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.
LIVE GAME Round 27 v Titans
- Thread starter Suzie-Q
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Live Game Discussion
Otherwise agree with all you've said.
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.
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'.
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jirskyr
Well-known member
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 those losses 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.
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I was trying to make everyone feel better!
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
Well-known member
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.
Rock Hopper Steve
Well-known member
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.
rugbygoated
Well-known member
AD for captain in 2026. Koroisau is quite simply not a good leader and never has been and overplays his hand and plays too many minutes. Luai looks like he has too much to do and as cooper cronk says he is juggling between being a game manager and the game winner. AD does both. AD might not be our best player but he's our most important player for wins
Halbrowne61
Well-known member
I do not think his new contract is as a back up option so is going to keep being selected !
Halbrowne61
Well-known member
Whilst I don’t disagree I don’t think our Island boys would warm to him, which is why API and Luai share the job.
AD will just need to lead the way in his playing style.
rugbygoated
Well-known member
Luai came here to take it easy. I honestly believe that he chose the tigers so the pressure of losing would be attributed more to the team he played in (3 time spooners) than him being the problem. He's been one of our biggest problems and lost us a lot of games. He can activate the get out clause. Don't care about 'culture and hard training' if it doesn't translate on the field. A new Anthony Milford 2.0. To go through our season.
Jarome Luai's season:
- R1 vs Knights: Luai debut game. Winning 8-0 at half-time and Luai and Galvin look clueless with game management with luai giving a 7 tackle set leading to a try and momentum shift in the game
- R4 vs Warriors: Again in front vs warriors at home and not able to ice the game like Metcalf
- R7 vs Eels: Galvin-gate week where luai's team first post backfires and team loses without galvin
- R8 vs Sharks: Luai has plenty of time to kick an easy in front field goal and passes it 15 metres back to Doueihi who misses after kick pressure. Doueihi ices the game with a penalty goal.
- R9 vs Dragons: Team is well in front at half-time and almost loses. 34-28. Luai attempts field goal from 2nd receiver and misses an easy one while off balance and without much strength. Doueihi last scorer and decisive try. Goal-kicking good.
- R10: Storm 64-0. Worst loss of the season by any team. Luai's dad issues a get out clause social media post.
- R11 vs Souths: Another winnable game against a bad souths team and Luai fails again to ice the game in a close one. Galvin drops ball over try line in dying minutes.
- R13 vs Cowboys: Luai and AD both sin binned. 14 points scored while luai is off the field. Final score is 32-28. Too little too late.
- R14 vs Penrith: Luai has a great first half. 2nd half very poor last tackle options and silly offloads. Eventually gives away 2 penalties that lead to a penalty goal and a try on the following set in the second half that prove to be the difference. 18-14 final score. Bula held up metres from try line.
- R16 vs Raiders: Luai held up over the try line by Tapine. Good effort from tapine but embarrassing to not have the strength to get it down from that close or change hands. Luai plays better in 2nd half involved in only 2 tries. Again, another 16-12 close loss where he doesn't win it.
- State of Origin period: Luai joins a Blues team up 1-0 and loses both games... In game 2 he has multiple try assists, but messes up the Blues composure from the get go with frantic play and kicking the ball out on the full in the first minute. In game 3, he is even worse. Missing tackles leading to tries and a very costly momentum shifting 7 tackle set that halts the blues charge. He makes tom dearden look like an immortal and robert toia a rookie like a 10 year veteran. Latrell gets some good ball from luai but ultimately his discipline is influenced by jarome. The impact on Nathan Cleary is huge too. Cleary won the 2023 grand final with luai off the field and has lost his last 3 origin series with luai. The only won they have won together is where turbo and latrell were unstoppable.
- R18 vs Roosters: AD and Latu combine the best of any halves combo for the whole year and defeat chooks. Again, AD's goalkicking proves the difference 30-28.
- R19 vs Warriors: Sets up a try but is completely outclassed by tanah boyd all game. Luai gives away a costly penalty in the first half that changes momentum.
- R20 vs Titans: Most of the game is outplayed by J Campbell. Tigers come back late with luai forcing a dropout and involved in skelton try late. Luai nearly scores the match winner with a great run but ultimately is easily stopped metres from the try line. Game management here is awful when they go left on last tackle with a bad setup for field goal (think back to sharks game in r8). Luckily Latu fainu receives the ball and passes back for AD who is in space and kicks a clutch field goal that in the end was the game that ended our wooden spoon reign.
- R21 vs Panthers: The team doesn't score a single try. Luai pathetic again and puts one out on the full.
- R22 vs Bulldogs: Luai plays good in a great team performance. He has been waiting all year to play Galvin. MOTM AD again.
- R24 vs Manly: Probably luai's best game of the year but still not best on field.
- R25 vs Cowboys: Luai has a very good game until the last 10 minutes. Very dangerous as 5/8 like his penrith days and scores his first try. Team is up 28-16 and ends up losing in 5 minute period of carnage with latu going off. Game management not to blame, however options to win the game down by 6 are poor. Particularly a pass off the scrum to taylan may that goes down where they had time to prepare.
- R26 vs Raiders: Luai has a good first half involved in 2 tries but for the majority of the game his last tackle options are diabolical.
- R27 vs Titans: Sets up the first two tries of the game and does nothing for the rest. 28-12 half time. Team as a whole are very passive and tired. Pole with 2 massive errors puts us in our own end. Luai struggles with the long kicks to get us out of trouble. Once latu goes off team capitulates. Luai kicks the ball into legs a few times, but one on 3rd tackle that leads to a line break and try on the same set changes momentum. Down by 8 and there is no urgency at all to get back in the game after doing nothing in the 2nd half. Extremely disappointing.
After looking at all this. Luke Brooks would have been better value. Luke has won games for the tigers over the years as much as he has lost them. Luai has not won us a single game all year. But he has lost us more than a few. In contrast: AD has won us at least 5+ games and been the difference. I can't see a game this year where I thought AD lost us the game. R7 vs Parra he was quite poor perhaps. Luai can't kick a field goal, 40-20, goal kick when all other options are out, kick for touch, organise his own edge even when he is 5/8, nor can he get out of the way when the team is winning. He also has terrible stats with 1 try all year and 12 try assists, with most of those in the last 2 months. His leadership is not there either. The cowboys sin bin in townsville, the late tackles without wrapping which he keeps doing, the dumb AF escorts. Also doesn't turn up in the press conferences when the team loses. If you look at who is in the pressers this year for wins, 90% are luai. When it's losses, it's koroisau. Neither are good leaders. One of them should step up and be captain perhaps. Because at the moment they are bros with each other and the team, not father figures
Tiger-ferret
Well-known member
It’s easy to step up when you have talent around you. It’s that simple. Brooks still struggles with all that pace and elite talent around him.
We seriously lack forward depth and pace across the park.
rugbygoated
Well-known member
Other than DCE and a washed turbo, manly aren't that good. They also have a poor coach. Brooks is quite a decent 5/8 with a good dummy and run
BS from coach. Needs to dump on players. They will not toughen up if he keeps protecting them.
I'd agree with most of this...I'm not sure about this guy. I like the combination of Latu and AD in the halves
Nothing brilliant about Toa for a long time. He had 5 missed or ineffective tackles against the Titans. Our right-side defence has been disgraceful most of the year and we can contribute a lot of that on his jumper pulling.
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