LIVE GAME Round 25 v Cowboys

[Telltails]

Pole - doing my head in for so many reasons.

 

[Carefactor]

is leichardt the one being upgraded?

or is it campbelltown

Both.

 

[Carefactor]

Anyone got a stat for how many tackles Naden missed?

Think it was 5 missed and 3 ineffective.

 

[innsaneink]

The first 10 -15 mins of the game we were beaten on both sides of the ball. Thats what I find most concerning moving forward without a significant addition in the middle. I think the first set of the game when we kicked the Cowboys had their first tackle close to their 40m line. I'd have to look again but thats just rubbish especially with the wind behind us.
There were some really poor efforts at times yesterday, well before the game came to the crunch time. Effort plays that make a difference. The line break by Purdue leading to the Cowboys second try, Terrell, Sione and Api treated him like he had spiders on him. Required more effort. The one nobody has mentioned, Deardons try off the May dropped ball. Tito, Luai and Bula stood there and showed no urgency to kill the play, unlike Deardon who swooped on it to score. Disappointing.

Im not sure I have the same optimism for 26 that others do without some astute recruitment. Other teams will improve too. Teams that are currently below us like Parra ( Moses at the peak of his powers now) and Souths who have had an absolute horrible run with injuries. We will need a preseason where our defensive resolve and line speed improve a lot.

Noty sure if its been mentioned, the NQ winger lead with his head got taylan flush in the face before he dropped it....I was expecting a penalty...if it was his arm or shoulder it wouldve been forceful contact, dunno what the go is but his head definitely contacted taylans face first before any arms wrapping etc
That said the players MUST play to the whistle...there seemed to be a lot of high shots on our blokes let go and as the game wore on you could see the frustration they had with the ref....but they gotta be better in this regard some days will be like yesterday where we dont get the rub of the green and we have to learn to suck it up and play against 14 instead of carrying on like M Moses

That Gough dont seen to like us too much

 

[jirskyr]

Bloody hell
View attachment 26963

Those are some of the worst teams in history, too.

 

[jirskyr]

I don't know why we don't have that lethal side to us though - there are games that we shouldn't just win, but win comfortably.

We very rarely put a score on.

This Cowboys game had every reason to be 48-6 type of game (to us) leading up to it.

Fundamentally we aren't fast enough. Bula is one of the fastest but he doesn't have explosive speed, he has and can hold a high cruising speed. Our forwards aren't fast or mobile either, they are almost all tough workers. Sam Fainu really the only one who has some top-end mobility.

Rest of them aren't fast - Turuva, Taylan, Naden or To'a, Luai, Doueihi, Latu - not particularly quick. Drinkwater and Dearden are dangerous because if they get on your outside they are a big chance of a line break.

Just had to watch Broncos vs Knights yesterday, although Knights are a horrible football team, they kept with the Broncos for a short period then Reece Walsh murdered them with a solo try. Suddenly it's floodgates, they have speed all over the park and you have a guy like Haas being huge and fast, then he offloads to another fast guy... it doesn't always work, but when it works it's lethal. Tigers don't have it, we don't recruit speedsters.

 

[jirskyr]

I am sick of dearden, he has an absolute stormer every time he plays us, in defence and attack

In fairness Dearden's been having a stormer for much of the season. He was outstanding in Origin.

 

[Flippedy]

Actually head-to-head we are equal - todays win brought Cowboys level with us 24W a piece. One of the few teams against which we have had a long-term winning record.

Not a good recent record however: we've only beaten them twice in the past 10 attempts.

Prior to that, from 2005-2013 we went on a run where we played them 20 times, won 14 only lost 6 (including 3W in 2005).

Yeah it’s the Payten effect. Since he’s coached them, they seem to get us all the time. Before that we were much more a chance of beating them. Thurston was only saying yesterday that he never won a game with the Cowboys at Leichhardt 0-6!

 

[jirskyr]

Reality is if we lose last 2 games we could finish 15th. That would be another disaster year.

Hard disagree.

The disaster is already averted, we've done enough in 2025 to not be a disaster. Evidence already by the 16K crowd at Leichhardt all hopeful and vocal, didn't take much only a few good wins.

Also specifically to finish 15th doesn't mean so much this year, if that's what happens. Bottom 8 is quite competitive this year, it's not as if we are surrounded by no-hoper clubs. Parra, Dragons, Dolphins, Cowboys, Rabbits all quite dangerous on their day.

The losses are being spread out; I think we'll find the bottom 5 or 6 teams will have been unusually competitive once the season evens out. Case in point: bottom 5 teams right now have wins 8-8-9-6-5, with 2 rounds to go (Rabbits are one of those side and have a bye).
- 2024 finished 9-8-7-7-6 wins
- 2023 finished 9-9-7-5-4
- 20222 finished 7-6-6-6-4
- 2021 finished 8-8-7-7-3
- 2020 finished 7-7-5-3-3 (reduced season)
- 2019 finished 10-9-9-8-4
- 2018 finished 8-8-8-7-6
- 2017 finished 9-7-7-7-5
- 2016 finished 10-9-8-6-1 (Parra had 13 but docked points)

So you can see the last 10 seasons, it's unusual to finish even in the Bottom 5 with 9 wins, normally it maxes out around 7-8 wins. This means comparatively 2025 is a fairly competitive season, even at the bottom.

Really important for Tigers 2025 is number of wins, then the overall competitiveness, then the question of "are we building something for 2026 and beyond?" I don't think the response to any of those is "disaster".

 

[4jtigers]

Noty sure if its been mentioned, the NQ winger lead with his head got taylan flush in the face before he dropped it....I was expecting a penalty...if it was his arm or shoulder it wouldve been forceful contact, dunno what the go is but his head definitely contacted taylans face first before any arms wrapping etc
That said the players MUST play to the whistle...there seemed to be a lot of high shots on our blokes let go and as the game wore on you could see the frustration they had with the ref....but they gotta be better in this regard some days will be like yesterday where we dont get the rub of the green and we have to learn to suck it up and play against 14 instead of carrying on like M Moses

That Gough dont seen to like us too much

No he doesn't - seen too many 50/50 calls in the game yesterday and other games that go against us when he is the one officiating our games.

 

[jirskyr]

Interesting because my reaction was exactly the opposite. I.E. Too much time left, this is when we drop our bundle. I'm sorry to say they met my expectations.
On the other hand, I wasnt too phased that the cows jumped ahead at the start. I had faith that we could reel them in.
From a player attitude perspective, it seems to me that we are better at chasing points than leading, taking our foot off the pedal and losing concentration.

I dunno, "getting too far in front too early" hasn't been the issue for us in 2025. We've actually gone on with quite a few games where we've hit the lead mid-game, especially lately.

2025 for me has been more about chasing down those smaller leads, like you say we are still alright at chasing points, or having some games where we were never really in the contest.

 

[Bus 2 Terrigal]

Yeah it’s the Payten effect. Since he’s coached them, they seem to get us all the time. Before that we were much more a chance of beating them. Thurston was only saying yesterday that he never won a game with the Cowboys at Leichhardt 0-6!

We did put 60 on them in the corresponding game two seasons ago (to which they racked up 70 in the return bout) 🙄

 

[jirskyr]

I like the fact that Benji acknowledged that the team let themselves and US fans down.

That was our game to loose....

I think today that's my biggest disappointment. I have to drive 2 hours to Leichhardt now, I don't live in Sydney any more. I drove in 2 hours, dared to dream, then had 2 hours drive home to sit in my disappointment.

We were primed for a good result and the crowd was jubilant after we hit the lead and Naden scored, it was the perfect setup for a feel-good evening and a fairytale last dig at the finals. 05 Old Boys, good recent form, beating the Cowboys again... all set up for a great finish to the weekend. A couple of classic tries that are now tainted.

Instead, huge whimper. OId skool capitulation. Everyone around me just shrugged and wandered off. A fair few people booed. Very hollow and typical wasted opportunity. Shades very much of those Raiders and Sharks games where we were playing for finals footy and instead of being competitive we were humiliated.

 

[jirskyr]

Noty sure if its been mentioned, the NQ winger lead with his head got taylan flush in the face before he dropped it....I was expecting a penalty...if it was his arm or shoulder it wouldve been forceful contact, dunno what the go is but his head definitely contacted taylans face first before any arms wrapping etc
That said the players MUST play to the whistle...there seemed to be a lot of high shots on our blokes let go and as the game wore on you could see the frustration they had with the ref....but they gotta be better in this regard some days will be like yesterday where we dont get the rub of the green and we have to learn to suck it up and play against 14 instead of carrying on like M Moses

That Gough dont seen to like us too much

Ref called almost nothing, spent most of the game gesturing for the player to get to his feet.

 

[mtd#2]

44 missed tackles tells you all you need to know and it's been the perennial issue. RL is not a difficult game, you know where you need to be at what point in the tackle count and if there are no attacking options on tackle 5 you need to pin the opponent to a corner and then look to minimise progress with intent and line speed. Marshall needs to have some sessions at full gas in the first pre-season block and change some attitudes towards D

Great point.

Do you have any idea on how many of those missed tackles came after we went 12 points up? I'm convinced they mentally switched off thinking they had the game wrapped up, would be good to see if the stats support that theory.

 

[NT_Tiger]

I dunno, "getting too far in front too early" hasn't been the issue for us in 2025. We've actually gone on with quite a few games where we've hit the lead mid-game, especially lately.

2025 for me has been more about chasing down those smaller leads, like you say we are still alright at chasing points, or having some games where we were never really in the contest.

Yeah, I guess to be more precise, once we had that lead I worried, ok now we really have to concentrate, no errors, no penalties, keep up the momentum. I was not confident that we would. Unfortunately there was an error that swung the momentum back to the cows and they blitzed us before we could recover.

 

[jirskyr]

Yeah, I guess to be more precise, once we had that lead I worried, ok now we really have to concentrate, no errors, no penalties, keep up the momentum. I was not confident that we would. Unfortunately there was an error that swung the momentum back to the cows and they blitzed us before we could recover.

That's Naden for you

 

[Tcat]

God I hate our defensive structure. I can't stand watching us plant our feet and scramble sideways, giving up extra metres to the opposition every set. Why can't we Hammer off the line like all the other good teams. Is it just me?

 

[gregjm87]

Deardan, Robsonnanai, cotter are current state of origin players. Drinkwater, purdue also highly regarded. I still rate taumalolo and McLean and they are big time rep players of the past. That's a lot of rep talent. Our current origin players: 1 fill in player.

Fair enough.
I think we've different ideas of 'star' as well as 'star studded'. Dearden the only one i'd really call a star of their 4 current reps. Taumalolo certainly once was but hasn't been for some time. Similarly, Purdue may be one day.
It might be more rep talent than we have but it's also no more than most teams have which is why I wouldn't consider it star studded as such.

 

[Tommy_the_Tiger]

Live at the game it seemed as far though they were up early most of the time, not sure if that was my tigers coloured glasses..