LIVE GAME Round 27 v Titans

[gregjm87]

I flew up for the game. (spur of the moment thing).
While the Tigers should never have lost that game, you kind of have to give the Titans some credit. It really defies logic how the Titans were spoon contenders. They have great attacking weapons in Campbell, Brimson and Kini as well as decent forward pack led by Tino. They showed urgency with ball and can make something out of nothing.

Thoughts on the game:
~ Terrell is not an 80 minute player. He often stands behind the opposition defensive line for 4 tackles before gets back onside. His hit ups do not bend the line.
~ Taylan is all class. He saved our back a few times with this last line defence
~ Sione is only a fill in edge as his lateral movement isn’t good enough.KPP will be better there.
~ When Latu went off, Jerome became quite frantic and tried too hard to make the magic play. Early ball to Taylan would have seen points in the second half. We often had them stripped for numbers.
~ Seyfarth was good in his first stint. Played a link role that saw points but his hit ups were average.
~ Api was energetic but isn’t a 80 minute player. He gets tired with the defensive workload.
~ Latu looked great. Took the line on and was strong is all areas. Defensively as good as any half. Game changed when he went off.
~ Heath Mason (yeesh). Sorry but I just don’t see it. His passing game is slow and awkward. Defence is questionable. His only attribute is his speed from standing start but that seems to be easily read. I think he is a KOE type fill in.
~ To’a is an enigma, brilliant but frustrating in about 2 seconds of each other.
~ Roycey was awesome. Even the Titans fans were impressed. That’s the standard every week for him.
- Bula is a keeper. He just gets better and better. Will be a top echelon fullback very soon.
~ Impressive debut from Makasini. Strong carries and solid defensively. Nice try to remember

Overall a very disappointing loss. We don’t seem to be able to cope with adversity well. In this case when Latu went off the wheels fell off and we lost our structure.

Bula definitely a keeper and destined for a very good career but not sure he will ever quite be in the top echelon of fullbacks.
Otherwise agree with all you've said.

 

[gregjm87]

If it makes anyone feel any better St George had an even worse finish to their season, with poor performances over the last month including a 40-0 flogging by Souths, remembering that they were above us on the ladder for much of the season.

Dragons are missing 4 of their best young forwards and 3/4 of their starting outside backs. As well as a few of their next men up. Their remaining fit players from their best 17 include probably the worst halves pairing in the comp, a winger tagged as the worst defender in the comp and an aging front rower most this forum couldn't wait to see leave the club.
We were missing Doueihi and Skelton.

 

[gregjm87]

So I track the set restarts these days..

There's been 3 bullshit ones against us already

Fox timer:
- 36.45
- 20.57
- 16.54

Picking and choosing when to apply interpretations

Got the rest of the list mate?
I might have a look over them. For the record I didn't like the way the game was reffed. In some of the more contentious decisions (in my view) I could understand why the call was made but didn't necessarily agree with the call.
Just looked at these 3.
36.45 May holding down. Disagree with the call. Tino had just started fighting to get up and May was holding him down, but Tino had earnt the right to get up quickly. This was similar to the penalty that led to the Titans first try. I didn't think that was a
20.57 May hand on ball, stopping Campbell from playing the ball. Correct decision.
16.54. Verrils finds his front and fights to get up**. May lends weight in the tackle late. He and Fainu then 'peel' off. Correct call.

* Verrils fakes fighting to get up by dry humping the ground, not actually trying to get up. I hate when players do this but he is showing they were holding him down in a tackle he had 'won'.

 

[jirskyr]

It is kinda jolting to watch those two games and how they folded … something is off

I agree and the worst part is that those "switch-off performances" are what we've tried so hard to suppress all season, yet starts to rear its ugly head again esp. when the season is no longer on the line.

There were really only about 6 bad losses this year, in terms of points or never being in the contest:

1 flogging from Storm 64-0 - first thing that needs to go, the "ambush" matches

5 other losses where we didn't really trouble the opponent - Broncos (46-24), Eels (38-22), Manly (28-10), Warriors (34-14), Panthers (36-2). Interestingly all away matches except Eels, but that was at Commbank anyway.

Second thing we need to do is eliminate the above 5 matches where we are simply non-competitive. 6/24 is still 25% of matches where the opponent cruises home. That for me is the biggest sign of how the team is travelling, where you aren't a threat every week. 25% is not the worst but it should be much lower still, just a handful of matches depending on injuries and "off days".

The third thing we need to eliminate are those matches where we had the match clearly to win and fell apart. This does not include the close wins or losses, because those are always 50/50; rather it's the ones where you got out in front and couldn't hang on.

If we scored more than 24 points this year we won 6, lost 3 => 67% win rate. Oddly enough they were all 28-point matches, 2 against Cowboys and 2 in the last 3 rounds. You should never score 26+ and lose, unless it's some crazy consolation where you ran in a few late points.

We also lost 3 matches scoring 24 x 2 and 22 x 1.

Finally - have to stop the losing streaks. Our best win streak was only 2, a mountain we can never seem to overcome. Our worst losing streaks were 6 and 3 (the last 3 unfortunately). Aside from those two streaks we only lost 2 in a row once, which is crazy in some ways, all the losses clustered together.

 

[Flippedy]

Dragons are missing 4 of their best young forwards and 3/4 of their starting outside backs. As well as a few of their next men up. Their remaining fit players from their best 17 include probably the worst halves pairing in the comp, a winger tagged as the worst defender in the comp and an aging front rower most this forum couldn't wait to see leave the club.
We were missing Doueihi and Skelton.

I was trying to make everyone feel better!

 

[GCfan]

I flew up for the game. (spur of the moment thing).
While the Tigers should never have lost that game, you kind of have to give the Titans some credit. It really defies logic how the Titans were spoon contenders. They have great attacking weapons in Campbell, Brimson and Kini as well as decent forward pack led by Tino. They showed urgency with ball and can make something out of nothing.

Thoughts on the game:
~ Terrell is not an 80 minute player. He often stands behind the opposition defensive line for 4 tackles before gets back onside. His hit ups do not bend the line.
~ Taylan is all class. He saved our back a few times with this last line defence
~ Sione is only a fill in edge as his lateral movement isn’t good enough.KPP will be better there.
~ When Latu went off, Jerome became quite frantic and tried too hard to make the magic play. Early ball to Taylan would have seen points in the second half. We often had them stripped for numbers.
~ Seyfarth was good in his first stint. Played a link role that saw points but his hit ups were average.
~ Api was energetic but isn’t a 80 minute player. He gets tired with the defensive workload.
~ Latu looked great. Took the line on and was strong is all areas. Defensively as good as any half. Game changed when he went off.
~ Heath Mason (yeesh). Sorry but I just don’t see it. His passing game is slow and awkward. Defence is questionable. His only attribute is his speed from standing start but that seems to be easily read. I think he is a KOE type fill in.
~ To’a is an enigma, brilliant but frustrating in about 2 seconds of each other.
~ Roycey was awesome. Even the Titans fans were impressed. That’s the standard every week for him.
- Bula is a keeper. He just gets better and better. Will be a top echelon fullback very soon.
~ Impressive debut from Makasini. Strong carries and solid defensively. Nice try to remember

Overall a very disappointing loss. We don’t seem to be able to cope with adversity well. In this case when Latu went off the wheels fell off and we lost our structure.

Agree with all of your comments except that Mason’s defence is questionable. There’s no question about it. He’s 100% crap with no defensive skill at all. I don’t even think he’s at KOE level

 

[Dennisspicer1]

Can't blame luai for that he's always barking at them.

I just put it down to the thick heads and the young, dumb, full of (you know what) players in the team.

They need to wake up over the summer or we won't improve much.

I'm buggered if I know with Luai, last week against Raiders he seemed to run a lot straighter when running the ball, this week he reminded me so much of Luke Brooks,
Running across field making himself easy to tackle, and when kicking grubbers, at least 3 times yesterday straight into opponents feet, awful shit.

 

[Stevec]

Benji said the reason we lost the 2nd half 24-0
Was because he trained them into the ground and they ran out of gas in the 2nd half ?
So is he saying Tigers are not fit enough to play 80 mins ?

 

[Stevec]

2 guys Benji should never pick again
Heath Mason - Zero defence
Tony Sukkar played 22 mins 0 runs 0 meters
Every week he contributes nothing

 

[Rock Hopper Steve]

I'm buggered if I know with Luai, last week against Raiders he seemed to run a lot straighter when running the ball, this week he reminded me so much of Luke Brooks,
Running across field making himself easy to tackle, and when kicking grubbers, at least 3 times yesterday straight into opponents feet, awful shit.

Don't like to put Luai down he's been good for culture but have to agree just don't get some of his mindless jumping around runs.

If he did it to confuse the defense and on the end of it our attack knew what he's doing and chimed in with depth and shape, we could have scored more meat pies, but for the moment he's running into too many dead ends, a lot to work on over the summer.

 

[Stevec]

Season wrap
Best attack Dolphins 721 pts
Best defence Dogs 414 pts
Best +/- Storm 212 pts
Worst attack Knights 328 pts
Worst defence Titans 719 pts
Worst +/- Knights 300 pts