LIVE GAME Round 9 vs Dragons

Live Game Discussion
The Chad said:
Ok, so I was at the game with my Dragons-supporting brother.

Here are what I take away from the game:

Our kick chase in the 1st half was eons better than the Dragons. We were contesting every kick. The Dragons had 10-15m between our kick returner & their first defender. It showed in the way the game played- we were rolling all over the field & they were struggling.

Second half was a different story. Suddenly they had room to run. I would think the wheels started to fall off after 3 games in 13 days, including nearly a full extra 20 minutes against the Sharks. Once the kick pressure dropped off, the Dragons started to roll.

The Dragons look like a significantly bigger team & made easy metres through the middle.

Our sweeping attack beat them nearly every occasion. To fast & they couldn't scramble. On the other hand- once Leilua came on, Gutho & Luc ran specifically at Galvin through the 2nd half & had a field day against him.

I said a couple of weeks back that Lehi Hopoate had produced the worst defensive game I ever saw. Then Naden challenged that.

Our second rowers are getting far more involved. Seyfarth had a couple of nice touches & Sam Fainu looks to be getting into form.

Luai covers so much of the field. I didn't realise how active he is in attack until I saw it live.

The ground announcer absolutely loves Jacob Liddle. I swear he was reading Liddle's Tinder bio out at every opportunity. Liddle is playing his whatever amount of games tonight. He hails from the south coast. His interests are long walks on the beach & Saturday night football...I think I heard the announcer talk about him 4-5 times. It was weird.

I am concerned about how Galvin reacts when he is on the end of something not going his way. Mistakes, missed tackles, getting pushed off...he seems to switch off instead of get back into it. That said, his assist in Staines' first try was sublime.

May can't keep playing 80 minutes. He did the team no favours on Saturday. Benji needed to rest him. Sione & Hunt should have been on the field more. In fact, Hunt was criminally underused. He was drawing 3-4 defenders at a time. Watching May get bumped off in tackles was the sign. I'd contemplate giving May a start off the bench next week & let Hunt blast out 20 minutes against the Storm early.

Twal is a beast. Plodder this, ineffective that. The way he keeps fighting forward in attack & his consistent defence are impressive.

Bula is outstanding. That was a try for all money on the contested catch with Gutho.
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I agree with you here on the May issue,
Needs a freshener can’t keep playing 80 minutes each week without getting burnt out.
The whole team would welcome a bye soon to freshen up and recharge their batteries.
 
Lachlan Galvin's #1 Fan said:
It's crazy IMO. Offerred a million a year at his age, in a side that's on the rise, and his salary next year would've been upgraded from 350K to whatever it was gonna be, probably 800-900K. Parra must have (illegally) offered him Dylan Brown money because I see no other draw there.

Okay maybe Mitchell Moses would be good to play with? But I doubt it. He is a ball dominant half, and if he hates playing second fiddle to Luai (which he definitely isn't), then he will hate it even more to barely touch the ball in a Moses-led team.

There is something wrong with this whole situation.
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I'm thinking he is off to Perth for 2027. Said he will stay with the tigers to see out his contract that ends befor then. Brad Arthur looks likely to be the coach of the bears and he has ties to Moses. Maybe the whole time BA new perth were getting a team and he may have been in Moses ear saying keep galvin from signing on with the tigers cause a HUGE pay day if comming and the chance to be the face of a franchise.
I think he will be at Parramatta for 2026 as maybe a stop over befor going to Perth.
 
Fish88 said:
Hi Hal, I’m going too. Do you know if there is a tigers / away section to buy tickets for?
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Yes Fish , but it’s stuck in a corner at the Southern end. I’ve been there once and saw bugger all, I’m paying extra for a decent seat on or around halfway.
 
I think the injury to Naden may have thrown out our bench rotation and a bit of cohesion on Saturday as well. Normally at about the time Naden was injured we would see Hunt, Bird and TDS come on but we burnt an interchage on Naden. I assume that is my Api stayed out there and TDS remained on the bench.

We normally generate a momentum shift when we rotate those three on against a tired defence. I assume TDS was kept on the pine as a precaution for somethign that didn't eventuate because at the end of the game we still had an interchange up our sleeve. Benji needs to be better at the management of the bench. Apu was definitely feeling it early in the second half and we could have benefitted from having TDS finish out the first half and then have Api come back on to get us home.

Intersting to see how it pans out this week.
 
Jolls said:
I think the injury to Naden may have thrown out our bench rotation and a bit of cohesion on Saturday as well. Normally at about the time Naden was injured we would see Hunt, Bird and TDS come on but we burnt an interchage on Naden. I assume that is my Api stayed out there and TDS remained on the bench.

We normally generate a momentum shift when we rotate those three on against a tired defence. I assume TDS was kept on the pine as a precaution for somethign that didn't eventuate because at the end of the game we still had an interchange up our sleeve. Benji needs to be better at the management of the bench. Apu was definitely feeling it early in the second half and we could have benefitted from having TDS finish out the first half and then have Api come back on to get us home.

Intersting to see how it pans out this week.
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I think we’ll need API and TDS to counter Harry Grant. Great player.
 
Jolls said:
I think the injury to Naden may have thrown out our bench rotation and a bit of cohesion on Saturday as well. Normally at about the time Naden was injured we would see Hunt, Bird and TDS come on but we burnt an interchage on Naden. I assume that is my Api stayed out there and TDS remained on the bench.

We normally generate a momentum shift when we rotate those three on against a tired defence. I assume TDS was kept on the pine as a precaution for somethign that didn't eventuate because at the end of the game we still had an interchange up our sleeve. Benji needs to be better at the management of the bench. Apu was definitely feeling it early in the second half and we could have benefitted from having TDS finish out the first half and then have Api come back on to get us home.

Intersting to see how it pans out this week.
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You're spot on, injuries mid game have been a real problem a number of times now and have disrupted what was a pretty good bench that early on in the season was providing impact at key times.

I have been critical of Benji's use of the bench in the past but that may be unjust when you have players go down during the game causing a disruption to our bench and interchanges.

Probably should be more critical of selecting players coming back too early from injuries only to see them break down during the game or in the warm up.
 
Stevec said:
A game with no fines or suspensions
We are very much better with discipline this year
Just looking at total weeks of suspensions
Last year 21 weeks This year 1 week
( major contributors to last year's tally Sezer , Olam ,Klemmer )
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Last year's team was the least disciplined team I've ever seen. Think we broke the NRL team record for most sin bins in one season. Aidan Sezer was an absolute shocker. Combine all the sin bins and suspensions, he may have spent as much time off the field as on it.
 
crazycat said:
Honestly, we did not contain them!

We seem to be outscoring teams.. Which makes me worry. If they don't have 4 tries in them we win... But it won't be every team we can put 4 tries on and be sure to outscore them...

Our defense has been stronger in the past games and I am sure if we get our backline back to normal:
Turuva, AD, Toa, Skelton...

We should see fewer tries against us. ... We can't be this leakly and expect to play finals.
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5th best defence overall in the league, when byes taken into account, equal with Broncos. 4 teams above us are Dogs, Sharks, Knights and Storm. So we are in the right ballpark and a million miles from what Tigers have served up past few years.

It appears pretty obvious to me that teams cannot maintain low scores week on week, there are blowout matches for most teams where certain conditions and refs calls lend matches more to tries than tackles.

For example last weekend only 2 teams failed to register more than 10 points, every other team scored 18 or more - the average winning score was 31 and average losing score was 18.
 
The Chad said:
Our kick chase in the 1st half was eons better than the Dragons. We were contesting every kick. The Dragons had 10-15m between our kick returner & their first defender. It showed in the way the game played- we were rolling all over the field & they were struggling.
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Flanagan's kicking was abysmal, half-baked drop-punts 15+ metres away from his chasers. Bula was put under next to no pressure all night from kicks. He simply doesn't get enough hang time and he kicks right up the middle.
 
Jolls said:
I think the injury to Naden may have thrown out our bench rotation and a bit of cohesion on Saturday as well. Normally at about the time Naden was injured we would see Hunt, Bird and TDS come on but we burnt an interchage on Naden. I assume that is my Api stayed out there and TDS remained on the bench.

We normally generate a momentum shift when we rotate those three on against a tired defence. I assume TDS was kept on the pine as a precaution for somethign that didn't eventuate because at the end of the game we still had an interchange up our sleeve. Benji needs to be better at the management of the bench. Apu was definitely feeling it early in the second half and we could have benefitted from having TDS finish out the first half and then have Api come back on to get us home.

Intersting to see how it pans out this week.
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It would be great if someone posted the actual interchanges each week as a thing.
 
crazycat said:
We got this one right (and I was wrong).

Klemmer seems to have gone 100% cruise control on his effort and career. Glad we have punted him.
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Biggest mistake in rugby league is people watch a former rep player go downhill and think things will change if their club signs them...their form is there for all to see. Ice is another one...Fifita...Bateman.

Just need to sign guys that play consistently each week.

Api. Great signing. Has been doing his thing at multiple teams for years. Turuva, May, Hunt...we knew what we were going to get.

Very rare that a simple change of clubs turns someones form back to their rep days.
 
weststigers said:
Biggest mistake in rugby league is people watch a former rep player go downhill and think things will change if their club signs them...their form is there for all to see. Ice is another one...Fifita...Bateman.

Just need to sign guys that play consistently each week.

Api. Great signing. Has been doing his thing at multiple teams for years. Turuva, May, Hunt...we knew what we were going to get.

Very rare that a simple change of clubs turns someones form back to their rep days.
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It does happen.

Easts seem to be able to do it.. Todd Carney, etc... Although I note they were not too low on form.

TBH for Turuva and Hunt IMHO we took a massive risk. Turuva got very good ball as a winger at Penrith, no guarantee he was going to do this well here. Hunt was an off the bench player and Craig F punted him... Craig knows his players and knows the front row... Seriously a massive misstep from him. May though was fairly consistent and I bet Trent is kicking himself for punting him.

no knocking anyone.. Turuva has stood up and done exceptionally well in defense. Hunt has been awesome.
 
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