seen on Sunday in the second half was the worst out of all teams on the weekend, and I watched all of them... With this new game scrums are once in a blue moon and the times they had them they couldn’t even do a set play! You need that!

Hodgson threw as many if not more forward passes from D/H as Liddle did as well. We get called for them but the Raiders didn't. That annoys the hell out of me.
The refs are consistently useless.
Mightn't have cost us the game but it most certainly makes it much harder to win a game with that sort of inconsistent, hopeless officiating.

The receiving player needs to take some heat as well, how hard is it to stand on side?

 

[Enmore_Tiger]

Just some perspective... I am happy to praise our new look pack like everyone else where deserved, however as much as they held their own in the first half, they were lacking in the second half. The big carries and yardage just was not there and we were back to the old style of getting hammered and not providing enough go forward and space for our halves. Brooks was rushing kicks from our own half and when we had the ball our forwards were not in support nor running off the playmakers, making our attack one out and predictable. I put it down to fatigue - the Raiders actually wore our guys down and outmuscled us for the most part. They were more aggressive than us as well and got away with some cheap dirty play at times as well as offside D. You simply can not win a game when your pack is not dominant.
Compare how we looked in the trial against a weak Manly side. All the attack was there because we were allowed to get on the front foot and roll forward. We were handed opportunities to get in the game and change the momentum when we’d lost it. But not against the Raiders - the difference in class between the top 5 teams and the rest.

I think it's as simple as this: The teams that won on the weekend were the teams that made the least mistakes. If you can keep possession for a sustained period the opposition will fatigue. That's always been pretty much the case but this season it's been magnified. 6 all at half time was fair.
Second half, a stupid penalty turns from attacking with the football to defending our line and subsequent try. Immediately hand the ball over on the halfway through another stupid error. As soon as we get the ball back, we hand it over again in bad field position. Raiders didn't so much win, we lost.
Cowboys did exactly the same thing against good opposition and paid dearly. Brisbane the same. The Bronco's had Parra done but handed it back to them through dumb errors.
Brooks and Garner have a lot to answer for.

Even the Storm let the Bunnies back into it through a series of errors. Errors have a huge impact.